Bungling bureaucrat brought down Berlin Wall

The confusion and euphoria was toxic for the Communist regime and it disintegrated in weeks. Though he was factually wrong,Schabowski,80,has no regrets. I wouldnt say I was a hero who opened the border truth be told,I acted to try to save the GDR. On November 9,I was still a committed communist. The opening of the Wall wasnt a humanitarian,but a tactical decision taken because of popular pressure, the newspaper quoted him as telling the BBC News.

Schabowski,a propagandist,was expelled from the party early in 1990 for bringing down the wall,and then sentenced in 1997 for his earlier complicity in shoot-to-kill policy enforced by border guards against those trying to flee to the West. He was pardoned in 2000.