Hungary begins dismantling its border fence with Austria, which allows a number of East Germans to defect.
The removal of Hungary's border fence with Austria occurred in 1989 during the collapse of communism in Hungary, which was part of a broad wave of revolutions in various communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The border was still closely guarded and the Hungarian security forces tried to hold back refugees. The dismantling of the electric fence along Hungary's 240 kilometres (149 mi) long border with Austria was the first little fissure in the "Iron Curtain" that had divided Europe for more than 40 years, since the end of World War II. Then the Pan-European Picnic caused a chain reaction in East Germany that ultimately resulted in the demise of the Berlin Wall.