The Fall of the Berlin Wall and Namibian Independence

Abstract The Berlin Wall was breached as Namibia’s first democratic election was being conducted. It is therefore wrong to say that the fall of the Berlin Wall ushered in Namibia’s independence. That independence was on track when the Wall fell. But the fall of the Wall, and the associated collapse of the state socialist regimes of Eastern Europe, had significant consequences for the form of independence that emerged in Namibia in 1990.