Tear Down This Wall (1987): Reagan's Speech at Brandenburg Gate

“Tear down this wall” is the most famous line of a speech that US President Ronald Reagan gave at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin on 12 June 1987. Standing in front of the Berlin Wall, Reagan challenged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to prove the sincerity of his reforms by opening the gate and removing the barrier that had divided the city since 1961. Little noticed at the time, the speech became one of the defining images of the end of the Cold War.

Background

The Berlin Wall had been built by East Germany in August 1961 to stop the flight of its citizens to the West (see Construction of the Berlin Wall). It cut through the centre of Berlin, and the Brandenburg Gate, the city’s best-known landmark, stood in the death strip on the eastern side. Two years later John F. Kennedy had delivered his Ich bin ein Berliner speech in the city, setting a tradition of presidential visits to the divided city.

By 1987 the political climate had shifted. Gorbachev was pursuing glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) in the Soviet Union, and arms talks had resumed after the Reykjavik Summit of October 1986. Many West Europeans saw Gorbachev as a reformer and were sceptical of Reagan, whose military build-up and harsh rhetoric had sparked mass protests earlier in the decade.

Reagan’s visit came as Berlin celebrated its 750th anniversary, with rival programmes in the two halves of the city. It followed a summit of the leading industrial nations in Venice, and Reagan spent only a few hours in Berlin. He had first seen the wall in 1978 as a private citizen and had visited West Berlin as president in June 1982, so the setting was familiar to him.

Within the White House, there was also a domestic motive. The Iran-Contra scandal had damaged Reagan’s standing in the first half of 1987, and his advisers wanted strong images of presidential leadership abroad. At the same time, negotiations with Moscow on intermediate-range missiles were at a delicate stage, which made the State Department anxious about anything that might sour the atmosphere.

Writing the line

The speech was drafted by Peter Robinson, a young White House speechwriter. During a preparatory trip to Berlin in the spring of 1987, he was told by American diplomats that Berliners had grown used to the wall and that strong anti-Soviet language would be unwelcome. At a dinner party, however, a local woman, Ingeborg Elz, said that if Gorbachev was serious about glasnost and perestroika, he could prove it by getting rid of the wall. Robinson built the central passage around that idea.

The draft met strong resistance. Officials in the State Department and the National Security Council argued that the line was crude, needlessly provocative and might embarrass Gorbachev at a hopeful moment in relations. They circulated several alternative drafts with softer wording. Robinson and the White House communications director Tom Griscom defended the line, and Reagan himself decided to keep it after reviewing the text, reportedly saying that it was the right thing to do.

The speech

Reagan spoke on the afternoon of 12 June 1987 from a platform in front of the Brandenburg Gate, behind panels of bulletproof glass meant to protect him from snipers on the eastern side. The audience, estimated at around 20,000 to 45,000 people, included Chancellor Helmut Kohl and West Berlin’s mayor Eberhard Diepgen. East German police kept people well away from the wall on the other side, so few East Berliners could hear him.

The address lasted around 25 minutes. Reagan praised West Berlin’s recovery after the war as proof of the success of freedom, contrasted it with the economic failures of the Soviet bloc, and acknowledged that changes were under way in Moscow. He then delivered the central passage, addressing Gorbachev directly: if he sought peace, prosperity and liberalisation, he should come to the gate. “Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

The rest of the speech contained concrete proposals that are now largely forgotten. Reagan called for expanded air links to West Berlin, more exchanges between the two halves of the city, international conferences in Berlin and even a joint bid to host the Olympic Games there. He also restated the Western commitment to arms reductions, including the elimination of intermediate-range missiles then under negotiation.

Reception at the time

The speech drew only moderate attention when it was given. Many American and European newspapers treated it as one of many presidential appearances, and some commentators considered the challenge to Gorbachev a piece of political theatre. In West Berlin, the visit was preceded by large demonstrations against Reagan’s policies, and police sealed off parts of the Kreuzberg district.

In the East, the reaction was dismissive. The Soviet news agency TASS called it an openly provocative, warmongering speech, and the East German government made no response to the demand. Only a week earlier, East Berlin youths gathered near the wall to listen to a rock concert held near the Reichstag on the western side had clashed with police, chanting for the wall to come down, a sign of growing frustration among young East Germans.

After 1989

The Berlin Wall was opened on the night of 9 November 1989, after weeks of mass protest in East Germany and the collapse of the communist government’s authority. Its fall was part of the wider Revolutions of 1989 and led to German reunification in October 1990. In the years that followed, the “tear down this wall” line was replayed endlessly and came to symbolise the Western victory in the Cold War.

Historians generally do not credit the speech with bringing down the wall. The decisive factors were East German protest and emigration, the reform course in Hungary and the Soviet Union, and Gorbachev’s decision not to use force to prop up the East German regime. Supporters of Reagan nevertheless argue that his firm public stance helped keep up pressure on Moscow and gave voice to the hopes of people in the East.

The speech’s reputation has grown with time. It is widely taught as an example of presidential rhetoric, recordings are shown at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California, and a statue of Reagan was unveiled at the US embassy beside the Brandenburg Gate in 2019, thirty years after the wall fell.

Myths and facts

It is sometimes said that Reagan improvised the line. In fact it was written in advance and survived weeks of internal debate. Another common belief is that East Berliners listened in large numbers; in reality the East German authorities kept crowds away, though the speech could be heard on Western broadcasts received in the East. Finally, the speech did not directly prompt any change in Soviet or East German policy; the wall stood for more than two years afterwards.

Timeline

• 1961, 13 August: East Germany begins building the Berlin Wall.
• 1963, 26 June: John F. Kennedy speaks in West Berlin.
• 1986, 11–12 October: Reagan and Gorbachev meet at Reykjavik.
• 1987, spring: Peter Robinson visits Berlin to prepare the speech.
• 1987, 6–8 June: Clashes in East Berlin near the wall during rock concerts held in the West.
• 1987, 12 June: Reagan delivers the speech at the Brandenburg Gate.
• 1989, 9 November: The Berlin Wall is opened.
• 1990, 3 October: Germany is reunified.

Why it matters

The Brandenburg Gate speech is a classic example of political rhetoric whose meaning changed with events. A line many officials thought too blunt became, after 1989, shorthand for the end of the division of Europe and one of the most quoted sentences of the twentieth century.