Joachim Bitterlich

People were understanding this is the end of this regime and let's use it.

Freedom is the word, Freiheit.

Indeed, I rejoice that it has been possible for me to come to God's house here, that is, to the people of God, the Church of Auckland, the Church in New Zealand,

People took this literally and they opened the wall that night.

The history was suddenly accelerating.

People were understanding this is the end of this regime and let's use it.

Freedom is the word.

Freiheit.

At that time, we had no mobile phone.

We had no internet.

We had to pass through, let's call it, the international channels of phoning.

We tried to reach the German embassy in Warsaw, German embassy for the waiter responding in Polish.

And then we got a call during a reception.

The spokesman said to him, Chancellor, the wall is open.

And his answer was, we are just following German TV and we see the pictures of people

passing the border controls without any real control, because this for the first time after 25, 26 years, that the wall was really opening.

In June, during Gorbachev's visit to Germany, the first real debate between Gorbachev and Kohl about German reunification.

During, let's call it a private part of his meeting, when they were walking through the park around the Chancellor's office in Bonn, Gorbachev was sticking to his view that the German separation will remain as it is, explaining to him, using a symbol in order to explain the problem.

He was speaking about the River Rhine.

going down to the North Sea.