Documents Reveal Soviets’ Role in the Fall of the Berlin Wall and German Unification

National Security Archive records show that Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev knew that the Iron Curtain was coming down in Hungary in the summer of 1989.

November 10, 2014

National Security Archive

National Security Archive senior research fellow and Director of Russia Programs Svetlana Savranskaya delved into first-person documents that chronicle Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev's role in opening the Iron Curtain and German reunification.

By Brittney Dunkins

Popular history casts the fall of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9, 1989, as a revolutionary act of the East German people. But documents newly released by the George Washington University’s National Security Archive (NSA) reveal that the Iron Curtain, which included the Berlin Wall, was opened at the Hungarian-Austrian border nearly six months prior to the recognized fall—with the knowledge of Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Beyond the glare of history’s spotlight, Mr. Gorbachev discussed the Iron Curtain’s removal in early 1989 with Hungarian reformist and Prime Minister Miklos Nemeth and the issue of possible German unification with world leaders—including British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, U.S. President George H. W. Bush and French President Francois Mitterrand—according to documents posted online on Sunday by the NSA.

“When we think of the wall falling in Germany, it’s this dramatic revolutionary event, but really, this process unfolded over months,” said Svetlana Savranskaya, a senior research fellow and Director of Russian Programs at the NSA. “The Soviet Union was involved and informed.”

The NSA, an independent research organization housed at the George Washington University’s Estelle and Melvin Gelman Library, released several documents this month in English and Russian that highlight the Soviet Union’s role in facilitating the fall of the Berlin Wall months before November 1989.

The documents—procured through the Freedom of Information Act, donations from Mr. Gorbachev’s former advisers Anatoly Chernyaev and Andrey Grachev and the NSA’s European partners—uncover conversations dating back to 1986. They reveal an understanding between the Soviet Union and many European nations that the wall would need to come down in order to calm growing unrest in East Germany and ease travel and economic restrictions.

Mr. Nemeth and Karoly Grosz, Hungarian reformist leaders, informed Mr. Gorbachev of their plans prior to beginning the process of dismantling the wall at the Hungarian-Austrian border in early March1989, Ms. Savranskaya said. Mr. Nemeth would later become prime minister of the new Republic of Hungary.

The diary is an account of the German-Soviet relations by Anatoly Chernyaev, the advisor to former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev in the 1980s.


“They were concerned about how Mr. Gorbachev would respond, but he gave reluctant consent,” Ms. Savranskaya said.

The documents debunk the idea that the Soviet Union was attempting to hold onto East Germany. Though Mr. Gorbachev was not a public advocate for German unification, he did speak privately about the issue for years leading up to the fall and actively engaged in negotiations leading up to German unification in the fall of 1990, according to the documents.

The papers show that Mr. Gorbachev traveled to East Germany in October 1989 to convince the Politburo—the Soviet and East German governing political body— to reform internally and improve relations with West Germany, Ms. Savranskaya said.

Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze also publicly suggested at the Politburo session that the Soviets remove the wall on Nov. 3, 1989, but they didn’t act in time, Ms. Savranskaya said.

“The Politburo did not give serious consideration to this proposal because psychologically they weren’t ready for the decision despite the growing unrest in East Germany,” Ms. Savranskaya said. “However, the Soviets clearly signaled that they would not move militarily or even object politically to removing the Iron Curtain and the walls in Europe.”

The Berlin Wall was erected in 1961 during the communist-capitalist Cold War to prevent emigration from East Germany to West Germany. But as the Cold War thawed, Mr. Gorbachev and many European leaders began to ask, “What is to be done about Germany?” Ms. Savranskaya said.

The fall of the wall was famously triggered when East German Politburo member Günter Schabowski announced on Nov. 9, 1989, that the wall would be opened for travel in response to a question from a journalist about travel restrictions. The announcement prompted mass demonstrations in the streets that day as East German citizens tore down the wall, paving the way for the unification of communist, Soviet Union-controlled East Germany and capitalist West Germany

The dynamic images of the dismantling of the wall, witnessed worldwide on television screens, are celebratory—a man waves the red, gold and black German Flag while another heaves a sledgehammer against the 11-feet high cement wall and a mass of hands tear down barbed wire.

The documents reveal that Former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev was notified that the Iron Curtain would be removed between Austria and Hungary.


“It wasn’t planned, Schabowski announced it accidentally,” Ms. Savranskaya said. “The air of excitement that people remember was actually apprehension because many Europeans didn’t want to see a unified Germany. They did not expect a resolution to occur so quickly.”

Ms. Savranskaya added that though German citizens on both sides of the wall were largely happy to be unified, anti-German post-World War II sentiments lingered in much of Europe and the United States and produced feelings of anxiety about German unification.

“These papers show a very different view of history than what we have typically seen—the atmosphere at that moment, not what we talk about today as historians,” she said. “The fall of the Berlin Wall was truly the ‘accidental answer’ to the German question.”

 

GW Today Conversation: The Fall of the Berlin Wall from The George Washington University on Vimeo.