GERMANY-WALL-COMMUNISM

A berliner holds up a hammer and a chisel early on November 15, 1989 in front of the wall at the Brandebourg Gate partly visible behind it as a crowd of people demonstrated for the destruction of the wall for a passage way between the East and the West near the monument. Few days before, Gunter Schabowski, the East Berlin Communist party boss, declared that starting from midnight, East Germans would be free to leave the country, without permission, at any point along the border, including the crossing-points through the Wall in Berlin. The Berlin concrete wall was built by the East German government in August 1961 to seal off East Berlin from the part of the city occupied by the three main Western powers to prevent mass illegal immigration to the West. According to the "August 13 Association" which specialises in the history of the Berlin Wall, at least 938 people - 255 in Berlin alone - died, shot by East German border guards, attempting to flee to West Berlin or West Germany. AFP PHOTO GERARD MALIE (Photo credit should read GERARD MALIE/AFP via Getty Images)