The fall of the Berlin Wall unlocked half a continent

Foreign correspondents rarely have the opportunity to report on stories that are indisputably positive. Wars, disasters and political disputes tend dominate the news we cover. But when the Berlin Wall was suddenly flung open 25 years ago, the news was so good that I cheered as I sat in the Reuters East Berlin bureau and repeatedly updated our story through the long night.

Looking back over a quarter of a century, it’s tempting to talk in terms of the big picture – the end of the Cold War, collapse of communism, reunification of Germany and Europe. But what sticks in my mind is the effect of this stunning event had on the normal people who had long suffered under the communist system. Until only a few months before the Wall opened, few dared to speak out against the Government. The division of Germany and Europe seemed to be so permanent that prosperous West Germany was constructing in Bonn an ambitious new parliament building, a history museum and first-class art exhibition hall – all of which became white elephants the following year.

East Germany seemed unchangingly communist, but dissidents were active under the radar, quietly helped by the Lutheran churches that took them under their wings in the run-up to the protests of late 1989. This only became visible to outsiders once the exodus of East Germans through Hungary to the West that summer and the ever tighter control the party tried to exert drove many people to finally act.

I saw this first hand in early October 1989 when then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the symbol of hope and reform, visited East Berlin. There was a torchlit parade one night by the communist youth organisation, and I slipped into their ranks to walk with them. The teenagers squealed “Gorby, Gorby” and booed East German leader Erich Honecker and Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu. Several told me how much they wanted to see the West. Later that evening, I watched as riot police arrested dozens of youths chanting pro-democracy slogans and turned on the group I was in, prompting us to flee down dark alleys.

Given my positive outlook, it was a surprise to see Ivor Roberts writing in this week's Tablet about the "illusions of hope" the Berlin Wall anniversary brings to his mind. "We bought into the optimistic assumption that the spread of democracy and capitalism would spell not only the end of Communism but also the emergence of an equitably cohesive and prosperous world community," he writes. "Rarely has an era in modern history started with such high hopes only to see them so sorely dashed." Many of the woes that Roberts lists – the 2008 financial crisis, the 1994 Rwanda massacre, the ebola epidemic – had nothing to do with the Berlin Wall.

The most moving aspect to witnessing this history unfold at first hand was seeing the profound effect it had on the people involved. It started with the cheers and tears of those East Germans seeing the West that night for the first time and quickly translated into a loss of the decades-long fear the communists used to keep the population in line. Then came – some sooner than others – the freedoms we had in the West. Now all those former communist countries in Eastern Europe are equal partners with the countries they envied in Western Europe. The fact that this has gone from a pipedream to everyday reality – and without bloodshed – can make us forget just how much things have changed for the positive since the Wall collapsed.

Tom Heneghan writes for The Tablet from Paris. In 1989, he was Reuters chief correspondent in Germany and covered the opening of the Berlin Wall