The Berlin Wall: Another Cold War Myth
October 22, 2014
A Response to Economic Sabotage
The Berlin Wall: Another Cold War Myth
by WILLIAM BLUM
November 9 will mark the 25th anniversary of the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. The extravagant hoopla began months ago in Berlin. In the United States we can expect all the Cold War clichés about The Free World vs. Communist Tyranny to be trotted out and the simple tale of how the wall came to be will be repeated: In 1961, the East Berlin communists built a wall to keep their oppressed citizens from escaping to West Berlin and freedom. Why? Because commies don’t like people to be free, to learn the “truth”. What other reason could there have been?
First of all, before the wall went up in 1961 thousands of East Germans had been commuting to the West for jobs each day and then returning to the East in the evening; many others went back and forth for shopping or other reasons. So they were clearly not being held in the East against their will. Why then was the wall built? There were two major reasons:
1) The West was bedeviling the East with a vigorous campaign of recruiting East German professionals and skilled workers, who had been educated at the expense of the Communist government. This eventually led to a serious labor and production crisis in the East. As one indication of this, the New York Times reported in 1963: “West Berlin suffered economically from the wall by the loss of about 60,000 skilled workmen who had commuted daily from their homes in East Berlin to their places of work in West Berlin.”
It should be noted that in 1999, USA Today reported: “When the Berlin Wall crumbled [1989], East Germans imagined a life of freedom where consumer goods were abundant and hardships would fade. Ten years later, a remarkable 51% say they were happier with communism.” Earlier polls would likely have shown even more than 51% expressing such a sentiment, for in the ten years many of those who remembered life in East Germany with some fondness had passed away; although even 10 years later, in 2009, the Washington Post could report: “Westerners [in Berlin] say they are fed up with the tendency of their eastern counterparts to wax nostalgic about communist times.”
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/10/22/the-berlin-wall-another-cold-war-myth/
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I'll never forget climbing one of the lookout points in West Berlin to look over the Wall and seeing that minefield and the obstacles to prevent escape. To think that so many people risked (and often died) trying to cross that to get to the West boggles the mind. A sight that I will never forget.
It was a great day when that abomination was torn down.
had the writer, you know, actually tried to TALK to people who once lived on the other side of the wall to get a full perspective...We used to have at least one DUer who grew up in the DDR...
But nope, can't do that...He might hear something which contradicts his pre-formulated narrative 
