Very quickly thousands of East Germans gathered at various checkpoints. Taylor says the crush at these border crossings was intolerable. The guards had no orders. Finally they said, "Throw open the gates."
"Thousands of people then, of course, swarmed through into West Berlin and the whole game was up,” said Taylor. "By the end of the night, all the other border crossings were opened and East Berliners were swarming into West Berlin and West Berliners, for that matter, were swarming into East Berlin because - why not? You can get back again."
Former New York Times correspondent Serge Schmemann, who was there, said: “At about midnight I went to the wall and the party was in full swing. There were people dancing on top of the wall, pouring through it, and all the West Germans came with champagne. It was spilling over for hundreds of yards in all directions. It was a fabulous party that continued for several days. And that, I remember, as just one of the best parties that I’ve ever been to. It was really a moment of just high exhilaration."
In the final analysis, the Berlin wall came down without a single shot being fired. As British historian Frederick Taylor said, by the end of November 9-10 everyone felt that everything and anything was possible.
