Reading "The Collapse", a very good narrative description of the events leading up to the demise of the Berlin Wall. Having lived through that time and followed it in the media, even though it predated Internet news, I came to the book with good background.
I was surprised to be reminded by the role M.L.King played in the demonstrations leading up to the fall; East Germans knew and were impressed by his example and followed it in their own actions.
The political decision making and the bureaucracy to implement the decisions was notably defective. A change in leadership, the need to clear decisions with the Soviet Union, the aftermath of a long holiday, the miscoordination of two parallel bureaucracies (the regular bureaucracy and the Communist Party), all made for a dysfunctional system, even worse than our system today.
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