Officials had intended to phase in changes the next day, but the mass of people hastened the Wall`s rapid fall.
The measures were intended to stem an exodus to Hungary amid mass protests.
Less than a year later, East and West Germany were reunited into one country, ending 45 years of division.
`Without delay`
Mr Schabowski was a spokesman for the East German regime in 1989, when Communist governments across Eastern Europe were facing a wave of popular protest.
The government had decided to make it easier for East Germans to travel to Western Europe, in an attempt to curb a flood of people crossing into Hungary, which had itself opened its western borders.
And asked when the changes would come into effect, he said: "This occurs, to my knowledge... immediately... without delay."
In 1997, Mr Schabowski was jailed for three years for his role in East Germany`s policy of shooting those who tried to cross into the West, but was pardoned after a year.
In 2009 he wrote an autobiography denouncing the regime as being fatally flawed.
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