As the Iron Curtain began to fall in September 1989, East Germans crossed the border into then Czechoslovakia, the only country to which they could travel visa-free, and sought the safety of the embassy. On September 30th, 1989, West German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher stepped onto the embassy balcony and told the refugees they were finally free – a famous sentence drowned out by a chorus of cheers. "No one in Germany will ever forget this moment, this speech," current German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told reporters in Prague on Monday. WATCH: Berlin to mark 30th anniversary of the fall of the WallGenscher – who himself escaped East Germany in 1952 – convinced the hardline Communist regime to accept the mass exodus. About 15,000 East Germans fled to the West via Prague before East Germany opened the Berlin Wall dividing the city on November 9th, 1989.

Source: The Local October 01, 2019 07:18 UTC