How the Berlin Wall Really Fell

&gt; many Americans have come to believe that the wall fell thanks to President Ronald Reagan’s direct, personal intervention<p>Is this truly a belief held in the USA? As an east-german this seems equal parts baffling and insulting to me.<p>If so, i can only thank the author for correcting this belief in a quite public manner.

As an East-German I find this slightly offensive (edit: Reagan bringing the wall down). It was the peaceful people on the streets, a bit of luck (no hot-heads in the police and military who wanted to open a civil war on their own people), a completely paralysed government and the Russians who didn&#x27;t want to intervene. Besides, we all know the only American who had a hand in this was Hasselhof, not Reagan ;)

I&#x27;m surprised the author makes no mention of the exodus of East Germans to the West via Hungary, which by the time the Berlin Wall came down had been ongoing for 6 months.<p><a href="http://www.politics.hu/20140627/hungary-austria-slovakia-mark-25th-anniversary-of-iron-curtain-opening/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.politics.hu&#x2F;20140627&#x2F;hungary-austria-slovakia-mar...</a>

How on earth anybody can write a story about the fall of the Berlin Wall (indeed, the entire collapse of the USSR) without discussing the economic collapse in the face of dropping oil prices is beyond me. The details, such as minister speeches and ignored guards are interesting in the color they lend to the collapse, but the principle story is one of overwhelming macroeconomic forces at play.<p><a href="http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2007/06/why_did_the_sov.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;marginalrevolution.com&#x2F;marginalrevolution&#x2F;2007&#x2F;06&#x2F;why...</a>

They quote:<p>- The political reform started 4 years earlier by Mikail Gorbatchev, which was designed to reinforce the party&#x27;s strength in exchange for softening very few things.<p>- The disorganization of the Party and the lack of trust within the Stasi,<p>- The press conference of Nov 9., where the administrator said something about travels, which wasn&#x27;t reported acurately but which included words like &quot;effective immediately&quot;.<p>- The massive amount of people in front of the gates.<p>I would love to have more details about the Perestroika and the reform background. One does not simply walk up with a crowd to a checkpoint without thinking about Tiananmen. I&#x27;ve always wondered whether Gorbatchev had desired freedom for his people and subtely acted to make such events happen.