08 November, 2014

The Man Who Disobeyed His Boss And Opened The Berlin Wall : Parallels : NPR

The Man Who Disobeyed His Boss And Opened The Berlin Wall : Parallels : NPR: To many Germans, Harald Jaeger is the man who opened the Berlin Wall.

It's a legacy that still makes the former East German border officer uncomfortable 25 years after he defied his superiors' orders and let thousands of East Berliners pour across his checkpoint into the West.

"I didn't open the wall. The people who stood here, they did it," says the 71-year-old with a booming voice who was an East German lieutenant colonel in charge of passport control at Bornholmer Street. "Their will was so great, there was no other alternative but to open the border."