The night the Wall tumbled down

East Berliners ignored armed guards and brought the Wall tumbling down

Twenty years ago thousands of East Berliners ignored the instructions of armed guards and surged over the Berlin Wall into West Germany.

Wilf Scott, a pyrotechnics expert attending a conference, was in East Berlin on the night of 9 November 1989.

Now living in Cambridge, he recalls the emotion of the crowds on the Wall.

"People were in tears and Champagne corks were popping everywhere. The next day thousands of Trabants were lining up at Checkpoint Charlie to leave."

Earlier that morning, Wilf Scott had walked from his hotel down Unter den Linden Strasse to the Brandenburg Gate. One of Berlin's best-known landmarks, the Gate was built as a symbol of peace but was now incorporated into the Berlin Wall.

Soldiers building the Berlin Wall in 1961 dividing the East and West

He was able to get quite close to it before five armed guards ordered him to turn back. It had been worth it, though, as Wilf was certain he would never get another chance to look through the Gate from East to West Berlin.

An early night

A pyrotechnics expert specialising in rock concerts, Wilf was in the East discussing how best to ensure easy and safe access to the Eastern Bloc countries for bands, and events managers like himself.

It had taken two hours at Checkpoint Charlie to get into the East - because the guards were unhappy that Wilf specialised in explosives - and the fact that he was married to an American added to the paperwork.

On the last evening of the conference, Wilf and his colleagues were hoping to relax in the hotel bar with a few drinks before heading off for an early night, ready for the trip back to the UK.

The barman seemed constantly distracted by telephone calls. Eventually Wilf and his colleagues lost patience and said: "Come on, please. We want a drink so we can go to bed."

The barman replied: "You can have the whole bloomin' bar!" And, throwing the keys across to them, adding: "The Berlin Wall's coming down."

Wilf's companions missed the Wall falling as they went to bed early

Wilf got his beer, but after his colleagues had retired, he noticed that the rest of the hotel staff were rushing out the front door. So he followed.

"I thought, 'my God, it really is happening'. I could see all of these people on the Wall," explained Wilf.

"Someone gave me a hand up - as I was rather the worse for wear. What I really wanted to do was get up on the wall, touch the Reichstag building, come back over the wall through the Brandenburg Gate and go back to my hotel.

"I just managed to just touch the Reichstag and then stagger back through the crowds and someone helped me back onto the Wall.

"There's an iconic photograph of a chap with a pickaxe on the Wall, with the Gate in the background - I was about eight people away from him."

No papers

When he decided to leave, Wilf was stopped by VoPos (Volkspolizei) who ordered him back to the West. He was one of the few people trying to get back to the East - to his hotel - but the police didn't believe him.

Wilf had no passport, no papers, and no one knew that he had gone to the Wall.

He was escorted to an armoured truck and pushed inside, where a dozen Russian soldiers were sitting with Kalashnikov rifles in readiness for a possible riot.

Eventually, Wilf found a hotel receipt in his pocket which was enough to persuade the VoPos to release him. "I really thought I was going to die, though," he said.

The next day, Wilf and the other delegates boarded their coaches and made their way to Checkpoint Charlie and West Berlin.

"When we arrived there were about a million Trabants lined up trying to get across the border. When we got through there were West Berliners everywhere cheering us.

"They thought we were escaping dissidents and were throwing flowers at the coaches and handing bottles of Champagne to us through the windows. We'd only been in the East for a week!"

It wasn't until Wilf got back to London that he realised the magnitude of what had happened.

"I was sitting on a bus looking at a photograph of the Wall in the Evening Standard. Suddenly I just burst into tears."