East Germans Tearing Down Last of Wall

East Germany began full-scale demolition of the Berlin Wall on Wednesday, entering the last stretch of the headlong race toward reunification.

While the most formidable physical barrier between the two Germanys crumbled, political resistance to fast unity also showed signs of faltering.

West Germany’s opposition Social Democrats hinted that they may be ready to accept the inevitable after futile demands to slow the pace of reunification.

Full cooperation, if it comes, could result in all-German national elections--the grand finale of reunification--by mid-December.

That would be just 13 months after a bloodless revolution toppled East Germany’s Communist regime and opened the Berlin Wall.

Only a smattering of spectators turned out to watch the first slab of the wall crumble at Bernauer Strasse, at the same spot where construction of the barricade began Aug. 13, 1961.

Giant cranes formed a mechanical chorus line at 25 other sites in the city, hoisting huge sections of the yard-thick wall high into the summer sky.

The heart of the divided city is expected to be completely borderless again by July 2, when East and West Germany form a single economic, social and monetary system. The rest of the 96-mile vise around West Berlin will be dismantled over the next several months.

A small section of the wall is to be left standing as a memorial to the dozens of East Germans killed trying to surmount it.

Wednesday’s demolition came without the fanfare of last Nov. 9, when the wall first opened and mobs of jubilant Germans danced and drank champagne on top of it.

At Bernauer Strasse, clusters of East and West Berliners stood quietly sharing memories in the weeds and buttercups sprouting up over the “death strip.”

“It’s hard to believe we’re standing where there were once land mines,” said Dieter Lietz, a 41-year-old East Berlin truck driver. “I grew up over there, just three houses in from the wall. I was 11 when they put it up. And now I get to see them take it down.”

Lietz recalled how some panicked residents jumped to their deaths from multistory apartments that abutted the wall.

“People were also shot in this strip in later years as they tried to escape,” he said.

Scavengers stuffed pieces of the crumbled wall into shopping bags, either to keep as souvenirs or to sell to tourists. A uniformed East German border guard searched for a graffiti-smeared chunk of the wall to pocket.

“I’ve been waiting for a chance to do this,” he explained with a smile, mingling with people he once would have been ordered to shoot for standing there.

Although symbolic openings already had been created at famous spots such as the Brandenburg Gate and at scattered East-West crossing points, Wednesday’s action was the first phase of total demolition and the most dramatic sign of the pending reunification.

The ruling East German Christian Democratic Party announced Tuesday that it wants the country to accede to West Germany in the next few months and hold all-German elections in December. In Bonn, the opposition Social Democrats greeted the news with a conspicuous lack of resistance.