The toppling of the Berlin Wall started in November 1989 when the East German authorities allowed its citizens free passage to West Germany for the first time since the city was separated into East and West in 1945. Triggered by massive political changes occurring in and around the Soviet Union this step was itself the catalyst for a popular movement. Thousands of East Germans crossed to the West in one night on the 9th November 1989 sparking a massive assault on the wall by ordinary people who took it down over several weeks, eventually with the practical help of the authorities. The political changes driving this historic event are complex. Pressure from pro-independence movements inside the Soviet Union together with the economic advantages of ending the Cold War and being able to participate fully in global markets were all contributory factors to this significant political shift.
On the 13th of June in the year 1990 the official dismantling of the Berlin wall began. The dismantling process was taken under by the East German military and it began from the Bernauer Strabe. Then on the 1st of July the part of Eastern Germany adopted the currency of West Germany, all of the inter German borders were ceased. However the dismantling of the wall continued to be carried out by the military units from East Germany and finally the wall was torn down in the November of 199, however a few short sections and small watch towers were left standing as a memorial to the actual Berlin wall. The Berlin wall was a type of a separation barrier between East Germany and West Germany. This wall was responsible for closing down the border between East and West Germany.
The Berlin Wall, which formed a border between East and West Berlin (and hence East and West Germany) was pulled down in the weeks following the historic, broadcasted government announcement on November 9 1989 that crossing the border would be permitted. Following that announcement, masses of East Germans crossed the Wall and were joined by West Germans in celebration of the end of this concrete and symbolic dividing device that had separated them since 1961. The Wall's destruction was brought about by the fall of the East German government following political liberalisation and the decline of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s.
The Wall, an 'Iron Curtain' symbol of the Cold War between East and West, was conceived by the East German government as way of closing the border and so halting the economic migration of huge numbers of professional and skilled workers from East to West Berlin and the defections to the West that went with it. And the Wall did dramatically decrease such emigration, though shootings of people trying to defect across it by East Berlin sentries made the Wall a propaganda disaster for East Germany and for the wider Communist Bloc in Eastern Europe.
