Completed Collaborative Project of the Centre for Contemporary History, Potsdam (ZZF), The Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the former GDR (BStU) and Bild Deutschland

Project management:
Hans-Hermann Hertle, Centre for Contemporary History, Potsdam (ZZF)
Dagmar Hovestädt, The Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the former GDR (BStU)
Hans-Wilhelm Saure, Bild

Team:
Bettina Korge (BStU), Madleen Kamrath (Bild, Social Media), Vincent Schaarschmidt (ZZF)

On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Center for Contemporary History Potsdam (ZZF), the Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the former GDR (BStU) and Bild initiated the joint Twitter project "Heute vor 25 Jahren - @ Mauerfall89"

(https://twitter.com/Mauerfall89).

From 19 August to 12 November 2014, the tweets, wherever possible in real-time, told the breathtaking events on the road to the peaceful revolution and the fall of the Berlin Wall: from the massive emigration of East German citizens and the problems of the diplomats in the overcrowded West German embassies in Prague and else where, the swelling citizens' protests and demonstrations in East Germany, the increasingly hectic reports of the Stasi, the threatening state bankruptcy of East Germany and the growing chaos in the communist party leadership up to the super-GAU in the history of the press conferences on 9 November 1989, the breakthrough of the Berlin Wall and the two days after.

With partially unpublished original documents of the Stasi, the Foreign Office, police archives and dossiers of the West German intelligence service (BND), but also with articles and pictures from the archive of the Axel Springer SE and the background information of the website www.chronik-der-mauer.de, contemporary history should be told in a digital medium, especially for new, young target groups who had not experienced the events themselves.

14,400 users followed the account @ mauerfall89, including numerous prominent members from the Federal Government, the Bundestag, the German Foreign Office, German embassies and consulates, the parties as well as the media. 1,456 tweets generated 28,100 retweets, 17,100 annotations, and 41,500 link clicks, especially on the BStU homepage and the Chronicle of the Wall website. The tweets of the account received a total of 17.8 million impressions; the strongest day was 9 November 1989 with 1.582 million impressions, followed by 10 November 1989 with 1.152 million impressions.

„Heute vor 25 Jahren - @Mauerfall89“ was able to show that with only 140 characters it is possible to arouse the interest of young target groups in contemporary history topics and increase reputation among traditional target groups.

The Twitter project won the German Prize for Online Communication 2015 in the "Campaign of Institutions" category in June 2015.