Crowds tear down a mock-up of the Berlin Wall at an event commemorating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall, on Wilshire Blvd in Los Angeles on November 9, 2009. On the night of November 9, 1989, following weeks of pro-democracy protests, the Stalinist state's authorities suddenly opened the East German border. After 28 years as prisoners of their own country, euphoric East Germans streamed to checkpoints and rushed past bewildered guards, many falling tearfully into the arms of West Germans welcoming them on the other side.