There were throngs of people, fireworks and giant tumbling dominoes at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate on Monday night — all to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

I have been to Berlin several times over the years, but no, I wasn’t at the wall Nov. 9, 1989, when “die Mauer” (the wall) that had divided not only Berlin but Europe started literally to crumble and East Berliners came rushing through.

I did, however, pass through the wall at Checkpoint Charlie five months earlier, in June 1989, at a time when the viability of the separation of the two Germanys was just beginning to be challenged seriously for the first time since the wall was erected in August 1961.

I had been in West Germany on a Rotary-sponsored visit to the West German state of North-Rhine Westfalia. The visit ended in Berlin, and we stayed an additional few days in Berlin to begin a trip to Czechoslovakia and Austria before returning home.

Even then, signs of a strain in the division of Germany were appearing, as a few East Germans made their way through Czechoslovakia and Hungary to unauthorized vacations in the West.

At that time, and until the last few weeks of the divided Germany, the right to travel abroad freely was the paramount issue. There wasn’t any serious public discussion in June 1989 about ending the division of Germany — and with it, the Cold War.

Anyway, after being told at an American Express office in West Berlin that it would take two weeks to obtain a visa to visit Czechoslovakia, we learned that it might be easier to obtain a Czech visa in East Berlin.

We traveled in a rental car through Checkpoint Charlie to the East German Travel Bureau in Alexanderplatz, and the young woman at the counter was quite helpful (in contrast to the dismissive woman at the American Express). She said we would have to stay at least one night in East Berlin to obtain a visa the next morning at the Czech Embassy.

We want back to West Berlin, checked out of our hotel and headed back to East Berlin, again via Checkpoint Charlie. There, the futility of the East German government’s attempt to hold its citizens in check became absurdly evident.

After waiting in line (a Checkpoint Charlie tradition), we reached the guard station. A woman border guard stepped over to the car, asked for our passports, took them into the office and, after a few minutes, brought them back to us. She then looked in the backseat of the car, pointed at a copy of that morning’s edition of the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper lying on the back seat, and shouted “Das ist verboten!” (forbidden).

I was surprised, since I hadn’t thought anything about the paper, knowing full well that nearly every East Berliner had for years been able to watch West Berlin television newscasts to find out what was happening in the West and the rest of the world.

Nevertheless, the border guard ordered me to get out of the car and to open the rear door and grab the paper. She marched me into the office, where she pointed at a waste-paper basket. I tossed the Morgenpost into it. She nodded in approval and pointed for me to return to the car. We headed through Checkpoint Charlie to our hotel.

Well then, the guard had performed her duty. No East Berliner was going to be brainwashed by anti-proletarian, imperialist news from West Berlin on her watch. Except, of course, if they wanted to turn on their TV sets and watch the evening newscast from West Berlin.

Modern communications, especially television and the advent of the Internet, along with transportation advances, had made it impossible for the rigid Stalinist-style government in East Germany to maintain its tight hold on the minds and actions of its citizens.

At that point in June 1989, it seemed residents of East Germany mostly wanted more freedom to travel. But in the falling months, as evidenced by the mass marches in Leipzig, there was also a growing protest against oppressive control of their lives. As we discovered only five months later, they gained a whole lot more than less-restrictive travel when the wall started coming down Nov. 9, 1989.

As the large dominoes that tumbled one after another Monday night at the Brandenburg Gate symbolized, once the Berlin Wall was breached, the demise of the East German government, Soviet control of the Eastern Bloc nations and the breakup of the Soviet Union itself followed in rapid order. The Cold War was over.

And, oh yes, Checkpoint Charlie soon became a museum piece, and no doubt the border guard had to find a new job. I doubt it was in public relations.

• Sam Matthews, Tracy Press publisher emeritus, can be reached at 830-4234 or by e-mail at shm@tracypress.com.