Guenther Schabowski, the former senior East German Communist Party official who accidentally announced the opening of the Berlin Wall, has died at the age of 86, German media reported Sunday.

Schabowski, a member of and spokesman for the Soviet bloc state's ruling Politburo, was speaking at an otherwise dull news conference on Nov. 9, 1989, when he was asked by a journalist about current travel rules.

Pressure had been building on the East German government for months to grant its citizens the freedom to travel to the West and a clearly underprepared Schabowski stunned the journalists present with his answer.