Guard recalls opening the Berlin Wall 20 years ago

BERLIN — Harald Jaeger was a loyal East German border guard – respected and trusted to command a crossing point to the west on Berlin's Bornholmer Strasse.

So when his checkpoint was swarmed on the evening of Nov. 9, 1989, as East Germany announced the border was being opened after 28 years, Jaeger felt ashamed as he let the thousands pass through.

"It was terrible, because I realized that the party and the government had let me down and that my own colleagues did not stand behind me," he told Associated Press Television News in comments translated from German. "And particularly, my ideology completely fell apart back then."

Two decades later, the 66-year-old Jaeger – whose border crossing was the first opened that night – sees things differently.

"Fact is that it was right and necessary, and exactly the right time," Jaeger said. "Although thinking back now, 20 years later, I think I should have done this earlier. It would have spared us a lot of trouble."

Jaeger, a lieutenant colonel in the Stasi secret police, said his work shift was already over that night. He had retired to the checkpoint's canteen to eat a sandwich or two.

Then on the TV in the background, he heard East German official Guenter Schabowski make an almost offhanded comment: New travel rules allowing East Germans to head west were to take effect immediately.

"I had really just had one bite and then I heard the memorable sentence from Schabowski," said Jaeger, whose story is the focus of a new German-language book, "The Man Who Opened the Wall."

Deprived of any clear guidance from his superiors, Jaeger decided the only way to control the swelling crowd was to open the border completely. Thousands streamed through.

"I'm no hero," he said. "I only did what was the right thing to do on that evening back then."

In hindsight, he said his actions probably prevented the confrontation from turning violent.

"There's one thing I can take credit for," he said. "That no blood was shed that evening - just tears of joy and cold sweat."