West or East? How Reuters chose the dateline for its fall of the Wall story 25 years ago

A bit of history. 

Twenty-five years ago early on a Sunday morning (12 November 1989), I was in Berlin, driving down the Ku'Damm in a Reuters car, a reporter with a driver and translator. It was dark and cold as we were headed for Potsdamerplatz. This was the old Times Square or Piccadilly Circus of Berlin, and the word was the Wall was about to reopen there. 

Along the wide avenue, large groups of East Germans stood huddled around oil drums burning in the frigid air. The drums were placed outside Sparkasse (banks) that would open shortly on a Sunday morning to hand out Begrüßungsgeld (welcome money) to thousands of East Germans who had started crossing the Wall since Thursday 9 November (25 years ago today). It was a strange start to an amazing day.

At Potsdamerplatz itself, a crane could be seen towering above the Wall on the East Berlin side, but it was not a watchtower or guard post. 

East German Volkspolizei could be heard shouting directions as the crane was lowered and grabbed a section of the Wall. On the West Berlin side, West German border police held back a rapidly growing circle of onlookers as the section of the Wall rocked back and forth. They cheered as police on both sides talked back and forth to each other and the crane swung high above. The onlookers cheered more, and some filmed the scene, narrating excitedly in German, English and other languages in rapid commentary the opening of the Wall at Potsdamerplatz. 

Suddenly, the crane wrenched the section free and lifted it away. In the narrow opening, one saw the no man's land that ran several hundred yards across watchtowers to the second Wall on the East Berlin side. I was dictating by car phone to Ian Macdowall, the chief news editor at the West Berlin bureau, who in turn was talking on another phone to Mark Wood, the editor-in-chief back in London. They were preparing to send out the news, and were arguing over what dateline to give the story - WEST BERLIN or EAST BERLIN. At that moment I thought about my mother and father, who had left in 1937 in another, darker period of wrenching change. This was part of their history as well as mine.

West Berlin Mayor Walter Mompers disappeared through the opening and returned several minutes later, at the head of a line of East Berliners. They walked silently single-file through the opening of the Wall. As they entered Potsdamerplatz, thousands of West Berliners roared welcome, East Berlin families held hands and carried children on their shoulders as they entered the West, alpenhorns somewhere above the surging crowds played across the open space, and I heard Macdowall yell into the phone, "He's at the opening of the Wall! He is exactly there!" The story ran with a BERLIN dateline. ■