november 9 , 1989 , the day the berlin wall struck and the regime changed forever . not even the most crafty seen it coming . as hungary ' s foreign minister in the late summer of 1989 , gyula gram gave the directive to allow departing communist germans need his government to do a 400 - km end run around the berlin bridge , a action now known as the beginning of the end for hard - line communism in europe .
The Berlin Wall was torn down in 1989.