THE FALL OF THE BERLIN-WALL

The fall of the wall was not planned beforehand. It happened in the mi dst of Gorbachev's perestroika campaign, which, however, the leadershi p of the GDR refused to join, considering it a threat to ''real social ism''. Faced with the Czechoslovakian complaints about the huge traffi c of refugees from the GDR, Foreign Minister Fischer felt forced to op en one ''crossing point'' in the German-German border (outside Berlin) . Due to some failure of communication between East Berlin and Moscow and - not least - between GDR officials, things went wrong as regards: the point of time of opening; the categories of persons allowed to le ave; the number of crossing points; and - not least - the inclusion of the border between East and West Berlin. The latter point automatical ly made the opening into a matter for the Four Powers. But no message about this went to Moscow. And then were no new instructions given to the frontier guard officers on either side of the border. (Luckily eno ugh, no guard officer followed the old ones!). The Russian embassy, ho wever, was able to contact the embassies of the Western powers, securi ng their assistance in calming down the situation.