World Freedom Day

History

On November 9, 2001, President George W. Bush signed Proclamation 7499, designating that day as World Freedom Day and calling on Americans "to observe this day with appropriate ceremonies and activities." The proclamation gave its reason in one line: "The fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, stands as the turning point of the Cold War." It was signed eight weeks after the September 11 attacks, and its text reaches from the Cold War's end straight to the conflict then beginning.

The observance held. George W. Bush proclaimed it again in 2008 as Proclamation 8318, Barack Obama in 2010 as Proclamation 8599, and Donald Trump in 2017 as Proclamation 9673 — each designating November 9 of that year.

What happened on the date itself was closer to an accident than a decree. Shortly before 7:00 p.m. on November 9, 1989, at the end of a press conference in East Berlin, Socialist Unity Party official Günter Schabowski made what the City of Berlin's own account calls a "more or less casual announcement" of new travel rules for East German citizens: no proof of eligibility, no stated reason for travel, no family ties required, effective immediately. The question that prompted it came about an hour in, from the Italian journalist Riccardo Ehrman, and the conference was broadcast live on East German television. West German television led its 8:00 p.m. news with it under the heading "GDR opens border." At 9:20 p.m. the guards at Bornholmer Strasse let the first few people through; by 11:30 p.m. the barrier there was raised, and in the hour that followed about 20,000 people crossed the Bösebrücke bridge without being checked. The rest of the city's crossings opened later that night.

The Wall had stood since August 13, 1961 — 26.8 miles across Berlin and 96.3 miles across Germany in total, by the State Department's measure. On the human cost the sources do not agree. The State Department says at least 100 people, "and likely more," died violently attempting to leave between 1961 and 1989; the Library of Congress gives a figure of over 130 victims, the first being Ida Siekmann on August 23, 1961. The two are not strictly contradictory, but no single tally is settled.

How to observe

Watch the Schabowski press conference. It is a rare turning point that survives on video in full, and the striking thing is how unremarkable it looks: an official reading from a note he has plainly not absorbed, fielding a question nobody prepared him for.

Read two of the proclamations side by side. Numbers 7499 from 2001 and 9673 from 2017 mark the same date and cite the same event, but what each president says freedom requires differs considerably. They are short, public documents, and a faster route into how American foreign-policy language moves than any commentary on it.

If you are in Berlin, the Bösebrücke at Bornholmer Strasse is the specific bridge those first 20,000 people crossed, and the city maintains it as a memorial site. It is still a working bridge in a residential neighborhood, which is most of the point.