Fall of the Berlin Wall

• the following flashcards include events leading to the fall of the berlin wall but not their effect on the people of east germany- explain

  increasingly hopeful. feel more and more as though they will regain their freedoms and rejoin the west.
• when was Gorbachev's new thinking announced

  1985 Perestroika and Glasnost announced in the SOVIET UNION- other EE countries hope for the same in their own country
• good news! later in 1985...

  Gorbachev tells the leaders of the WP he is abandoning the Brezhnev Doctrine and that he expects them to bring in reforms like perestroika and glasnost
• unfortunately in the late 1980s...


  the hardline comms ruling EG reject Gorbachev's new thinking e.g Eric Honecker (comm leader of EG) bans soviet leaflets advertising this new thinking
• examples of other satellite states embracing this new thinking in 1988

  workers hold strikes throughout poland as a protest against comm rule. EE begins witnessing 'people power'. Gorbachev accepts that Hungary can become a multi-party state w/ free elections!
• how do these changes continue into 1989 for poland and hungary


  hungary opens border w/ non-comm and capitalist austria- EGs on holiday in hungary can travel to west via austria. trade union Solidarity is legalised in poland and wins elections in a landslide victory- first non-comm gov in EE- USSR does nothing
• but what does Eric Honecker do in reaction to hungry opens its borders with austria


  closes its border with hungary. calls EGs moving to the west 'moral outcasts
• what does Gorbachev do in 1989 that symbolised the breakdown of the Warsaw Pact

  he accepts that members of the WP could now make changes to their own countries without outside interference (Sinatra Doctrine)
• resistance in East Germany against communist rule in 1989


  huge demonstrations. 300,000 protest in Leipzig against comm rule. EGs start fleeing to hungary & czechoslovakia to get to WG through their increasingly open border w/ the west
• 1989 the end of communist rule in east germany


  Gorbachev tells Honecker that soviet troops will not put down the demonstrations in EG and that he should enact some reforms like those in the USSR. Honecker forced to resign by other EG comm leaders. end of comm rule in EG and separation from the west
• when did the berlin wall fall

  1989 nov
• what happened in Czechoslovakia at the end of 1989


  huge demonstrations against comm. comm gov resigns. democratic elections won by Civic Forum- anti-comm party
• what happened to the baltic states

  Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia all declare themselves independent of the USSR in 1990
• when does military cooperation between EE countries end

  1990
• when does the Warsaw Pact end

  formally dissolves July 1991- countries regain independence in their policies & economy and can have free elections. EE abandons communism- end of division between democratic west and comm east
• attempted coup d'etat against Gorbachev


  1991. Gang of Eight (comm hardliners) blame Gorbachev for losing control over EE. Boris Yeltsin president of Soviet Republic of Russia rallies people of Moscow to oppose it but still damages Gorbachev's authority
• the end of Gorbachev's rule


  end of 1991 Gorbachev resigns- lost much of his support and authority
• end of warsaw pact


  12 soviet republics join together in a commonwealth of independent states. soviet union immediately falls after Gorbachev's resignation