At a meeting of the Political Advisory Committee of the Warsaw Pact, CPSU leader Mikhail Gorbachev moves away from the Brezhnev doctrine of the limited sovereignty of Warsaw Pact member states.
The "independence of each party, its right to take sovereign decisions on its country’s developmental problems, its responsibility to its own people" are "inviolable principles". According to Gorbachev, no one can lay claim to a special role in the socialist community."less
4 November
1986
Start of the third CSCE follow-up meeting in Vienna.more
6 November
1986
The first German-German town twinning is agreed between Saarlouis and Eisenhüttenstadt.more
12 November
1986
The two German states agree on the restitution of archival documents evacuated in the Second World War.
20 November
1986
After fleeing to the West, an officer from the GDR border troops talks about everyday life as a border officer and the effects of the "order to shoot". In the previous months, the number of border troop members who have fled has risen noticeably.
RIAS report on a GDR border soldier who has fled to the West, 20 November 1986 (in German) (Source: Archiv Deutschlandradio, Broadcast: Die Spätausgabe, Reporter: Ernst Steinke)
The 27-year-old Michael Bittner is killed by several shots in the back at the Berlin Wall while trying to escape. The Ministry for State Security manages to keep the murder of Michael Bittner secret to the end of the GDR. The death certificate and autopsy findings are destroyed at the instigation of the Stasi.more
