Watching the Berlin Wall come down - from the East (Feature)

London - Moments after Guenter Schabowski announced the opening of East Germany's borders with the West - almost as if it were an afterthought - shouts of 'The Wall must go' (Die Mauer muss weg) could be heard from Berlin's Brandenburg Gate. The then East German politburo member had famously stumbled through the momentous announcement, scribbled on a scrap of paper he was handed during an international news conference on the evening of November 9, 1989. While Schabowski did not fully appear to fathom the extent of the historic announcement, East Germans were quick on their feet - spurred by months of protests, anticipation and uncertainty. Throughout the months of upheaval, there had been one constant refrain from East Germans longing for change: 'It can't go on like this' (So kann es nicht weitergehen), they said, wishing for the old order to go - but uncertain when and how it would happen and what should replace it. After all, only a few weeks earlier, East German leader Erich Honecker had boasted that the Wall would remain 'for another hundred years.' But the writing had been on the wall, most clearly on November 4, when up to a million people joined East Berlin's biggest-ever peace march to demand democratic rights, free elections and the freedom to travel. For weeks, the atmosphere had been electric - on the city's streets, in its churches and bars, theatres and opera houses. 'The people rule, the people march, according to old tradition,' the chorus sang with fresh fervour at Berlin's Komische Oper production of Jacques Offenbach's satirical operetta Bluebeard, as a responsive audience related the action on stage to what was going on all around them. At East Berlin's Grand Hotel, where a number of foreign reporters had been housed - at great expense - by their employers for the duration of the changes, excitement mounted in the hours after Schabowski's announcement. Hotel receptionists who had appeared stern and suspicious when entrusted with handing reporters' typewritten stories to an invisible telex room behind, were flustered and red-cheeked at the prospect of crossing over to the West at the end of their shift. 'I just can't believe it. I'm going as soon as I finish work,' one of the hotel's white-hatted chefs said. At the Gate, uniformed border guards and the police - as bewildered as anyone - were leaning against columns with their caps at an angle and cigarettes at hand. They shrugged shoulders when asked what was going on, but made their concession to history by letting incredulous revellers pass in both directions through the former symbol of division. 'Thank you for this wonderful night,' one Berliner told the once trigger-happy guards. 'We were drunk without drinking. Drunk with liberty,' said another. As the stream of revellers grew and grew, total strangers found themselves singing and holding hands on the Unter den Linden boulevard, their elation tinged with doubt as to whether it was not all just a dream. For reporters, equipped with a precious 'temporary work visa' by the authorities, and mindful of the threat of a last-minute clampdown, it was hard that night to resist the lure of a row of shiny telephone booths on the Western side of the Wall from where copy could have flowed. Reporting from East Berlin in the pre-mobile phone age could be a solitary experience. International desks would call at agreed times, or with an urgent request, with copy being telexed or dictated on a crackly and unreliable telephone line. Telephone contact with neighbouring West Berlin, or West Germany, was practically impossible to establish, forcing the 'trapped' reporter to relay messages - including requests for personal items - to relatives and friends via a bemused London foreign desk. But those problems quickly eased as time passed. On November 10 and the days that followed, hundreds of thousands of East Berliners and East Germans streamed through the border crossings to 'test the West' - an allusion to a well-known advertising slogan. Most said they just wanted to 'have a look,' and returned laden with bags filled with long-missed items - including oranges, bananas, false finger nails and canned beer. As West Berlin's Kurfuerstendamm, a major shopping district, began to echo to the distinctive sound of the two-stroke Trabi (Trabant) engine, the occupants of those vehicles were showered with presents and applause by equally curious Westerners. And eventually, one of the receptionists at the Grand Hotel could be found working as a manager at London's prestigious Hyde Park Hotel - a perfect example of the complete progression from Communism to Capitalism.