Fall of the Berlin Wall

~ The fall of the Berlin Wall happened nearly as suddenly as its rise.

~There had been signs that the Communist bloc was weakening, but the East German Communist leaders insisted that East Germany just needed a moderate change rather than a drastic revolution.

~East German citizens did not agree. As Communism began to falter in Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia in 1988 and 1989, new exit points were opened to East Germans who wanted to flee to the West.