Thirty years ago, when it seemed that communism had finally lost and that capitalism had won, the irony of the bizarre second-hand car sale negotiation that I observed on the roadside near the border of West Germany and Czechoslovakia order was truly surreal. It was the last hours before the Berlin Wall started coming down, and on this road where I was standing, thousands of East German families in their cars were fleeing through an open Czech border-post into West Germany. 

The cars were packed with parents, children, bedclothes, pots and pans, food, bottles, dogs and cats and anything else that could be squeezed in. Amazingly here was no less than the finale of World War Two happening without a shot being fired or a tank being petrol bombed. Who could have imagined that one day the proletariat of the DDR would simply load up their cars and drive away? Here was history raw and under-whelming quixotic.  

The traffic jam back into Czechoslovakia disappeared over the horizon. Among the thousands of battered East German hulks, with their smoking engines, spluttering like lawnmowers, there also came an astonishing museum-like collection of pre-war vintage models. Relics of another age, long nursed through the communist years: long lost models of Audi’s; BMW’s; Mercedes-Benz, and Porsche’s.

Whatever about the preservation of socialism, Das Kapital had done a remarkable job for historic motor cars, because on the roads up from the border that week, wealthy German car collectors were waiting with cash in hand. They were offering bundles of money, or even replacement cars, to the owners of these historic models now slowly reemerging from behind the long lines of Red Cross tents down at the border. 

“I still remember the disbelieving confusion of the owner as two car collectors began offering him astonishing sums of money.”

At that very moment, I watched the bargaining over a fabulous vintage 1930s Mercedes convertible complete with handmade leather interior, side running-boards, polished brass fittings and rosewood dashboard. The body was pockmarked with scrapes, with barely an inch of surviving paintwork. 

I still remember the disbelieving confusion of the owner as two car collectors began offering him astonishing sums of money. From behind a mountain of bedclothes and saucepans in their vintage splendour, his wife and children looked as another East German family discovered the byzantine ways of capitalism. 

All week the exodus from East Germany through Czechoslovakia and into West Germany had gathered pace. At one stage, the police had taken some of us in the press up in a helicopter to see the lines of cars stretching back for miles, along the border. 

As the cars arrived, families were identity checked and then offered a cup of tea and a sandwich in the Red Cross tents that had been erected at the frontier. There was a sense that nobody quite knew what was happening that events were slowly sliding out of control. By that Friday morning of November 9, there were even rumours circulating about the future of the Berlin Wall itself. Was the once unimaginable about to happen?

You couldn’t miss the fading white crosses in its shadow where escapees had been shot to death 

Mikhail Gorbachev, Erich Honecker and other Eastern Bloc head of states, 7 October 1989.

All across that extraordinary summer of 1989, one by one, the socialist satellites had defected. Soviet Eastern Europe was like a runaway train with carriages crashing off. What had originally begun as a trade union dispute in the Polish shipyards had mushroomed. Poland was first to break away, then Hungary was followed by Czechoslovakia. 

Across the summer, with memories of 1956 in Hungary and 1968 in Czechoslovakia, we had waited in dread for the Soviet tanks rolling down the early morning roads but they had not come. And they never did. Across those few extraordinary summer months of perestroika, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev literally had the future of the world in his hands. 

“It was an intriguing device to publicly embarrass the old regime on the platform who had grown deeply uneasy with the pace of change.”

But few expected East Germany to be next; it was the foundation stone around which Soviet Eastern Europe was constructed. It had been one of communism’s philosophical founding fathers and it was a critical component in the east-west carve up after World War II. Add in the miles of the Berlin Wall’s grim concrete and barbed wire, a frontier that you took your life in your hands to cross. You couldn’t miss the fading white crosses in its shadow where escapees had been shot to death. 

But the DDR was a tinderbox. A few weeks previous I had reported from East Berlin on the celebrations for the DDR’s 50th birthday. It was the glummest birthday party I had even been to. Gorbachev has joined long-time East German leader and former hard-line Stalinist Eric Honecker on the viewing platform for the celebratory march past.

All afternoon a vast display of thousands of soldiers had goose-stepped along followed by lines of armour. Later as darkness began to fall, long lines of what were called the Young Socialist Pioneers began marching past. 

Dressed like scouts, loud and excited and carrying flaming torches as they approached the viewing platform they suddenly began chanting not their leader’s name but that of Gorbachev. It was an intriguing device to publicly embarrass the old regime on the platform who had grown deeply uneasy with the pace of change.  

Clearly embarrassed Honecker smiled bravely as Gorbachov acknowledged the marchers but the subtext was not lost on anybody. That night, as the DDR’s big grim birthday party ended, one suspected that there were many wondering if there would be another one?

There was an odour of the great unloved and decaying hulk of 50 years of German socialist architecture

In those days it was impossible, despite Kremlin gazing, for outsiders to read what was ongoing in the Soviet Union or Eastern Europe. Ironically perhaps the most extraordinary result of its absolute authoritarianism was that nobody accurately knew what the society really felt people felt because most were too frightened to reveal it. Not even its own rulers.

Among the millions in the old Soviet empire, self-survival dictated the stratagem of always telling authoritarian figures only what they wanted to hear. This persisted to such an extent that objective fact or figures were almost impossible to ascertain.

“As the Autumn turned to winter in 1989, the East Germany state was collapsing under the total indifference of its own population.”

Historically, ever since Stalin had punished his failing Collective Farm managers for poor harvest figures by shooting them in the thirties, their replacements rapidly developed a survival culture of disinformation. It was not an exaggeration; by the end, totalitarianism survived only within the carefully constructed bubble of official lies.  

Even as the Soviet Union began to spiral towards self-destruction in the eighties, the leadership still had little accurate sense of the depths of disenchantment enveloping its citizens. Having forbidden any sense of an objective self, it eventually disintegrated from the centre outwards. From the shop floor all the way up to the Central Committee – everyone was carefully singing for their supper. 

In the DDR, the secret police, the infamous Stasi, were satisfied that they knew everything. Legend had it that every third East German was a spy; people were even rewarded for telling on their workmates and neighbours. Nobody ever publicly talked politics, complaining was a top-secret discipline.

As the Autumn turned to winter in 1989, the East Germany state was collapsing under the total indifference of its own population, the odour of the great unloved and decaying hulk of a half-century of German socialist architecture was undeniable.

Ironically in the end, the Stasis’ vast information collection machine to prevent bloody revolution proved useless when the proletariat simply climbed into their spluttering old cars and drove away.

The crowds grew, something would have to give, or serious violence could erupt.

Tom McGurk watches on as the Berlin Wall tumbles.

That Friday afternoon, November 9, confused signals began to emerge about the future of the wall. For those of us reporting on the border there was nothing to do but to urgently start the six-hour drive into the night to Berlin. Even that was a to become a fascinating historical experience as the shorted route was to take the ‘international’ highway through East Germany. It was once one of Hitler’s autobahns, with large sections laid with concrete and it now had huge roadside shrines featuring the famous T-26 Soviet tanks.

“I thought their poignancy unmistakable in the headlights as we sped past to a new history just unfolding up ahead.”

They had once come blazing down this road, destroying Hitler’s Third Reich in their ‘Great Patriotic War’ that had cost the lives of 27 million Soviet citizens. Maybe it was my imagination, but that night I thought their poignancy unmistakable in the headlights as we sped past to a new history just unfolding up ahead. 

We finally drove into West Berlin into what looked like a mixture of a people’s revolution and the biggest street party imaginable. Everywhere total confusion reigned. Arriving at the famous Brandenburg Gate, cut off from West Berlin by the wall itself, crowds of thousands were gathering on both sides. 

“Elsewhere in the city the utter confusion was about to have extraordinary consequences.”

To add to the chaos East German border guards were lining the top of the wall itself as though to prevent anyone coming over it. Some young West Berliners were taunting them and began flinging bars of chocolate and sweets at them. The East German guards were not much amused reappeared with high powered hoses and sprayed everybody including yours truly. But then how things had changed already when the border guards were only firing streams of water.

As yet the Wall had not opened but it was becoming increasingly obvious as the hours passed and the crowds grew, that something would have to give, or serious violence could erupt.

Elsewhere in the city, the utter confusion was about to have extraordinary consequences. At a chaotic DDR government press conference, leading Politburo member Günter Schabowski was handed a text containing new, temporary travel regulations stipulating that East German citizens could apply for permission to travel abroad without having to meet the previous requirements for those trips. When asked by journalists if that meant the Wall gates would now be opened, he replied: ‘I presume so.’ 

Strictly speaking, he was wrong, but once his answer was broadcast live on television East Berliners took him at his word and the massive rush to the Berlin Wall began. Down at the wall just before 11.30 pm senior Stasi officer Harald Jäger was growing alarmed at the massive crowd now gathering around his crossing-point at Bornholmer.

To his astonishment, the crowd were demanding that he open up. Suddenly in the midst of total chaos, a single DDR policeman had had a world-changing decision to make – to either open the gates or to start shooting. Jäger opened the gates and simultaneously the history books too as thousands and thousands of ecstatic East Berliners began to flow into the West.

The Berlin Wall’s infamous 28-year existence was finally ending; Mr Gorbachov was pulling down his wall. (Incidentally, officer Jager later wrote a book about his he opened up the Berlin Wall. Hopefully, he lived happily ever after on the royalties.)

Here was a political theatre of mesmeric power, an astonishing ringside seat of history happening live

As the night wore on, we were treated to more and more extraordinary scenes. With their cheap clothes and porridge dental work, it was impossible not to spot the East Berliners moving around the city.

While men queued outside the sex shops and burger joints, women window-shopped, wandering through West Berlin’s huge shopping galleries in studied astonishment. They seemed to have never seen escalators or automatic glass doors before as they formed admiring groups around some of capitalism’s little magic treats. 

“Thousands of the little cars, brimful with families map-reading their way through the biggest weekend party of the 20th century, were parking literally everywhere.” 

Thousands more came in driving their tiny Trabant cars – mostly made of fibreglass – with engines chugging like lawnmowers. The Trabant was once deemed the worst car ever built but of course, they have now become loved by collectors. Thousands of the little cars, brimful with families map-reading their way through the biggest weekend party of the 20th century, were parking literally everywhere. 

“Under the blazing arch lights flooding the scene, with the crowds cheering and police sirens wailing while some sort of music concert was breaking out in another corner.”

Down at the wall at the Brandenburg Gate people were taking hammers and iron bars to the best of communist prestressed concrete and with not much success. Nearby the American tv networks had constructed large viewing platforms and were live broadcasting the scenes to an America teatime audience. Here was a political theatre of mesmeric power, an astonishing ringside seat of history happening live.   

Under the blazing arch lights flooding the scene, with the crowds cheering and police sirens wailing while some sort of music concert was breaking out in another corner, the occasion was pumped up with extraordinary levels of emotion and adrenalin. 

The opinions of West Berliners to what was occurring was mixed. One sensed their unease; in the 20th century few cities in the world had suffered what Berlin had suffered and now once again another new unpredictable force for change was flooding into their lives. One traffic policeman’s sour response to my inquiry was: ‘Great but who will pay for it all?’ As we were later to discover, ironically it would be all of us, in the new Europe. 

Thirty years later the picture grows more complicated

Finally, just before dawn after the East Berliners had finally departed homewards I wandered with the photographer back down to the Wall. Across the deserted square, with the guards still patrolling up on the wall above, the acres of the square was filled with empty hamburger boxes. In the moment it seemed that somehow their eating had been like some final symbolic act of liberation, a final ritual of defiance to the great lie. Had a Big Mac ever tasted as prescient? Was all this madness in Berlin since 1945 no more than the desire of humanity to be free to enjoy a hamburger if they wanted one?

As the Soviet Union, in the months after the Wall came down, finally drifted towards its denouement, the expectation in the West was that capitalism’s victory would be total. It looked like it as in a very short time, all of the former Soviet East were in both the EU and NATO. 

Thirty years later the picture grows more complicated. For starters the West’s 2008-9 economic crash holed the myth of our infallibility as the East saw that we didn’t know everything. But above all it’s the continuing mass exodus of their people westwards that raises the most serious questions. The figures are undeniable. More Europeans left their countries for western Europe as a result of the 2008-9 financial crises than all the refugees that came there as the result of the war in Syria

Also in the period 1989–2017, Latvia haemorrhaged 27 per cent of its population, Lithuania 22.5 per cent, and Bulgaria almost 21 per cent. In Romania, 3.4 million people, most under 40, left the country after it joined the EU in 2007. Why wait years for your country to catch up, just take a Ryanair? 

For those remaining on, the response has been the drift rightward, xenophobic to the EU’s migration crisis and politically populist. Suddenly Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia have become the EU’s awkward squad, in some places even the doused ashes of the old communist parties are being blown over again.   

“Whatever victory was won that night in Berlin looks less certain now.”

Thirty years ago, they all faced a curious dilemma as apparently their only alternative was to become like us. The Hungarian political scientist Elemér Hankiss summarised that dilemma like this:

‘People realised suddenly that in the coming years, it would be decided who would be rich and who would be poor; who would have power and who would not; who would be marginalised and who would be at the centre. And who would be able to found dynasties and whose children would suffer.’

Thirty years on since that all-night party to end all political parties in Berlin, the old sensation of the plates moving in seismic change is growing again. As climate change darkens the skies, Trump’s America turns its back on Europe, Britain exits the EU, Hong Kong thwarts China and Putin’s Russia expands ever westwards, whatever victory was won that night in Berlin looks less certain now. Come to think of it, did it flatter to deceive?