History · Level 4 · 206 words

The Sentence That Opened the Wall

Original passage © Studio AM, written for Fluency.

By the autumn of 1989, East Germany was leaking. Hungary had opened its border and thousands of East Germans were escaping through it, while protest marches in Leipzig grew by the week. Hoping to release the pressure, the government drafted a new travel rule: citizens could apply for exit visas through an orderly process beginning the next day.

The official sent to announce it, Günter Schabowski, had missed the meeting and was handed the text minutes before a live press conference on November 9. Asked when the rule took effect, he leafed through his papers and guessed: immediately, without delay. Television carried the sentence into every living room. By late evening tens of thousands of East Berliners stood at the crossings, and the guards had no orders and no way to hold back a crowd that size. Near midnight an overwhelmed officer at one checkpoint gave up and opened the gate.

The state could have corrected the announcement the next morning, and it would have changed nothing. A closed border works only as long as people believe it is closed, and one wrong sentence had ended the belief. The wall stood in concrete for another year, but as a fact of power it fell that night.

Comprehension questions

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4 questions
1. Which statement best captures the main idea?

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D. A misread announcement released pressure that no correction could take back, because the border ran on belief.
The story is the press conference and the crowds, but the passage's point is the last paragraph: a border 'works only as long as people believe it is closed', and the belief could not be restored.

2. Why does the passage say a correction the next morning 'would have changed nothing'?

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B. Because once people stopped believing the border was closed, the state could not restore that belief.
Apply the passage's own rule. The border's power was the public belief that it was closed; after a night of open gates, no announcement could rebuild that belief.

3. "East Germany was leaking." Leaking here means

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C. steadily losing citizens through gaps in its borders
The image is explained by the next clause: Hungary's open border let 'thousands of East Germans' escape. The country was losing people the way a pipe loses water.

4. What did the new travel rule, as written, actually say?

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A. Citizens could apply for exit visas through an orderly process beginning the next day.
The written rule promised an orderly visa process 'beginning the next day'. The words 'immediately, without delay' were Schabowski's guess, not the rule.

Source: Written for Fluency. Original passage © Studio AM, written for Fluency.