Fall of the inner German border Fall of the inner German border The fall of the inner German border came rapidly and unexpectedly in November 1989, along with the fall of the Berlin Wall. The event paved the way for the ultimate reunification of Germany just short of a year later. Just as an earlier generation of Germans had found that the way to defeat the supposedly impregnable Maginot Line was simply to go around one end of it, so too hundreds of thousands of East Germans found an escape route across the border of East Germany's erstwhile ally, Hungary. The inner German border's integrity relied
The Fall of Berlin (film) architect of Germany's defeat. Denise J. Youngblood wrote that shortly afterwards, there remained only three kinds of war heroes: "the dead, the maimed and Stalin." Mikheil Chiaureli, Stalin's favourite director, and writer Pyotr Pavlenko have already collaborated to create the 1946 personality cult picture "The Vow". The Soviet Minister of Cinema, Ivan Bolshakov, instructed them both to begin work on "The Fall of Berlin" shortly after the release of "The Vow" in July 1946. The film was conceived as the Mosfilm studio's gift to Stalin for his official 70th birthday, which was to be held on 21 December 1949. "The