24 years ago today---maybe it seems like no big deal now, but back then? The earth moved.

[DFW]

Last edited Sat Nov 9, 2013, 12:20 PM - Edit history (2)

I was with my wife taking a break from family life. It was a Friday, and we had left our two children with neighboring families of their playmates. My wife and I went up to Hamburg for the weekend, which we used to do a couple of times a year. She is from the north, and likes it up there, even though she is from the rural farm country to the northwest, and Hamburg is a big seaport city.

We got a light dinner and were relaxing in our hotel room. It was a time of turmoil in communist East Germany, since the regime there was crumbling under its own weight. Hungary had made it clear they would no longer shoot Warsaw Pact citizens trying to make it to the west (Austria, in their case), and East Germans were allowed to travel to Hungary. Thousand of East Germans were also camped out at the West German embassy in Prague, which was undergoing some changes of its own. They wouldn't shoot the East Germans, either.

Hard-line Stalinist East German boss Erich Honecker had "retired" and was replaced by the affable (on TV anyway) and apparently clueless Egon Krenz, who made a memorable TV appearance greeting what he thought were content, well-dressed East German citizens, who answered his greeting with greetings of their own--in Danish, as they were tourists from Denmark.

The East German leadership (minus Krenz) gave a press conference late in the afternoon of that Friday, November 9, 1989. We saw it on the news, only half-listening, as we knew the usual East German propaganda line by heart. It suddenly caught our ears when one of the East German officials said that East German citizens would no longer need to apply for permission to visit the West, but could, effective immediately, travel visa-free to the west. A journalist at the press conference asked if this included West Berlin as well. Günter Schabowski, the East German making the announcement, was momentarily confused, but said yes, it included West Berlin.

My wife and I looked at each other, mouths open, with "did you just hear what I just heard?" looks on our faces. Since we were 9 years old, East Germans had been killing any of their own citizens that tried to cross to West Berlin or West Germany without permission, which no non-government official ever got unless the citizen in question was being booted out permanently, was at least 65 years of age, or was allowed to travel for some purpose that brought money into the state. They even built automatic machine guns along the border that were connected to motion detectors. They killed a few East German people and a LOT of East German deer that way.

The one thing the East Germans forgot to do was inform their armed guards at the border posts, the ones with orders to shoot to kill any East German trying to go to the west. Panicked army and secret police posts were calling in saying there was an avalanche of people suddenly storming their border posts, insisting they were now allowed to go west. Luckily, at the command level, someone with a brain figured there must be something going on that they didn't know about, and told the border guards to stand down instead of shooting into the crowd (their inclination). That night, East Germans streamed into West Berlin, and the next morning, those with access to cars poured into West German cities that weren't far from the border. Hamburg is one of them (50 km from the East German border). The next morning, Hamburg was flooded with gawking East Germans, many of them having their first look ever at a western city. They were so amazed, they acted as if they were visiting another planet for the first time. They felt so foreign there, that the Germans in the west often felt the same about the Easterners. The Berliners had an easier time of it, since West Berliners could visit East Berlin on day passes, and they spoke with the same distinctive Berlin accent.

The other regimes of the Warsaw Pact soon dissolved, and the so-called "socialist" regimes of Eastern Europe dissolved. Some, like Romania, ended badly for their leaders. Most, like Czechoslovakia, just moved on. Most eastern countries are still a long way form bridging the long divide. Eastern Germany, however, has made big strides in merging with the west just one generation. A few gazillion euros grabbed from grumbling west German taxpayers were needed, but they're almost there. Suppressed political ambitions and sentiments make the eastern part still a haven for a few extremist political groups on both right and left, but for the most part, the mental unification is on the way to catching up to the political one. Pretty amazing, considering Europe's history up to then.

The breaking point came that one night, and my wife and I knew the moment we realized this was not a comedy show of some sort, that we had just been witness to one of the turning points of history.

[mgc1961]

1. That must have been quite a moment.

I really enjoyed seeing the images on the news in which people were standing on the wall, banging away at it with sledge hammers.

[cali]

2. What a great post. I love posts where I learn something

and where the learning is so easily 'digestible'.

Thanks, DFW

[gtar100]

3. That is an awesome post. I remember that time and seeing what was going on from Colorado and could

only imagine the culture shock between East and West. A very special time.

[rosesaylavee]

4. Great post!

I remember this ... we have a piece of the wall and barbed wire in our hutch in a place of honor... Bernstein's conducting the 9th Symphony that winter still makes me weep for the sheer unexpected joy that it brought people worldwide ... from the wiki page:

Political significance has attached to Beethoven's Ninth: Leonard Bernstein conducted a version of the 9th at the Brandenburg Gate, with "Freiheit" ("Freedom&quot replacing "Freude" ("Joy&quot , to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall during Christmas 1989.[38] This concert was performed by an orchestra and chorus made up of many nationalities: from Germany, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, the Chorus of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, and members of the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, the Philharmonischer Kinderchor Dresden; members of the orchestra of the Kirov Theatre; from the United Kingdom, members of the London Symphony Orchestra; from the USA, members of the New York Philharmonic; and from France, members of the Orchestre de Paris. Soloists were June Anderson, soprano, Sarah Walker, mezzo-soprano, Klaus König, tenor, and Jan-Hendrik Rootering, bass.[39] It was the last time that Bernstein conducted the symphony; he died ten months later.

[gopiscrap]

57. how cool!

[KurtNYC]

5. Great post

The sheer elation in the crowd noise of this video still brings water to my eyes:

[Martin Eden]

6. Thank you for that account at history

I was born in 1957, and grew up in the bipolar world of Mutually Assured Destruction. The lifting of the Iron Curtain and the demise of the Soviet Union are the most world-changing events since WWII.

[UtahLib]

7. Thank you so much for the first hand account

of such an historically significant event. I remember watching in awe and a full heart as people joyfully celebrated their long awaited freedom.

[Ferretherder]

8. We have to wade through so much bad news, here, on a daily basis, but...

...it's posts like this that just make my day! What a beautiful account of a major turning point in world history.

Thanks, DFW!

[AndrewRN]

9. I was there shortly after they opened the wall

In December 1989 I visited West Berlin and then East Berlin. I still have several pieces of the wall somewhere that I chiseled off the wall myself and have pics to prove it!

Visiting East Berlin was like going back in time. I remember that the east germans made you convert a certain amount of West German marks to East German marks at some ridiculous exchange rate but it you only had to get a few blocks away from the border and you could buy East German currency at a MUCH better exchange rate so that 100 west German marks got me something like 1000 east marks which was a fortune for them but pocket change for me. And since the currency was useless outside of east berlin we were almost giving it away everywhere we went, giving everyone huge tips for the littlest things.

It was also fascinating watching the east Germans wander around west Berlin, going into grocery stores and seeing row after row of food that they use to have to stand in line for hours for. Anything exotic (at least to them!) was bought out as fast as they could stock it - stuff like bananas, pineapples, stuff like that.

Those were some interesting times.

[DissidentVoice]

13. Standing in lines

One of my professors in college was originally from the former USSR.

He said that when you went to market you stood in one line to pick out what you wanted, another line to pay for it and another line to pick it up.

He also said that even if you didn't want what was on offer at the time, you bought it anyway, because you could sell it to someone else who did want it.

[wilsonbooks]

10. I remember that day well and how happy I

was that the cold war was finally over and we could start dismantling the military industrial complex. Unfortunately that didn't last long.

[cpwm17]

55. At that time George H. W. Bush managed to sell another enemy to the American people

Saddam Hussein. Many fell for the scam.

[DissidentVoice]

11. Quite well I remember it

My dad sat in his recliner wiping away tears.

He had been in the Army in West Germany when the first stages of the East being sealed off by the Soviets had started.

He said, "I never in my lifetime thought I'd see that damn wall come down. I remember once we were put on alert to go to Berlin because it seemed like the Russians were going to start something. We were a bunch of 19-20 year olds in the barracks shitting ourselves wondering what was going to happen."

My aunt lived in Alsace (part of France but ethnically German; a lot of my forebears came from there) in the mid-'60s and she and a bunch of the other family went to East Berlin. She told me it took three hours to get through Checkpoint Charlie, the East Germans confiscated most of the food they were taking to friends in the East and that once they did get through..."most of the rubble from the War still hadn't been cleaned up, no-one would talk to you in public, there was nothing to buy in the shops and we always felt like we were being watched."

[DFW]

12. The time before everyone sobered up was like floating on air

Last edited Sun Nov 10, 2013, 10:21 AM - Edit history (1)

The optimism was everywhere. A few pessimistic realists were already warning of the costs of reunification, but no one yet wanted to hear that. The West German morning talk shows (their version of Today and Good Morning America) were sometimes being held live from East Berlin, co-hosted with members of the interim government. Easterners and Westerners were dancing every night on top of the Wall like long lost brothers.

A friend of mine from Holland made some contacts with some people from Saxony (Leipzig, specifically) and drove all the way out there to visit them. He said it was like going back in time where everything functioning was from an antique shop. The telephones in use, all rotary, of course, unless you were a high government official, had been in use since the 1940s, sometimes still with the swastika emblem underneath.

The aftermath was very sobering, with a lot of ill will due to dashed expectations of instant prosperity in the east, greedy speculators from the west, and increased taxes in the west (the so-called "solidarity supplement, which was never cancelled, and now even gets attached to my income taxes, since I am now an official full-time resident).

But during those first few months, it seemed like Beethoven's 9th Symphony lyrics, "Alle Menschen werden Brüder (all people will become brothers)" were becoming reality.

[DissidentVoice]

14. "Ostalgie"

Now some people in the former East Germany are actually nostalgic for the "old days"...in German it's called "Ostalgie."

[DFW]

18. Yes, we've heard this often enough.

There are people who remembered like as having a slower pace, and no worries about where your next meal was coming from.

What they had to sacrifice to have these minimal guarantees was either quickly forgotten or, in some cases, never even seen as a sacrifice. Sort of like a local politician in a red state who has always been on the taxpayer payroll, never traveled or been to college, and hates "libbruls" because they are often from the north and have funny accents, and want to change their way of life (or so they fear). People who adapted well to life in East Germany often adapted badly to life in a western country. On the other hand, I have a friend in Dresden who is perfectly at home in the new Germany. He still speaks with a horrible (to my ears) Saxon accent, but he's a laid-back, dynamic, younger (to me, that is, he's in his early forties) guy who not only doesn't long for the old days, he doesn't even consider them relevant to his life now. He is truly a citizen of Germany, neither east nor west.

[DissidentVoice]

33. Er nicht beklagen "Beßerweßis?"

My German is a lot closer to that spoken in Alsace, and in Switzerland.

I would have a strange accent to your ears!

So I take it your friend in Dresden does not complain about "Besserwessis?"

That is good...like you said, the trade-offs for a more "stable" life were not worth it.

I wouldn't like knowing the Stasi had their noses in everything I did.

The skater, Katarina Witt, was an East German. The sport authorities there were so obsessed with her not becoming pregnant that they detailed someone (who had to have been dedicated!) to go through her trash and make sure there were used feminine hygiene products in there!

[DFW]

35. Nein, er beklägt keine Besserwessies

Nicht in meiner Gegenwart, jedenfalls.

He is pretty laid back anyway. I don't think regional animosity is in his DNA. Kati Witt was a propaganda darling of the SED regime. She cashed in on her skating ability and looks for travel privileges as long as it lasted. Now, she has vanished from the public eye. She'll probably be trotted out for talk shows on even anniversaries (probably this time next year).

[MADem]

41. My friend has relatives who are elderly now, and who got stuck behind the wall.

They are still healthy and they travel on occasion. Every time they come to USA, they are stunned anew at how friendly and welcoming everyone is. I think they expect to be derided for their past associations, or something. All they ever get is "Bet you were glad when that wall came down, eh?" or something on those lines.

They're both "set in their ways" with a bit of an authoritarian mindset and, because they like a bit of travel, "adventurous." Funny combo; nice folks, though. Of course, I don't speak German, but they seem pleasant enough! They could be saying "Who is this asshole?" and my friend is translating that as "Nice ta meetcha!"

[DissidentVoice]

52. As long as you don't hear "Arschloch"

They're not calling you an asshole!

[MADem]

53. Hee hee! nt

[Blanks]

15. I took a bus tour of the wall when I was in the Army...

(Not the berlin wall - the fence running between the divided country) In 1982 or 1983. I was in Nuremberg from 80 to 83.

On the tour we stopped at a wide spot in the road and looked at an East German textile factory. They told us that occasionally the girls would come to the windows and wave. If they did the guide told us - don't wave back because they have high resolution zoom cameras. They took pictures and sent photos of people waving through the chain of command and if they had a picture of you waving - you would be punished. Sounded like a bullshit story to me, but I didn't wave at anyone on the other side. Which wasn't difficult because I didn't actually see anyone that I can recall. We literally went through hell and back (although it was spelled different). There is a community named hell. Apparently, they had some kind of hot springs that discharged steam with sulfur, certain times of year it looked like hell (or so the your guide told us).

I'd like to go back and see how much different things are. It was beautiful countryside with a huge unattractive fence running through it. It's hard to believe that the countries were reunited so long ago.

[truebluegreen]

16. Not to nitpick, but it was 24 years ago.

I got married that year so I remember...also remember I was at an Arlo Guthrie show that night. Not proud...or tired! If you want to end war and stuff you got to sing loud.

[DFW]

19. You are so right

And I knew that, too. 9+4 after all. That'll teach me to stay up late on a Friday when I have work to do the next day.

24 it is, and I have edited the OP.

[sulphurdunn]

17. Yes, momentous in more ways than one.

While the fall of the Berlin Wall rent the Iron Curtain and liberated millions of people, the collapse of the Soviet Empire also accelerated the financialization of the world economy, the rapid decline of democratic institutions, the middle class and anything else no longer useful to the security interests and profit strategies of global capital.

[mountain grammy]

20. Yep, from one extreme to another,

but the euphoria in between was pretty awesome.

[mountain grammy]

21. Nice post, thank you.

[libdem4life]

22. Imagine there is no heaven It's easy if you try No hell below us Above us only sky

Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too

Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You, you may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you will join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You, you may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you will join us
And the world will live as one

[trof]

23. The Man Who Opened the Berlin Wall:

"On November 9th 1989, Harald Jäger wanted his night shift at the East Berlin border crossing at Bornholmer Strasse to go quietly. Instead, Jäger opened the first crack in the Berlin Wall and helped make history."
http://www.thelocal.de/20091107/23091

Last summer I helped my daughter (a travel agent) arrange a dinner meeting with Jaeger in Berlin for a class from a Colorado high school who were studying the cold war.
It's a long, complicated story of my internet research and sleuthing, but we were all very pleased with the outcome.

[trof]

24. Here's link to my OP back in April. Interesting story.

trof: Internet Sleuth...the final act: Update

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1018376636

[randome]

25. Our own Berlin Wall is crumbling: the GOP.

The moment when it becomes all too obvious will happen swiftly, IMO, despite the glacial-like prelude.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Birds are territorial creatures.
The lyrics to the songbird's melodious trill go something like this:
"Stay out of my territory or I'll PECK YOUR GODDAMNED EYES OUT!"[/center][/font][hr]

[DFW]

26. These events are like a dam that has stood for a century

Last edited Sat Nov 9, 2013, 01:03 PM - Edit history (1)

First, little cracks appear, but they are deemed insignificant. Then the cracks get bigger, and some notice.

All of a sudden, the cracks become fissures, and before anyone has noticed, the dam breaks and the flood waters of history are flowing faster than anyone imagined possible.

[randome]

30. Nicely put.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]

[gopiscrap]

27. That's right

I remember that. My uncle escaped from the guards over the wall before I was born. I remember when Kennedy came to Berlin we couldn't take a train to see him because of that. So we flew from Frankfurt to Berlin the day before. I remember watching (in America) the news that night and just being absolutely amazed and filled with joy. The "Wall" had been a part of my life since birth and always a cultural sorrow. Finally it was down!

[TrogL]

28. I remember the picture of the guard on the wall

...standing there with this look on his face. He had grown up in the security that The Wall would always be there and now his career and his life were melting in front of his eyes

[Spitfire of ATJ]

29. I remember in the 70s and there were border checkpoints with guards with machine guns....

Then I went in the 90s and the same borders are more like the California Fruit Inspection.

[PeoViejo]

31. I remember almost getting shot at a checkpoint in Lubec in 1967

I was in the Navy. Our ship had stopped in Hamburg for a Week. One of the tours we were invited on was a trip to the East German Border. We had a nice Lunch with the West German Border Patrol guards in their Mess, then were escorted down to a border checkpoint by one of the guards. It was explained to us that no NATO troops were allowed within a certain distance and they had to get special permission to take us there, since we were in uniform. We were standing at the barrier on the West German side and could see the East German Border Guards a short distance down the road. So I hand my camera to one of my shipmates, duck under the barrier and run over to a sign on the East German side that says in multiple languages that I was in the GDR.
The West German Border Guard had a Meltdown, screaming that I was standing in a Minefield, while in the distance, you could hear the VOPOs cocking their weapons. They were not happy...

[Hissyspit]

32. I remember it well.

The weird confusing press conference. That's back when CNN was still useful.

[DFW]

34. The hotel probably had CNN, but we watched it on ARD

We switched back and forth, ARD to ZDF to NDR. It just sounded so incredible, we made sure that all German channels were reporting the same thing. If they had reported that a ship from Mars had landed and the first thing they asked for was a Burger King franchise for their planet, we wouldn't have been any more surprised.

Schabowski seemed like a fish out of water while he was reading the new regulations. Understandable, since he was reading the first lines of the story of the demise of his State, and only seemed to grasp that halfway through. He also probably wasn't clear on how much of what he was telling the public was supposed to be revealed at that moment. The news had been intended for later that evening, so as to give the border posts time to be told not to shoot at anyone trying to cross the border. Only the sheer masses of people coming at once to the border posts gave the guards the hint that this was not some ordinary protest group, and that they would run out of bullets before they killed everyone storming their posts trying to get into the West.

[Hissyspit]

36. I remember staying up all night on CNN headline News

I was in Chapel Hill at the time and thought it was incredible.

[DFW]

42. We didn't get a lot of sleep that night either.

We were wondering what the Soviet Union would have to say about all this, but Gorbachev wisely let things take their course. He is still considered a hero today in all of Germany for not sending in the tanks like his predecessors.

[OldEurope]

47. I was pregnant with my first child, then.

Gave birth in January 1990 and proudly named my son Michael, after Gorbatchev! There was so much joy and hope all over Europe, and Gorbatchev made it possible!

[GreenStormCloud]

37. I remember, as a teen, watching the evening news as the wall went up.

I was sad and angry when it went up.

I watched, 28 years later, as an adult, as it came down. I cheered for I knew it meant the cold war was almost over, and we had won.

Two more years later, communism collapsed and I danced for joy, in my living room. I knew the nuclear standoff was about to end. My daughter would grow up without nukes pointed at her.

[FourScore]

38. I was in Berlin when the wall fell. It was an amazing experience. n/t

[DFW]

62. In Berlin, the air must have been like it was full of static electricity

The emotions flowing must have been 100 X what they were in the west.

[Hekate]

39. Even from California, it was staggering. I was 13 when they built the Wall...

... and thought it would always be there, the very embodiment of the Iron Curtain. To witness it coming down, even from afar, was nothing short of staggering. Lucky you, to have been practically on the spot.

[Uncle Joe]

40. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for sharing, DFW.

[dipsydoodle]

43. K & R

Thanks for posting.

[DFW]

44. Very few of us get to experience a "you were there" moment of history like that

I figured it was too big an event to let pass. Thanks for reliving it with us. A few DUers were there, too, I see.

[MadrasT]

45. Thanks for writing this.

The wall caused an ache in my heart I don't know how to describe any other way. I couldn't understand how it was even possible that such a thing existed. Then seeing it with my own eyes in 1976... the soldiers, the dogs, barbed wire and minefields and machine guns.... There is not enough space or time to explain further how deep this ran in me.

German history and culture is a significant part of my DNA and life experience (though I am a US citizen).

I remember this time well - the amazement, the sheer joy, the euphoria.

I am not one to save newspapers or much stuff for sentimental reasons, and I think the only newspaper I have saved with my treasured documents is the one with the headline of this news.

My husband was able to travel there in the first week... he experienced it first hand and I was forever envious that he had that opportunity to be a witness to history. (He did bring me some wall fragments from Berlin that I still have.)

Thank you for the reminder of that time.

[DFW]

64. I traveled to Leipzig a few weeks after reunification

The old eastern institutions (VEBs etc.) were still intact, and many of the people working there still treated their "customers" as if they were State officials who couldn't be bothered, even though that status had officially ended a few weeks before. It took some time for that mentality to disappear.

As an ironic note, there was an article in the international edition of the New York Times today about how the flight attendants on the Russian Airline, Aeroflot, known for being somewhere between uncaring and nasty in the Soviet days, are now among the most friendly and attentive. It seems the Russians have learned that good service does have its good sides.

In the old Soviet days, my father was with a group of journalists traveling with some president or other, and the ones not on Air Force One were in an Aeroflot plane from Moscow to Leningrad. They got served a meal with some unfamiliar kind of fish. One of the American journalists dared to ask one of the Aeroflot flight staff what kind of fish it was. Insulted as if he had asked her to reveal deep state secrets, she snarled, "Russian fish!" From that day on, whenever anyone in my family got served anything they couldn't instantly identify, it was instantly classified as "Russian fish!"

[Diclotican]

46. DFW

DFW

I do remember that day rather well - even as I was in 5th grade at the time - when the Berlin Wall, who had been a wall of "shame" in Most of Europe finally got teared down so to speak - not by war, or by politicians but by the people of East Germany who got tired of the old regime - and deiced to make it on their own....

Even though I was not there in Person, I saw most of it by the news - at that time of age, at least in Norway we had one Channel (NRK) and we have even evening news then, from real journalists- and at the time when the evening news was aired me and my brother was eating our supper - and soon going to bed - from the living room we kind of airdropped to the news - and was asked to come in - something that was not to often under the news - and was seeing it all on TV - the east germans who poured into West Berlin - and the border guards who was in a state of shock over what was happening.... Even as I was rather young then - I do understood that something specially was happening - something that have never happened before....

Of course - in the 20 or so years later I have read a lot, and also seen a few documentaries about that time in the world - and it is still interesting to se how Europe is still formed by what happened in 1989 - and that the end of the cold war - and the end of the Berlin wall is still entranced in most peoples mind.. I fear it will take a least a generation to make the berlin wall disappear in the heads of the grown ups - and they who was young when the cold war ended...

And it is also intesting to have seen the power of the people - it was in many ways not the leaders - the kings or queens - or politicians who made this change happened - but the will of the people against leader who they do not trusted anymore - and would get out of office... It happened in Eastern Germany - it can happened everywhere - and I think we as the human race, could learn something from this... Even the most autoritan and strong regimes - can, and will in time be turned over, if enough people got tired of their misgovernance... When the east germans got enough - they rather peacefully tried to solve it - but was given a cold shoulder by the government, who used riot police against them in the fall of 1989 - but people was not intimated by it - and continued to show the power of the people - and in the end it ended as it did - when people in Eastern Berlin was walking to the Wall - and over to the West - the border guard kind of in the dust just looking and wondering what was happening... The smart ones maybe understood that something was up before they was ordered to stand down.. Or in some cases they might as well have been sympathetic to the demonstrations and to the fact, that east germans wanted a change...

The world changed at that evening - the world was not the same the next day - or in the years following that time...

Diclotican

[DFW]

48. To put a variation of Obama famous phrase

The East Germans could have said "yes we can," but they didn't know it at the time.

After November 9th, it was more like, "oh, we could?"

[Diclotican]

54. DFW

DFW

It have been written tonnes of documents about what happened around the 0th november 1989 in East Germany - many experts, historians about the cold war - and of the end of that war - have in the two decades after the berlin wall tried and failed again and again to tell about why the people in eastern Berlin decided it was time to do it, as they did tearing down the Berlin wall and in a way unite the two german states again. But somehow I do believe for whatever great books they have written, have not been able to explain for us, why it happened.. They have been able to explain the "system" behind it all - but not WHY east germans, who for more than 40 year had been disciplined by an rather authorian regime - and who also had the fear of the STASI to make them think twice about doing anything to harm the STATE...

My personal opinion about it, after been reading more or less reputable books of the subjects - is that most eastern germans just got tired about the harassment they had experienced by the police and to a degree also the para-military police forces in eastern germany - in 1989, I believe the east german people lost their fear of the STASI, once and for all - it was also clear that the 100.000 soviet soldier who was standing on East German ground, as part of the cold war - and also as a warning to the east german State, about making any moves the russians was not willing to accept. Had their orders - to NOT interfering with east german internal affairs - as long as the eastern german people was not interfering or attacking russian soldiers or officers and offices.. And the east germans was not harming the russians at all - in fact for the most part they acted against the STATE of Eastern Germany - not against the russians - after all, germans had some experience with melding with russians.... And had no interest in involving them into something that was internal for eastern germany..
After the cold war ended, it come out that the government of east germany asked the Soviet army stationed in East Germany to help them quell the civil obedience - but was told by the soviet commander itself - that had his orders - and that was to not interfere with something that was not in their interest to interfering with - and also that they was welcome to call Kremlin - but was given more or less the same answer there.. As long as the eastern germany people was not trying to attack the russian forces - no help was given..

And by the end of 9th of November - East Germany kind of imploded on itself - not in a "Nuclear" form, but rather with a "wimp" as the people was just walking true the checkpoints - and tearing the dam wall down themself... It was no need for a war to tear down that wall after all - just Peopole who got tired about repression, and wanted to be free..

That is maybe something to learn from the past - even in the US - that if you really want to be free - you have to do it yourself - not letting "others" do it for you...

And even then - it was not until later, most east germans got the news - about the wall and the final days of the cold war - remember the information was controlled by the STATE in Eastern germany even after the fall of the wall - and it took days for people inside DDR to really got to know what have happened in Berlin that evening... This was before internet - and 24/7 newschannels...

But I do remember the optimism - and the belief that the eastern part of europe could be a part of a unified europe in no time.. The enormous differences between the eastern part of europe - and the western part of europe was less known than it have been since - and the terrible civil war in Yugoslavia was still not known... In a few years it was believed that the last part of the cold war could just disappear - now 24 years later - the ghost of the cold war - and even the end of WW2 is still very well part of our history - and the ghost from that age - is still in the background, in the shadows in many part of our continent... Europe is still very well in the Shadow of our own history..

Diclotican

[Sunlei]

49. wonder what would happen if mexico pulled down "their side" of that fence?

lot of good scrap metal abandoned on "their side"

[DFW]

50. Germany was a special kind of situation that history has rarely duplicated

When the "DDR" was set up, the Soviets used to refer to them as "our Germans," which did not exactly inspire solidarity except with the privileged party bosses and their families, who were perfectly content to be "their Germans" as long as they kept their perks.

On the other hand, many in the West found the people in the East to have developed such a different mentality that they would have preferred that East German remain a different country. The whole sudden change caught many people flat-footed, and they didn't know how to cope with it.

I remember a friend who had been at a hotel on the North Sea coast where a family of East Germans asked, upon checking in, "what time is breakfast?" They were told between 7AM and 10 AM. They said, "yes, of course, but when is OUR breakfast?" The confused hotel worker repeated "between 7 and 10." Exasperated, the East Germans asked again, "yes, we get that, but when are we, specifically, supposed to have breakfast?" Equally exasperated, the western Hotel receptionist repeated, "any time you want between 7 and 10!" In East Germany, hotels assigned you a specific hour when you were to have breakfast: "you will be at 7, and you will be at 8," and so on. The concept of being able to choose to have breakfast whenever the hell they felt like it was a totally foreign idea to the East Germans, whose control-freak society didn't allow for hotel guests to make such decisions on their own.

[Sunlei]

51. very interesting story about the breakfast, so many people died in try to cross that border

just made me wonder about mexicos wall. hundreds of people also die because they have to travel through deserts.

makes me wonder what would happen if say a bunch of Mexican tow trucks went to different areas hooked up and pulled in 'their' wall. just my imagination wondering about walls between countries and what happens if people tear them down.

even in east/ west wall..the govs could have slaughtered everyone. makes me wonder if Mexican and American gov would slaughter people who tore down our wall. They shoot or arrest and prison them one by one, would they slaughter hundreds or thousands?

[leanforward]

56. The Cold War

Thanks for your story. I was a military brat teenager during cold war europe in the mid 50s. What you told brought back were a lot of memories of my life in the communication zone (france). We were always aware of the iron curtain. I was amazed when the wall came down.
More amazing was all of this was accomplished without a nuclear catastrophe.

[Aristus]

58. I arrived in Germany, my first duty station, 2 days after the Wall came down.

I was there for the aftermath, the cautiously optimistic exodus of Eastern Germans into the West, and the eventual re-unification.

It was an amazing time to be alive and in Germany.



Me and a friend at the former border with East Germany, near Coburg.

[RFKHumphreyObama]

59. I can't even begin to imagine what that was like

Thanks for sharing that, DFW. You and your wife were truly fortunate to have being first-hand witnesses to such a momentous time in history.

Unfortunately -and to my regret -I have no memories of the fall of the Berlin Wall (by that, I mean the news coverage -I was living in Southeast Asia, which was nowhere near the Berlin Wall, at the time). My political awakening and my obsessive passion for history and politics was only just beginning (I was eight at the time of the events you describe) and had not yet developed to the extent that I took an active interest in news and current affairs. But, even in my blissful state of ignorance, I knew enough to take for granted that there were some things in the world that were as they were and would never change. There was an East Germany and a West Germany, there was the Soviet Union and the United States, Nelson Mandela was a political prisoner and had languished in jail at the hands of a racist regime for years on end, there were western hostages in Lebanon who were being held indefinitely and the list goes on.

And then suddenly there wasn't. Every preconceived notion I had of the world and the way things were just seemed to fall away over the space of two years. The reunification of Germany, the collapse of communism, the release of Mandela, the release of the western hostages in Lebanon and the list goes on. Suddenly everything seemed to be changing for the better and there was an unbelievable environment of hope, idealism and optimism about the future. It was impossible not to get caught up in it. Around about the time that Mandela was released, I began to watch the news and follow current events much more closely and I watched the world transform before my eyes as it happened. It was absolutely surreal and I doubt I'll ever see anything like it again.

While I don't remember the fall of the Berlin Wall, I do remember watching the news on the night that Germany officially became one nation again. Again, I have no words to describe what it felt like watching all that happen than that it felt absolutely surreal. Big things and big changes were happening

In 2011, I visited the Berlin and saw what was left of the Berlin Wall. It was amazing to me that I could stand in different areas and be in either what was once East Germany or in West Germany . I saw all the art on the remaining parts of the wall -Brezhnev kissing Honnecker and the like. Absolutely amazing

Again, thanks for sharing your experiences with this, DFW and it was great you got to witness history in the making. That's not going to be something you'll forget in your lifetime

[Javaman]

60. When it happened I couldn't believe it.

I thought it would never happen in my lifetime.

Then when the soviet union collapsed, I remember staring at the TV in utter amazement.

[Romulox]

61. Remember the phrase "Peace dividend"? It was a comedy, of sorts. nt

[Lydia Leftcoast]

63. I was teaching college at the time, and

my department chair taught German. His office was next to mine.

I heard the phone ringing in his office, then an astonished "What?"

A few minutes later, he came into my office, looking shell-shocked. &quot His daughter away at college) just called. She heard from CNN that the Berlin Wall is coming down."

This was momentous news, because 28 years before, my mother's cousin had been stationed in Berlin with the U.S. military, and when he came home on leave after being transferred back to the States, he showed everyone home movies of the Berlin Wall being built.

[DFW]

66. Even in the western German leftist student press, the wall was blasted

Much of the western German student press, just about 100% of which was left-leaning in the 1970s and 1980s (still is, really), was not controlled by Eastern financing (though plenty was), and those publications that tended to overlook any negative aspects of living in the east still thought the wall was a blasphemy to human dignity. I remember a calendar for the new year in 1981. It marked August 13th, the official date the wall was put up, with the rhyme: Zwanzig Jahre Mauer, Wir werden langsam sauer." It means, roughly, "twenty years of the Wall, we are starting to get pissed."

[hfojvt]

65. "Mr. Gorbachev. tear down this wall!"

er, I mean, uhm.

Yeah, I was pretty shocked by the collapse of all those iron curtain countries. I did not think that would ever happen.

Yet at the same time, I am not all that impressed with Russian "democracy". Seems like they quickly got themselves a new Tsar. And I think the same is true of many of the former members of the USSR - Ukraine, Byelorussia, etc.

I even read things like "Hungary is no longer a democracy" http://www.newstatesman.com/austerity-and-its-discontents/2013/04/hungary-no-longer-democracy

Thank goodness the DDR had somewhere to go.

Too bad about poor Bonn though.

[DFW]

67. Bonn was always a sleepy, pretty college town on the Rhein.

It just went back to being pretty much that. It was the one thing the Easterners insisted on to bring about full unification: that Berlin once again be the capital. The West Germans weren't happy about it, as they thought that a Germany with Berlin as the capital brought back too many unpleasant memories, whereas a Germany with Bonn as the capital left the impressions of a docile pacifist Germany. The Germans in the west also found Bonn to be hugely practical, as they could just jump on a train and be in Amsterdam, Brussels or Paris in a few hours. Now they always have to fly.

Russia was a HUGE disappointment. Germany had a model that was in place and could be improved upon. The east just merged into it. But Russia had only the Czars and the Bolsheviks as historical precedent. They held elections, but Yeltsin was a heavy alcoholic, and just wasn't the man to lead the country to an enlightened democracy. Gorbachev might have, but departed the scene on his own accord, figuring (probably correctly) that even an enlightened communist was not the man to lead a post-communist Russia. Putin had no such qualms, and made himself Czar with another name. Dissident businessmen and journalists who are not murdered outright get jailed or exiled, and though you can get rich if you shut up and play along, the slightest misstep lands you penniless and in a dungeon.

The buffer states of Byelorossiya and the Ukraine are back in place. Hungary is a blank to me. I was there two years ago with my wife, and we had a good time (nem értem magyarul!), but as tourists in a country that depends heavily on tourism, you rarely get exposed to any inner turmoil before it boils over into full-scale rebellion.