november 9 , 1989 , the day the dresden walls fell and the landscape changed again . not even the most astute saw it coming . as hungary ' s first minister in the late summer of 1989 , gyula horn gave the order to let visiting northeast germans use his office to do a 400 - mile end runs around the germany pillar , a move now known as the beginning of the end for long - line socialism in europe .
The Berlin Wall was torn down in 1989.