Riccardo Ehrman, the ANSA journalist known as the man who brought down the Berlin Wall, died today in Madrid at the age of 92.
His wife Margherita communicated this to ANSA.
Ehrman gained international notoriety for having posed - as ANSA correspondent in East Berlin - the crucial question about the Wall in the press conference held on the evening of November 9, 1989 by Guenter Schabowski, the spokesman for the East German CP politburo, who was in a a certain sense induced by the Italian journalist to make the big announcement.
Schabowski had spoken of measures in favor of a liberalization in the travel regime for the citizens of the GDR, who could freely travel abroad in private. It was then that Ehrman asked 'But when do these new rules come into force?'. Schabowski put his hand in his jacket pocket where he had some sheets of paper, looked at them and then replied: 'As far as I know, right away, from now on'. Words that had a bombshell effect on East German citizens, many of whom had seen the press conference live on TV. Thousands of East Berliners began flocking to crossing points along the Wall to see if what they had heard on television was true.Ehrman was recognized in the evening at Friedrichstrasse station by many of those who had followed the TV and was carried in triumph. Regularly every year, as November 9, the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, approached, newspapers, radios and televisions from Germany, Italy and other countries sought out Riccardo Ehrman for interviews and re-enactments of that memorable day. After working in Canada and New York, Ehrman in the mid-1970s was sent by ANSA as a correspondent in East Berlin; in 1982 he moved to the correspondence office in New Delhi, to return to East Berlin in 1985. In 1991 he assumed responsibility for the ANSA office in Madrid, where he remained until retirement. Ehrman lived with his wife Margherita in the historic center of the Spanish capital, whom he loved so much.Of Polish-Jewish origin, he was born in Florence on November 4, 1929. At the age of 13 he was locked up in the internment camp of Ferramonti di Tarsia, in the province of Cosenza, where he was freed by the British in September 1943. He leaves a son from his first marriage .
