(dark music) ♪ (narrator) September 1989.

♪ Europe stands on the cusp of 100 days which will change the world forever.

For four decades, the hostilities of the Cold War have separated Eastern Europe from the West.

(Dr. Hope M. Harrison) The Berlin Wall really stood as the representation of the depth of the Cold War.

On one side of the wall was Communist East Germany and the whole Soviet Bloc, and on the other side was democratic, capitalist West Berlin, West Germany, and the West.

♪ (narrator) As summer comes to an end, desire for political reform across the Soviet East gathers momentum.

(shouting) (Dr. Paul Maddrell) It was a movement for democracy, of course, but it was a movement for more than that.

It was a movement for human rights.

(screaming, shouting) (Victor) You knew this was history being made.

The whole idea was to be part of Europe again, but they wanted to be a part of Europe on their terms.

(narrator) An unstoppable wave of revolution is about to sweep through the Eastern Bloc and rock Communist control of the continent to its core.

♪ (shouting) (Martin Luther King, Jr.) No man is free... (Sir Winston Churchill) We shall fight on the beaches... ...if he fears death.

(narrator) A hundred days can change everything.

From major military upsets... (President George H.W.

Bush) Iraq's army is defeated.

(narrator) ...and global crisis... (Sir Winston Churchill) We shall never surrender.

(narrator) ...to moments of hope... (President Ronald Reagan) Tear down this wall.

(narrator) ...these 100 days provide a window into the events that defined modern history.

(cheering) (clicking) (shouting) (melancholy music) (clicking) (beeping) (narrator) September 23rd, 1989.

In Eastern Germany, the early autumn air is heavy with unease.

The country's leader, Erich Honecker, faces mounting problems.

♪ The German Democratic Republic is plagued by food shortages and on the verge of bankruptcy.

(Dr. Paul Maddrell) There was universal resentment against poor standards of living, an absence of democracy, an absence of the ability to travel.

They realized they lived lives that were less satisfying than those of Western Europeans.

♪ (narrator) Street demonstrations against Honecker's Communist regime are growing daily in numbers and intensity.

(shouting) Living conditions are bad not only in the GDR, but in all of the Soviet satellite states.

Over the summer, unrest has rippled across Eastern Europe.

(shouting) ♪ (Professor Adam Roberts) The Iron Curtain was in a lot of trouble.

Already, in Poland, there were definite moves towards a non-Communist government which, by August, had begun to yield results.

In Hungary, there was a government that was open to reform, was engaging in talks with oppositionists, and was more willing to allow refugees to leave Hungary.

(indistinct chatter) ♪ (narrator) Each day, thousands leave the East, hoping to improve their prospects by heading for the West.

♪ This problem is not new.

(man) Why did you come to West Berlin at this moment?

(women) Uh, we feel that we can't go in the future.

(man) You thought that the barriers were going to be closed.

(woman) Yes.

(engine puttering) (narrator) Both Germany and Berlin have been divided into East and West since the end of the Second World War.

(Regius Prof. Richard Evans) The German Democratic Republic, East Germany, was the Soviet-occupied zone of Germany after the end of World War Two.

In 1949, the states of West Germany on the one hand and East Germany on the other and the Soviet zone were created, and the Stalinist tyranny descended upon the East.

(dramatic music) (narrator) By 1961, East Berlin was hemorrhaging its population.

♪ (Regius Prof. Richard Evans) Very often they were doctors and professionals who just couldn't earn enough money in East Germany and would do much better in West Germany.

Often, they were just people who want to join their families in West Germany because the population of the West was many times larger than that of the East.

(narrator) East Germany's Communist leader Walter Ulbricht decided that something had to be done.

(honking) The attraction of the capitalist, democratic West was too great a threat to his hard-line Communist regime.

(engine puttering) (somber music) Just after midnight on August 13, 1961, Ulbricht ordered troops to seal off the border with West Berlin.

East Germans could no longer travel or emigrate to West Germany.

Friends and families were separated overnight.

To close the border, Ulbricht's men initially used barbed wire as fencing, but within days, they began to use cement bricks as the foundations of what became the most formidable barrier in the world.

♪ Soon, the 156-kilometer wall encircled West Berlin and its two million citizens.

♪ East Germany was totally cut off from the West.

(Dr. Hope M. Harrison) It was what was called in the West a "death strip" which, in fact, was two walls with multiple other obstacles in between.

So, from the East Berlin side, you would first approach a wall.

If you somehow got over that wall and got into the death strip, there were all sorts of trip wires.

There were sort of nails sticking out of steel things in the ground so that if you jump down, you would be jumping into these nails.

If the person somehow was able to get by all of these things, they would then come to the outer wall which was over ten feet tall, and this is what the Berlin Wall was.

♪ (moody music) (narrator) Almost three decades on from the building of the wall, East Germans want change.

(Dr. Hope M. Harrison) So, tens of thousands of people started leaving either by going to Hungary and getting out to Austria, or in the fall of 1989, by camping out at West German embassies in Prague and Warsaw... ♪ ...getting the support of the West German government which then helped them to leave from those embassies and board trains where West German diplomats escorted them to West Germany.

(clapping) (ominous music) (narrator) Tensions are high.

Honecker's police chief warns that just a spark might ignite a firestorm of violence across the country.

Ordinary people are openly protesting against the regime for the first time in decades.

The GDR government had a record of inflexibility and was proud of it.

The former GDR leader, Walter Ulbricht, once said famously, "Soldiers in the frontline don't smoke."

What he meant was that East Germany couldn't afford to mess around with liberal politics.

(narrator) For years, the East German Stasi, the largest secret police force in Europe, has ruthlessly silenced any public dissent.

But, now, the landscape is changing.

♪ The spirit of revolution and rebellion has gripped the country.

Honecker's Communist regime is losing control.

(speaking foreign language) (clicking) (whooshing) (narrator) October 2nd.

(speaking German) (narrator) Leipzig is brought to a standstill by 10,000 people marching to demand their right to travel freely and to elect a democratic government.

(shouting) This is just one of a series of Monday protests in Leipzig that now become a weekly right.

(Dr. Paul Maddrell) Leipzig was to the East German Revolution of 1989 what Paris was to the great French Revolution of 1789, the engine run of the revolution.

(Victor) What had happened before historically is that every time there was a big campaign for freedom or liberty or get the Russians out, they'd find Soviet tanks in their cities, in Budapest, in 1956; and in Prague, in 1968 as it happened.

(engine puttering) (narrator) In response to the protests, Honecker refuses to make any concessions.

Instead, he orders the closure of the East German border with Czechoslovakia, denying his people access to escape via Prague.

(Dr. Paul Maddrell) That led to even bigger demonstrations in the GDR of how they'd been banned now from escaping the GDR, so all they could do is demonstrate.

So, from that point, demonstrations in the GDR, in all its cities and above all the core of it was Leipzig.

They just ballooned in size.

(narrator) The country is on a knife edge.

(Dr. Paul Maddrell) By October, there were 200,000, 250,000.

The biggest demonstration in early November was 450,000 people.

So, a huge demonstration against the GDR regime.

(shouting) (clicking) (intense music) (narrator) October 7th.

♪ East Germany is in turmoil, but Erich Honecker's attention is elsewhere.

His focus is on the festivities planned to celebrate today's 40th anniversary of the German Democratic Republic.

(drumming) Honecker intends to remind the world and the protestors of East Germany's importance and longevity.

♪ The guest of honor is the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

(applause, cheering) ♪ Since his appointment six years earlier, Gorbachev has sought to reform the communism of the Eastern Bloc.

♪ (Paul) He saw that communism was failing people He was an idealist, a communist idealist, and he wanted reform communism to become official policy throughout the Bloc.

And he believed that such policies could win majority popular support.

(applause) (narrator) The Soviet leader has become a symbol of hope for many East Germans.

(applause, cheering) (Victor) Everything was clearly changing under Mikhail Gorbachev, and things were liberalizing, especially so in Russia.

Much more in Russia than in East Germany, for example, or Czechoslovakia.

In East Germany, they banned a lot of Soviet newspapers and magazines because they were too liberal.

(cheering) (narrator) During his visit, tension between Honecker and Gorbachev is palpable.

(marching footsteps) Honecker believes the German Democratic Republic will survive forever, through repression if necessary.

(applause, cheering) (Adam) There was certainly no love lost between Gorbachev and Honecker and the others in East Berlin.

Gorbachev said publicly that what happens in East Germany is a matter that must be sorted out among East Germans.

In other words, he's saying he's not going to intervene militarily to rescue the regime.

(Richard) Mikhail Gorbachev saw that the liberation of Eastern Europe and the decision of Eastern European states to go their own way was inevitable.

There was no way of resisting it.

(chanting, applause) (soft music) (narrator) Erich Honecker is becoming increasingly isolated in the face of a tide of European change that began four months earlier in Poland.

(soft, tense music) ♪ June 4th, 1989.

(indistinct announcement) Election day.

An air of anticipation hung over the country.

This was the first election in Poland since the Polish Communist Party abandoned their monopoly on power in April, after weeks of pressure from massive worker strikes.

(Adam) In many countries of Eastern Europe, there were opposition movements that were very skillfully led.

In Poland, it was all based around the Solidarity movement in the Baltic shipyards.

(narrator) At the ballot box, the people of Poland voted for change.

(chanting) ♪ The trade union group Solidarity won a landslide victory.

Activist Tadeusz Mazowiecki was elected prime minister.

For the first time, the communists had been beaten in fair election since the end of the Second World War, and that was huge and significant.

There was quite a bit of optimism, but they could never be sure of exactly what was going to happen, which is why they were extraordinarily brave.

On exactly the same day there were the elections, that was when the Chinese communists had clamped down into Tiananmen Square.

So people could see that it was still possible that this could happen to them too.

And that all that they've been struggling for and all that they've been campaigning for could easily evaporate.

(narrator) This was history's first democratic transition of power away from a ruling communist party.

(applause) And the first non-communist government in the Eastern Bloc since 1948.

♪ (crowd jeering) (energetic music) ♪ October 7th, 1989.

In East Germany, even as the GDR's 40th anniversary celebrations continue, the balance of power is shifting.

(chanting) ♪ (Hope) That night, after the official ceremonies, there were violent demonstrations in East Berlin, and the police rounded up lots of people, took them to prison, beat them up.

(crowd jeering) (narrator) Despite the brutality of the police, the protestors continue to demonstrate.

(chanting) For the first time in East German history, threats of force are failing to suppress the people on the street.

(speaking German) (translator) He said Gorbachev tried to show us the way, but Honecker rejected it.

(soft, tense music) ♪ (narrator) October 9th.

By early afternoon, St. Nicholas's Church in Leipzig is full.

Crowds spill onto the steps outside and into surrounding streets.

These people are not here to worship but to demonstrate for their freedom and right to travel.

By 5:00 p.m., they number 70,000.

(Hope) In advance of the Monday, October 9th demonstration in Leipzig, the regime let it be known that, uh, body bags were being stockpiled, blood plasma was being stockpiled, and, oh, yes, that they admired how the Chinese had dealt with the demonstrators on Tiananmen Square in the summer of 1989 when they cracked down and massacred people.

(gunfire) (soft, somber music) (narrator) All through the preceding night, thousands of extra troops have been trucked into the city by Honecker.

(siren wailing) 6,000 armed police surround the church.

But in an act of defiance and bravery, the protestors march through the city.

(Hope) And that night, some people smuggled out video footage of it to West Berlin, which broadcast it on TV.

And the majority of East Germans were watching West German TV.

So, now most people in East Germany knew what was possible, and that emboldened others in other places to take to the streets and start demanding change as well.

(majestic music) (tense music) ♪ (narrator) October 18th.

(speaking German) ♪ Erich Honecker still refuses to yield.

He will not listen to the pleas of his people for change.

Opposition to his leadership has grown at breakneck speed.

At 10:00 a.m., the politburo, the Communist Party's highest decision-making body, meet in East Berlin and vote unanimously for his dismissal.

He is replaced by his protégé, Egon Krenz.

(Adam) He'd been Honecker's deputy for five years.

He was not a charismatic speaker.

So the changeover from Honecker to Krenz, while it showed that the regime recognized there was a crisis on, also showed that the regime had no idea what to do about it.

And Krenz certainly was not the answer to anybody's prayers.

He was not going to be the Gorbachev of East Germany.

(narrator) Immediately, Krenz announces his intention to reform the German Democratic Republic.

(indistinct chatter) (Paul) Did it make any difference?

No.

Because by reform, Krenz only meant cosmetic changes.

He didn't mean any genuine reform, and that was never going to appease the opposition.

(narrator) East Germans respond to Krenz's appointment by taking to the streets in even greater numbers.

(chanting, clapping) (soft, tense music) ♪ (man) We must have new (unclear) for our policies.

And, uh, I think we will do this.

(narrator) November 7th.

Under siege, faced with mass protests, the entire East German government resigns.

(speaking German) (crowd reacts) Krenz and the Communist Party remain in power but are severely weakened.

(protestor) (inaudible), of course.

We have come too late and Gorbachev was right when he said, "He who comes too late will be punished."

♪ November 9th.

The new East German government is already in meltdown.

No one knows how to handle the crisis.

A team of officials met overnight.

(Hope) And one of the things they discuss at this meeting was the travel law.

Well, they had so much on their minds that they-- most of the top leaders didn't look closely at what this travel law actually said.

It's crazy to say that, but it's true.

♪ (narrator) The new law enables anyone with a passport to apply for a visa to leave permanently or for a holiday via any border crossing point between East and West Germany.

Krenz meets party spokesman Günter Schabowski and orders him to announce the change in legislation.

(Hope) So Günter Schabowski leaves the meeting, you know, gets in his car to be driven to the press conference, and seemingly never really looked at that travel regulation.

(narrator) Schabowski has no idea of the storm about to break.

Just before 6:00 p.m., Schabowski arrives at Berlin's International Press Center.

He tells the gathered media that the document he holds will make it possible for every East German citizen to leave the country.

Journalists say, "What do you mean?

Like, is the Berlin Wall gonna be opened?

And when does this take effect?"

(speaking German) You can watch footage of this.

It's incredible.

He looks down in this confused way at his documents, he sort of rifles through them.

He looks over at his advisors sort of for help.

And then he looks up and says, "Um, yes, all--all borders will be open, including the Berlin Wall."

And, you know, another journalist says, "When?"

Again, he looks down totally confused and says, "Immediately, without delay."

(speaking German) (narrator) Schabowski's answer sends shock waves across both East Germany and the world.

Krenz and his government are taken completely by surprise.

As far as they are concerned, there is nothing in the regulation that allows any East German to go to a checkpoint and be let through.

Their intention is that people will still have to apply for permission to leave.

(Victor) Well, of course, that was one of the most colossal administrative errors in history.

It wasn't supposed to happen that way and at that time.

Once he'd misspoken and said the borders would be open, they were pushed into it.

Then, of course, that was relayed onto West German televisions within half an hour.

They said, "The wall is open, the gates are open.

You've heard it from the top.

You've heard it from Schabowski."

(clamoring) (dramatic music) ♪ (narrator) Scores of East Germans begin to make their way to the main border gates at the Berlin Wall.

♪ (Victor) More and more people arrived at the various checkpoints, and thousands and thousands were chanting, "Open the wall, open the wall, open the gates!"

♪ (clamoring) (narrator) The guards had been given no warning of Schabowski's announcement, and no orders.

There are two people whose names are hardly ever mentioned in this story who deserve their place in history.

One was Harald Jaeger, who was the lieutenant colonel in charge of the gates at the Bornholmer Strasse.

At one stage, by about nine o'clock, there were maybe 15,000, 17,000 people all pressed up saying just, "Open the gates, open the gates."

And he was ringing constantly for orders from his superiors, and no orders came.

Anything could've caused a huge riot.

He took the decision, without being told by anyone up above, to open the Berlin Wall.

♪ And the same thing was happening further in the city in Checkpoint Charlie.

There was a colonel called Gunter Moll, and he was facing the same issue.

(narrator) At 11:17 p.m., the gates at Checkpoint Charlie swing open.

(clamoring) The crowds surge through.

(laughter) By midnight, all six checkpoints are open.

The frontier that, for decades, has become a worldwide symbol for communism and for the Cold War itself has been breached.

(man) I don't have even the English words to explain what--how I feel.

(man 2) And living here for five years, and I haven't ever been to West Berlin at all.

It's the first time I can go there, and it's a nice feeling to see it.

(vibrant music) (Paul) Breaching the wall destroyed the GDR.

The GDR's ability to survive depended on its ability to contain its population within its borders, because if it lost that ability, the people would just flood out and they would simply become West Germans.

And it was clearly going to lose more, it was clear that the wall could not be closed up again, so it was clear the GDR was totally finished.

♪ (narrator) For 28 years, East Germans have died trying to escape over the wall, but now they can just walk through it.

(cheering) (Richard) All of a sudden, the whole kind of system, the divisions, the wall, began to crumble.

I had to make my way in across the checkpoints previous years under the machine guns of guards in towers looking down on me.

All of a sudden, all of that was gone.

It was quite, quite amazing.

♪ (laughter) (Hope) In the days that followed, West Berlin was inundated.

In fact, that weekend-- that was a Thursday night, November 9th-- that weekend, two million East Germans visited West Berlin, nearly the size of the population of West Berlin, which was two and a half million.

(cheering) (narrator) Throughout the Cold War, American presidents have called for the end of the division between East and West.

On the 12th of June, 1987, President Ronald Reagan had given a speech in front of the wall with a message to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

(crowd cheering) Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

(crowd cheering) (solemn music) (narrator) Just two and a half years later, Reagan's wish has been granted.

Without Gorbachev's support for the communist regime in East Germany, the Berlin Wall has finally fallen.

(cheering, applause) (bright music) November 10th.

As East Berliners stream through the open border, they are met on the western side of the wall by huge crowds.

(jubilant honking) ♪ (Victor) It was party city.

I mean, it was the best street party you could ever have been to.

Everyone knew what an extraordinary event this was.

(cheering) You could see that history was happening.

You could feel it.

(jubilant shouting) And for most of them, people had, up till maybe a few weeks before, never imagined that this would be possible in their lifetimes.

It was quite, quite extraordinary.

(narrator) The East German regime has lost control.

All it can do in response is announce the opening of ten new border crossings.

Berliners climb onto the wall and congregate at former checkpoints in celebration.

(Victor) One of the most extraordinary things I'll remember was there were groups of Westerners and Easterners dancing at the top of the Brandenburg Gate, which was the symbol, original symbol of German unity.

But you could see, it was--it was not that wide, and it was crumbling, and it was pretty dangerous.

(narrator) Just hours earlier, they could've been shot for doing the same thing.

(cheering) Of course there were people chipping away at the wall.

You could hear that going on all night and every night for the next week.

♪ Taking their bit of the wall.

Obviously I had to take a few as a present.

♪ (Richard) I made my way through a hole in the wall where the death strip had been removed, and there was a Polish guy with a trestle table and bits of the wall with bright colors and the graffiti on it, so I said to him, I looked and said, "Are these genuine?"

He said, "Yeah, yeah, freshly painted," he said.

So, there were lots of very strange things that happened in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the wall.

(man) I jumped over the wall.

-You jumped over the wall?

-Yeah.

I have been dreaming of this for years, and I don't know what to say.

I'm happy.

(cheering) (tense music) (narrator) As the celebrations of the wall continue, American President George H.W.

Bush gives a press conference at the Oval Office hailing the night's events.

(George H.W.

Bush) And here's a new development in this rapidly changing part of the world that we can, uh, salute.

(narrator) Soviet leader Gorbachev congratulates Krenz, telling him that the policy had to change.

French President François Mitterrand and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher are less enthusiastic.

(Margaret Thatcher) Well, you can't have everyone pouring out of East Germany.

Seventeen or eighteen million people, it's not possible.

(narrator) Both fear a reunified Germany will threaten the stability and security of Europe.

(Paul) Germany had been the dominant European country in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with catastrophic consequences for Europe.

So Germany reduced in power was a Germany that the rest of Europe could live with.

They now saw that that would change.

They now saw that the GDR was going to collapse.

They saw that it was going to be taken over by West Germany.

They would be an expanded federal republic which would become the leading state in Europe.

(tense music) (chanting) ♪ (narrator) Just hours after the wall falls, the revolution reaches Bulgaria.

For weeks, Bulgarians have watched the crowds on the streets of East Germany.

Inspired, a series of protests force the country's communist dictator Todor Zhivkov from power after more than three decades in control.

(Adam) By late 1989, all of the communist states in Eastern Europe had undergone political change which pointed away from Communist Party rule.

Some of them had got further than others, encouraged by the fall of the wall.

That was undoubtedly a major influence.

(chanting in foreign language) (tense music) (narrator) November 17th.

In the days after the fall of the Berlin Wall, there has been an uneasy quiet in Czechoslovakia.

People across the country have observed the events unfolding 200 kilometers away with interest.

♪ The Czech leadership think that they can keep what they call the "infection," the wave of rebellion, from crossing their borders.

(speaking foreign language) The riot police and the government are on high alert.

(chanting, clapping) As darkness falls, 50,000 students gather in central Prague.

Marching into Wenceslas Square, the unarmed crowd is met by police who attack men, women, and children.

More than 500 are injured.

In response to the violence, the students decide to strike.

The Czechoslovakian revolution has begun.

(shouting) (bells ringing) Led by Václav Havel, the students issue a call to arms.

Thousands of people come together to call for an end to communism in the country.

(Professor Adam Roberts) And he saw his chance of success when the wall fell because that meant they were not likely to be opposed.

You can't say you wouldn't be certain that it wouldn't happen, but it was not likely.

(narrator) Havel demands the immediate resignation of the president, Gustav Husak, along with that of the Czech Communist Party's leader Miloa Jakea.

(chanting "President Havel") In the freezing cold, demonstrations break out on an unprecedented scale.

(chanting) ♪ (dark music) (clicking) November 22nd.

♪ Miloa Jakea takes drastic action to subdue the revolution.

He calls upon the People's Militia, the party's private army, to end the protests.

In the party's hour of need, however, the militia refuses to help.

Even this corps of ultra-loyalists realizes that change is now inevitable.

(singing) Gorbachev, too, refuses to come to Jakea's aid, offering neither political, nor practical support.

Czechoslovakia was a touchy issue for the Soviet Union because, after all, the Soviet Union had led the intervention there in 1968 to stop the democratic socialism.

So, there was a symbolic importance to what happened in Czechoslovakia.

(melancholy music) (narrator) As in East Germany, the Czech Communist Party's control is disintegrating.

(man) In case the government fails to make concessions, the students have already formed permanent strike committees.

♪ (clicking) (narrator) November 24th.

Half a million people gather in Wenceslas Square, roaring for freedom and democracy.

(cheering) Left with no other option, Miloa Jakea and the country's entire Communist leadership resigns.

The Velvet Revolution, named in honor of its lack of violence, stands upon the brink of victory.

(engine roaring) (Václav Havel) See, I have--I have hope because without hope, it is impossible to live.

(Professor Adam Roberts) The Velvet Revolution showed that Moscow was not going to intervene in any of its Eastern European neighbors and it was not going to try and suppress by force opposition movements.

It also showed ultimately, but this took a little while, a few years, that the Soviet Union would in some degree, some level, have to tolerate these countries moving out of its sphere of influence.

♪ (narrator) November 28th.

The Czechoslovakian Communist Party bows to the pressure from the people.

They agree to cede power and that free elections will be held within a year.

(speaking foreign language) The Iron Curtain is buckling.

(woman) It's unbelievable, and it's exciting.

(man) It was our ball and chain, and our ball and chain now doesn't exist.

(cheering) (moody music) (narrator) As calls across East and West Germany for the reunification of the country grow, in the American White House in Washington, hopes rise that the conclusion of the Cold War is approaching.

(Dr. Paul Maddrell) They thought that the reunification of Germany would end the Cold War, the whole of East and Central Europe would orient towards Germany, Germany would become the leader of Europe and would move Europe, including Eastern Europe, towards democracy, human rights protection, and the free market.

In other words, the United States would win the Cold War.

You can, you're dealing with him.

(clicking) (suspenseful music) ♪ (narrator) December 3rd.

After two days of talks aboard a Soviet cruise ship anchored off the coast of Malta, President Bush and Gorbachev declare an end to the Cold War.

♪ Gorbachev tells the gathered press that the world is leaving one epoch and entering another... (speaking Russian) (narrator) ...the threat of force and ideological struggle should be things of the past.

(President George H.W.

Bush) I am convinced that a cooperative U.S.-Soviet relationship can, indeed, make the future safer and brighter.

(Dr. Paul Maddrell) The American government had, in fact, been slow to realize that Gorbachev was promising real change.

To begin with, they thought he was only promising fake change, frankly.

Then they thought he was offering change, but relatively limited change.

But now they saw by December 1989 that he was offering real and transformative change and he was therefore their partner.

(narrator) After 43 years, the Cold War is over.

(indistinct chatter) (whooshing, clicking) (ominous music) (indistinct chatter) December 12th.

All but one of the countries in the Soviet sphere of influence are embracing change.

(Professor Adam Roberts) The only one where the change was violent and fairly consistently so was Romania.

(narrator) Romania has been controlled by the Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu for 21 years.

Ceausescu is resolutely opposed to the democratic reforms sweeping the rest of Eastern Europe.

And unlike his peers in East Berlin, Prague, and Sofia, he has the will and the authority to fight to maintain his position of power over the country.

If necessary, he will use force.

(speaking foreign language) (somber music) Romanians face mass poverty and live in fear of Ceausescu's police force, the Securitate.

Emboldened by the revolutions that have swept Europe, Romanians now want change too.

♪ In the early evening, a crowd gathers to protest on the streets of Timisoara.

♪ Violence breaks out.

Armed Securitate units shoot at civilians mercilessly.

(Dr. Hope M. Harrison) Nicolae Ceausescu had been quite a brutal dictator, and when he did not give in to demonstrators' calls for reform, the crowd turned against him.

(narrator) This is the beginning of a battle for freedom in Romania unlike any of 1989's peaceful revolutions.

♪ (Professor Adam Roberts) It was a much more bloody story, and it's an interesting comment on the events of that year, that so much was achieved peacefully and so much more would then go on to be achieved peacefully, but that didn't mean that violence had ceased to be a problem.

(man) I want to say to all the world, be with us.

Don't let Ceausescu's security kill us!

(tense music) (clicking) (narrator) December 22nd.

(horn music) As Bucharest descends into pandemonium, in East Germany, there is rioting of a different kind.

Crowds fill Berlin to celebrate as the Brandenburg Gate is opened for the first time in almost three decades.

♪ (spirited music) The West German chancellor, Helmut Kohl, walks through to be greeted by the new East German prime minister, Hans Modrow.

♪ This is the first time a West German leader has officially entered East Berlin.

♪ In just a few weeks, the political landscape of East and West Germany has been transformed.

(Dr. Hope M. Harrison) Clearly, Communism had not been able to satisfy enough people.

And the fall of the Berlin Wall, the desire of East Germans to get rid of that, and to be able to travel, and have all sorts of freedom even if they stayed at home won the day.

(shouting) (intense music) (narrator) In Bucharest, Ceausescu has lost control of his armed forces.

The commanders of all three services and their men joined the revolution on the side of the rebels.

As his own troops and people stormed the Central Committee building, Ceausescu and his wife are forced to flee in a helicopter.

(thrum of helicopter blades) (clicking) December 25th.

The Ceausescus' flight has been in vain.

(Dr. Hope M. Harrison) They were captured, they were put on trial, and they were found guilty of abuse of power, sentenced to death, and they were executed that day, Christmas Day, 1989.

And the Romanian people were so angry with him that they wanted proof that he was really gone, so actually, his execution was shown on television.

(man) It's a celebration for the Romanian people.

It's everyone of this country wanted to hear that.

(woman) We don't know what it is, democracy.

We don't know what it is.

(cheering) (narrator) Nicolae Ceausescu is the sole head of state to lose his life in the purge of Communism from Eastern Europe.

Within months, Romania's first free elections in 25 years are won by the National Salvation Front.

The revolution is over.

Nicolae Ceausescu was the only one who attempted to fight and was prepared to fight.

The others could see that the only way to save their skins, the only way was to negotiate a deal.

Once they got assurances the new democratic government are not gonna hang them all by a lamppost, they were prepared to make a deal, and one of the main things they all insisted was there be no witch hunt.

(clicking) (piano music) ♪ (narrator) December 31st, New Year's Eve.

(hissing) People across Europe gather together in celebration.

This is a New Year's Eve unlike any other in history.

As the fireworks marking the end of one year and the beginning of the next explode, they fall over not just a new year, but a new Europe.

By the start of 1990, it was clear that Communism was finished in Europe.

The GDR was no longer governed by a Communist regime.

That meant inevitably that although democracy had not yet been established, that democracy would be established.

It meant that Germany would become the leading state in Europe again.

But the events of 1989 to '90 set up the Europe that now exists.

(cheering) (Victor) For the world, everything at that point immediately afterwards, anything seemed possible.

(cheering) (intense music) (narrator) One hundred days after Erich Honecker refused to compromise with East German protestors, across Europe, revolution has triumphed over tyranny.

At the beginning of 1989, it seemed as though the Iron Curtain might last forever.

♪ But peaceful protests brought the Soviet Union to its knees.

(chanting) In less than a year, it will cease to exist.

♪ With dizzying speed, Europe breaks free from the shackles of Communism.

The Cold War is over, and the world moves into both a new decade and a new era.

(cheering) (dramatic music) ♪ ♪ (bright music)