WI: Berlin wall opening goes bad.

I was reading this article (http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,660128,00.html) about the border guard, Harald Jäger, who was the first to let East Berliners cross through the Berlin Wall.

The opening of the border was announced almost off-handedly in a news conference around 7pm. Quickly hundreds of thousands of East Berliners were at the border wanting to get through. The guards didn't know what to do & their supervisors didn't understand the gravity of the situation.

This part sparked my interest:

Jäger: I spoke repeatedly to all officers in charge that evening. On the street, but also in my office. They demanded: "Harald, you've got to do something!" I said: "What am I supposed to do?" I wanted to hear what they thought. They stood together in my office and I wanted them to tell me what I should do. "It's up to you, you're the boss," they said. I said: "Should I let the GDR citizens leave? Or should I give the order to open fire?" "For God's sake!" they said. I only mentioned opening fire as a provocation, I wanted to know if they would support me if I allowed the GDR citizens to cross over. It was clear that it would be my responsibility but I wanted to be sure I would have their support. But that wasn't forthcoming. That's how the meeting ended.
What if he had decided to open fire? How would this have affected the fall of the wall, the end of the cold war & the reunification of Germany?
 
I was reading this article (http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,660128,00.html) about the border guard, Harald Jäger, who was the first to let East Berliners cross through the Berlin Wall.

The opening of the border was announced almost off-handedly in a news conference around 7pm. Quickly hundreds of thousands of East Berliners were at the border wanting to get through. The guards didn't know what to do & their supervisors didn't understand the gravity of the situation.

This part sparked my interest:

What if he had decided to open fire? How would this have affected the fall of the wall, the end of the cold war & the reunification of Germany?

Hi, everyone. This is my first post here, I've been reading for a while but I'm probably still nowhere near as knowledgeable about this stuff as others are...

...anyway, back to the plot...

If anything I think it would have accelerated the fall of the wall and East Germany. The fall of the wall occurred only because the East German regime had became incapable of maintaining a divided Berlin. A military action against such a popular movement IMHO would only have brought a quicker end to the division of Germany and would have provided even greater impetus to the dissolution of the USSR.
 
Hi, everyone. This is my first post here, I've been reading for a while but I'm probably still nowhere near as knowledgeable about this stuff as others are...

...anyway, back to the plot...

If anything I think it would have accelerated the fall of the wall and East Germany. The fall of the wall occurred only because the East German regime had became incapable of maintaining a divided Berlin. A military action against such a popular movement IMHO would only have brought a quicker end to the division of Germany and would have provided even greater impetus to the dissolution of the USSR.
Welcome, mate. ;)
Anyway, the Soviets will become known as even more of senseless butchers than they are today, it wont end well...
 
Well, it doesn't sound like he even seriously contemplated opening fire, it was more of a rhetorical question. I doubt that he would have had the temperment to open fire on unarmed civilians. If the other officers took him seriously and got hell bent of halting the people from crossing they may have forced Jager's hand, but that's pretty thin. Even so it probably would have just been an isolated incident, the East Germans were probably not in the mood to provoke the west, and Gorbachev was definetly not likely to get in to a scuff with NATO, so it probably gets papered over by the diplomats. And gets remembered as the horrible tragedy that mars an otherwise wonderful transition in history.
 
violence on Nov 9th, 1989

...would have been far from ASB. The situation was chaotic due to a total lack of instructions.

However, by then there was a clear commitment from Gorbachev not to use Sovjet force. The whole logic of the transition of the Eastern European regimes is that as soon as the SU quit to threaten intervention, the fuse is lit. Any kind of violence would be coincidential and GDR forces vs GDR citizens. It was not the direct task of the Red Army to guard the GDR's border.

What is more, by November 9th, the SED had finally started to get rid of the hardliners. Honecker had been forced to retire days earlier.

I can hardly imagine a Romania-like situation, maybe a harsher transition with violence erupting in an isolated manner.

Egon Krentz might have been happy to prove his good-will by restoring order and after a few days officially opening the border.....including handshakes with Helmut Kohl under the Brandenburger Tor. Calling back the tanks and apparently preventing a China-solution (which had been discussed weeks earlier facing the Monday-demonstrations in Leipzig) would have given him some status abroad and at home which he lacked.
 
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