In June 1987, President Ronald Reagan spoke at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany. President Reagan’s speaking copy of his remarks includes his call to Soviet President Michael Gorbachev to “Tear down this wall.”
President Reagan’s famous “tear down this wall” line was taken out of the speech at one point and replaced with the challenge, in German, ‘to open the Brandenburg Gate.’ Speechwriters eventually decided to put the iconic phrase back in.
When demolition of the Berlin Wall began in November of 1989, it marked the end of an era of East-West hostilities. Germany reunified in 1990, and the Soviet Union dissolved the following year.
President Reagan’s Remarks at the Brandenburg Gate is a part of America’s 100 Docs, an initiative of the National Archives Foundation in partnership with More Perfect that invites the American public to vote on 100 notable documents from the holdings of the National Archives. Visit 100docs.vote today.
