US Edition 
Berlin Wall: East German spokesman admits triggering collapse of Wall
Günter Schabowski, a former Communist bureaucrat has admitted that he inadvertently triggered the collapse of the Berlin Wall after blurting out that travel restrictions on East Germans had been lifted.
Mr Schabowski, the spokesman for the country's ruling Politburo, appeared to demonstrate to the world that the East German regime was broken when he failed to grasp that there was an embargo on his announcement.
Speaking on live television he declared that travel restrictions had been removed and the Berlin Wall would be opened to allow the citizens of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) to leave.
To the one word question "when?" he answered prematurely: "immediately". Within hours the tide of people clamouring to cross the border was unstoppable. and beleaguered borderguards gave way. The combination of confusion and euphoria was a toxic draft for the Communist regime. It disintegrated in weeks.
Mr Schabowski, a skilled propagandist who had edited the party newspaper, was factually wrong. The order to lift travel restrictions was supposed to be implemented the next day, Nov 10, with the intention of overseeing a more orderly process of exit visas, stamps and passports.
Now aged 80, Mr Schabowski has no regrets, even though he admits that at the time he was committed to saving the regime. "I wouldn't say I was a hero who opened the border - truth be told, I acted to try to save the GDR," he said. "On Nov 9, I was still a committed communist. The opening of the Wall wasn't a humanitarian, but a tactical decision taken because of popular pressure.
"The very existence of the GDR was at stake. Some 300 to 500 people were fleeing abroad each day [through Czechoslovakia and Hungary]. We were bleeding. We had to do something to regain popularity," he told the BBC World Service.
Mr Schabowski was expelled from the party early in 1990 for bringing down the wall, and then sentenced to prison in 1997 for his earlier complicity in the shoot-to-kill policy enforced by border guards against those trying to flee to the West. He was pardoned in 2000.
"I don't think that history gave me a thankless task because even though my role was an involuntary one, it helped bringing the confrontation between east and west to an end," he said.