12 November (Sunday)
In the morning, not far from the Brandenburg Gate in Potsdam Square, which was once the main traffic artery of Berlin, another border crossing is opened. This leads to a further reduction in pressure on the Wall at the Brandenburg Gate.
On this day, a million GDR citizens visit West Berlin. As was the case the previous day, any form of passport control is barely imaginable – for most of the time, the passport inspectors have no choice but to stop all their normal clearance activities and simply open wide the gates and barriers at the crossings. – Police stations in both halves of the city are directly connected by a special telephone line again for the first time in decades.
In the morning, the headquarters of the West Group of the Soviet armed forces in the GDR makes an appeal by telephone to the command headquarters of American, British and French forces in Germany via the Military Liaison Missions accredited to its supreme commander. It asks them "not to get involved in the events". On the same day, those in charge of the Western armed forces in Berlin promise the Soviets that they will exercise restraint.
GDR Defence Minister Heinz Kessler announces the abolition of the "order to shoot" (Schiessbefehl) on state television. The operational order to the border troops is as follows: "Firstly, to do everything to help ensure that the cross-border traffic that has now been initiated moves in an orderly and unimpeded fashion; secondly, to do all in their power to make sure that the generally recognised fixed national border is not violated by anyone and that the border installations set up for this purpose are not destroyed by anyone. And all of this without using or employing firearms." At the same time, all the restricted areas along the Wall or the German-German border are opened. All the localities in the border areas are now freely accessible.
The political movement "Neues Forum" (New Forum) calls on citizens not to accept the negative economic consequences that are to be feared owing to the opening of the border, and appeals to them: "Don’t be distracted by the demands for a political reconstruction of society! (…) We will be poor for quite some time, but we don’t want a society in which racketeers and pushy people skim off the best. You are the heroes of a political revolution; don’t be pacified now by travel opportunities and boosts to consumption that increase debts!"
In November, 133,429 GDR citizens manage to flee to the West.
