The joyous scenes of November 9, 1989 are often remembered as the end of the Cold War, as Berliners were finally reunited after decades of division. The building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 had cast the division of Germany in stone, with those attempting to cross to the West without authorization risking arrest or death at the hands of the East German authorities. This threat now abruptly disappeared, as cheering crowds passed through the newly opened border crossings.

Protests in previous months had expressed popular dissatisfaction with the ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED); the opening of the border itself reflected a bid to tame a mounting revolt. Yet the Wall did not immediately “fall” on the night of November 9, and nor was it immediately clear what future lay in store for the German Democratic Republic (GDR) created in the Soviet zone after 1945. Rather than necessarily seek incorporation by the West, dissidents in the East had often expressed the will for a democratized socialism, while other Western leaders remained reticent about a reunited Germany.

Change was, nonetheless, clearly coming. The opening of the border destroyed the political credibility of recently installed GDR leader Egon Krenz, and by December 3 he had been replaced as head of government by Hans Modrow. Himself a career SED man, Modrow was nonetheless seen as a reformer, and over subsequent months led a national government that gradually integrated the opposition groups gathered in the Round Table. Elections in March 1990 brought defeat for his party (now purged of some top officials and rebranded as the Party of Democratic Socialism, PDS), ending Modrow’s spell as premier.