The Bornholmer Strasse crossing

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The border crossing in the north of Berlin, on the Bösebrücke over the railway tracks, which was the first to open on the night of 9 November 1989 — the specific place where the Wall ended. After the evening press conference at which a Politburo member announced new travel regulations and, pressed on when they took effect, said in effect immediately, crowds gathered at the crossings. Bornholmer Strasse filled first and fastest. The passport control officers had no instructions covering what was happening, tried an expedient of stamping the passports of the most insistent in a way that would have invalidated their right to return, and were overwhelmed by numbers; the senior officer on duty, Harald Jäger, opened the barrier late in the evening on his own authority rather than face a crush. It is worth holding onto how the ending actually looked: not a decision transmitted down a chain of command, but a middle-ranking officer at one crossing deciding he could not hold the line.