652 Chapter 32As East German Communists tried to close this
border, they soon faced demonstrations in favor of re-
form. Leipzig became known as the Heldenstadt(city of
heroes) as thousands of people took to the streets,
marching in defiance of a heavy military presence,
standing up to the threat of tanks. Honecker seriously
considered turning the army loose on the crowds. At
that moment, Gorbachev visited East Berlin (October
1989) and was received by crowds chanting, “Gorby,
Gorby, make us free.” Gorbachev, who had already
publicly reversed the Brezhnev Doctrine, told Ho-
necker that the Warsaw Pact would not act against re-
formers, and he urged the East Germans to choose
liberalization instead of civil war. When Honecker did
not unleash the army, his regime collapsed. He was
forced to resign as party leader, and he was later in-
dicted for the crimes of the Communist era. In Novem-
ber the East German Politburo was replaced and plans
were announced for free elections. On midnight of No-
vember 9–10, the new government opened the border
between East Berlin and West Berlin at the Brandenburg
Gate. A carnival atmosphere enveloped Berlin—the
symbolic city of the cold war—as thousands of people
walked freely into the West, and others danced atop
the Berlin Wall (see illustration 32.5). Berlin thus pro-
vided the most symbolic moment of the revolutions of
1989, as German crowds began to tear down sections
of the hated wall. In the new spirit of the free-market
economy, the Berlin Wall ended its days broken into
small fragments and sold as tourist souvenirs.
The revolution of 1989 in Czechoslovakia became
known as the Velvet Revolution because it, too, was a
nonviolent transition, but it did not seem that way at
the beginning. Encouraged by events in the Soviet
Union, university students in Prague began demonstra-
tions at the start of the school year in October. TheIllustration 32.5
The End of the Berlin Wall. The
Berlin wall, constructed in 1961 (see il-
lustration 31.4), was the foremost sym-
bol of the Iron Curtain separating East
and West, the palpable image of the
cold war. The opening of the Berlin Wall
in November 1989—a delirious occa-
sion to the people in this photo—
quickly became the symbol of the
revolutions of 1989 and the fall of Com-
munism.