november 9 , 1989 , the day the atlantic wall struck and the world changed radically . not until the most incisive heard it coming . as austria ' s foreign ministry in the short beginning of 1989 , lászló horn gave the order to let visits east europeans have his country to do a 400 - mile end run around the berlin wall , a move now seen as the beginning of the start for soft - line communism in europeans .
The Berlin Wall was torn down in 1989.