While the Cold War symbolically separated the world into east and west, there was nothing symbolic about the 96-mile barrier constructed around West Berlin, cutting off people from friends and family members on the other side. Any East Berliner who approached it ran the risk of being shot dead, which more than 100 were from 1961-1989. For almost three decades, the Berlin Wall was the most concrete symbol of the forceful division Germany and Europe had inherited after World War II…and then, one day 25 years ago, it wasn’t.

To echo the famous line, the fall of the Berlin Wall happened slowly, then all at once. During the summer of 1989, Hungary had liberalized its border crossing policies at the Austrian border, allowing thousands of East Germans to make it into West Germany through Hungary and Austria…the exact migration that the wall had been built to prevent in 1961. (Communist authorities always maintained that the wall was designed to protect East Germans from “fascist” infiltration from West Berlin…although almost all of the human movement had been in the other direction before the wall was erected.)

On this day a quarter-century ago, it all came to a head. On November 9, 1989, East German authorities decided that all border crossings between East Germany and West Germany would be opened for crossing…including the infamous checkpoints along the Berlin Wall. (West Berlin was contained entirely within East Germany, and completely surrounded by the wall.) A party boss was handed a note with the policy change to read live during a press conference. He did so dutifully, and was asked by reporters when the changes would take effect. The boss had been given no guidance, and said that he guessed the change was immediate. That was all it took to send thousands of East Berliners to the wall. Overwhelmed crossing guards tried to get guidance on how to deal with the crowds before finally opening the gates. The wall would physically stand until the following year, but as a meaningful barrier, the Berlin Wall was finished.

The two larger barriers the wall had represented…the 860-mile frontier between all of East Germany and West Germany, and the longer imaginary Iron Curtain dividing Europe…were also soon to crumble. Germany was reunified in 1990, and the Soviet Union would dissolve by Christmas 1991, ending the Cold War. But that was somewhat anti-climactic. The most enduring images of the Cold War’s final days were of Berliners literally climbing over and chipping away at a hated symbol that had divided a city, a country, and in a real sense, a continent, for decades.