Former border crossing at Bornholmer Strasse

Of the seven border crossings within the city, the checkpoint at Bornholmer Strasse was furthest to the north. It extended from Bösebrücke to Malmöer Strasse and, according to the GDR Ministry of the Interior, was to be used by citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany when crossing into East Berlin.

After Günter Schabowski, the GDR Central Committee member responsible for the media, made a premature, almost casual announcement at an evening press conference on 9 November 1989 about the border being opened, a growing crowd of East Berliners who wanted to take advantage of their new right to travel right away started collecting at the checkpoints on the border to West Berlin.

The first GDR citizens to show up at the Bornholmer Strasse checkpoint were permitted to leave for West Berlin, although the head of the passport control units had their passports stamped invalid, expatriating the passport holders without their knowledge. As crowds of people continued to arrive, however, this strategy had to be abandoned. Two hours later, the guards “opened the floodgates” and raised the barrier. Over the next hour, around 20,000 people were able to cross the Bösebrücke bridge without being checked. On this night, the peaceful revolution underway in the GDR and the political changes taking place in the countries of Eastern Europe had succeeded in opening the Berlin Wall.

Today a number of plaques recall the events of that night. East of the Bösebrücke, in the direction of Björnsonstrasse, you can still see a section of the inner “security wall” that once marked the checkpoint’s boundary. The Berliner Mauerweg, a path tracing the former course of the Berlin Wall, runs below the bridge along what was once the border patrol road. The installation “Mind the Gap” by (e.) Twin Gabriel and two info boards from the Berlin Wall History Mile also call attention to the former checkpoint.