Ex-GDR official whose blunder brought down Berlin Wall dies

Former German Democratic Republic official Guenter Schabowski, who died on Sunday at age 86, went down in history for a slip of the tongue in 1989 that inadvertently brought down the Berlin Wall.

The former spokesman of the Politburo of the GDR's ruling Socialist Unity Party, or SED, died in Berlin, his widow, Irina, told news agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur.

After months of mass protests against the government and GDR citizens fleeing via Czechoslovakia and Hungary, the Politburo asked the government in 1989 to prepare a law loosening restrictions on travel outside the country.