Berlin Wall is falling down ……

November 9 1989

I know I am a bit sentimental sometimes.
Today is such a day.

Today is November 9 2010 – 21 years ago the Berlin Wall came down.

I came to Berlin in 1986.
In my case it was West-Berlin.
I grew up in a small town in West Germany, got influenced by western politics.
Germany was a bit square and musty at that time.
Not sure if it is better by now, but different.

The capital was Bonn a somehow smaller town of 320,000 people – yet it is called 19th largest city of Germany bash

When I grew up, that very capital was called: temporary capital.
Everybody wanted to be reunificated with the East Germany after being separated after World War II.
People still wanted it but somehow nobody really believed in it anymore. Especially the people of my generation, being born after the war and not knowing how it has been.

Being citizen of West Germany and West Berlin we could travel where ever we wanted.
The whole world was ours, we could even travel from West Germany to Berlin and back, and sometimes even to East Germany, like Leipzig at the Trade Fair.

Traveling from West Germany to Berlin was a bit strange.
You had to pass a frontier; you were allowed to use the highways of East Germany for the purpose of going to West Berlin. This was called “Transit” – they also expected you to manage it in a certain time, otherwise you might have had contact with people from East Germany, which was not allowed.

Anyhow, it was somehow easy and unique to live in West Berlin.
The city got a bit pampered due to the suffering in the Cold War and during the Blockade.

Life was nice and easy.

The people in East Germany hadn’t had such an nice and easy living.
They have been cared for their basic desires but special stuff was rare.
Bananas, very common for German people, I guess most babies of Western Society get fed with bananas at a certain age – bananas have been somewhat rare in East Germany and became a synonym for the Scarcity that happened under the reign of Honecker and the SED – Socialist Unity Party.

People had get along with it for 40 years, but one day they decided that this was not the way they wanted to live anymore!

They started to demonstrate – quiet common for our democratic countries, but the GDR was not really a democratic country, it was totalitarian, dictatorial – maybe it could be compared to today’s China or Corea.
Nobody would expect open demonstrations at such places.

The demonstrations started in September 4 1989.
It was – even if I was living in the western part – exciting to watch the demonstrations.
They stayed peaceful and calm but they grew each Monday.
More and more people came around.

The slogan was

“Wir sind das Volk” – “We are the People”
"Wir wollen raus" – "We want out"
"Wir bleiben hier" – "We stay here"

Pure excitement.

People of East Germany were allowed to travel to so called socialistic brother countries.
So they traveled to Hungary or Czechoslovakia.
Being there, they fled to the Embassy of West Germany e.g. in Prague.

It was a huge problem at that time, hundreds thousands of people from East Germany camping at the ground of the West German Embassy.

Even after East Germany had declared themselves as an independent country in 1949 – West Germany always thought that our “brothers and sisters of East Germany belonged to the same nation, the same people” – so if a pensioner from East Germany were allowed to travel to relatives in West Germany, he or she could apply for a West German ID-Card. It was given to them immediately.

So in the eyes of West German Politicians the East German fugitives had all the right in the world to be there where they were.
But they couldn’t stay there forever.

They couldn’t just walk out of the embassy because the states have been socialistic and would have sent them back to the GDR. There they would have been arrested for Republikflucht – flight from the republic

Both from the moral standpoint as well as in terms of the interests of the whole German nation, leaving the GDR is an act of political and moral backwardness and depravity.

Those who let themselves be recruited objectively serve West German Reaction and militarism, whether they know it or not. Is it not despicable when for the sake of a few alluring job offers or other false promises about a "guaranteed future" one leaves a country in which the seed for a new and more beautiful life is sprouting, and is already showing the first fruits, for the place that favors a new war and destruction?

Is it not an act of political depravity when citizens, whether young people, workers, or members of the intelligentsia, leave and betray what our people have created through common labor in our republic to offer themselves to the American or British secret services or work for the West German factory owners, Junkers, or militarists? Does not leaving the land of progress for the morass of an historically outdated social order demonstrate political backwardness and blindness? ...

[W]orkers throughout Germany will demand punishment for those who today leave the German Democratic Republic, the strong bastion of the fight for peace, to serve the deadly enemy of the German people, the imperialists and militarists.

People getting caught doing so got punished and sentence to jail.

It has been a huge problem.
What to do?

Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher negotiated an agreement for those, to travel via train to West Germany, with a stop in the East German town of Dresden. So both sides could save faces.

This happened on September 30 1989.

It was one step.
But people in East Germany wanted to live in freedom without leaving their country, their life, their home, their family, their friends.

Monday demonstrations went on and on.

By October 9 1989 – the GDR officials had just celebrated the 40th anniversary of the state – at least 70,000 people in East Berlin went on the streets to demonstrate.
You have to imagine that East Berlin had only a population of 500,000. So 14 % of the population have been in the streets to demonstrate!

In Leipzig, where the movement started, 120,000 people where on the street, a week after that 320,000 (as if the whole of the West German temporary capital Bonn was on the street!).
You have to know that the whole GDR consisted of 17 million people, that’s not so much.

I have been born in the West German Country of Northrhine-Westfalia – that country also has 17 million people.

The increasing numbers of people on the street, the peacefulness but yet the determination of the people made it finally happen.

The wall came down.

I have to admit, even if it is 21 years ago and living east-west is kind of normal now, I am still crying writing this thread and thinking about the deep impact of that time.

It happened so quick somehow – from September 1989 to the beginning of November 1989.
And actually it was a misunderstanding of Günter Schabowski the spokesman of the politburo.
They wanted to allow traveling somewhat later in the year, but Mr Schabowski replied on a question, when it will happen:

"As far as I know effective immediately, without delay".

And than everybody run somehow.
People couldn’t believe it.

A friend just said to me
“It was like New Year’s eve for a whole week”.

We had been in the streets, drinking champagne, celebrating.
It was such a special event, it isn’t comparable to anything else I have ever experienced in my entire life.

And I am happy that I was able to watch it with my own eyes.

But I am also happy that my son is growing up with no idea of this silly wall.

Finally I would like to share some videos with you, to give you an idea about what was going on … some are in English or with English subtitles, for those which are only available in German, just watch and get the atmosphere – words have not been important at that day.












first new years eve 1989/1990 at the Brandenburg Gate – people sitting on the wall celebrating

reply to post by orange-light


Hi,

A great synopsis. Have just been living in Berlin for 5 years and worked with both East and Western Berliners (around the age of 30 to 45) and both sides seemed to be unhappy. The ex DDR people seemed to want things as they used to be - security, no real stress, no need to make decisions or choices (but as you said no bananas or oranges ..and definitely no Stasi..) whereas the Western Berliners appeared to have had an insular but bohemian life and by all accounts were relatively wealthy.

One of the latter recently commented that she was amazed she couldn't find a bar open in one of the suburbs (Kreutzberg) after 23:00 whereas in the old days the place was still buzzing at 02:00...

From what I could see though the next generation will be fully integrated - indeed the younger generation already appear to be. Hopefully with more jobs the magnified differences will be reduced.

Peace!

reply to post by The Wave


thanks wave
much appreciated

yeah even after the reunification happened 20 years ago, there is still a wall in the heads of people - especially of those who have already been adults when the wall came down.


i am still living in this crazy city - i really like it
i really like the all over freedom, although i could travel to east berlin before 1989 - it was always a bit strange and always a bit laborious due to my special berlin ID-card.

meanwhile i just enter a metro train and off i am
and i don.t care if i am going to mitte (E), friedrichshain (E), kreuzberg (W) or schöneberg (W).

my ex SIL still thinks of east and west, when i tell her that i have a business appointment at friedrichstraße: "OMG that in the east" -

but you are right, boths sides somehow pity themselves for the good old times, i bet nobody really knows anymore how that has been.

we just see the "good" things and have forgotten completly about the "bad" things.
Yeah i want my "berlin zulage" back - the money i earned extra because i was working in berlin, everybody got 8% on top which was called "berlin zulage"

for bars:
i guess it is better to go out in prenzlauer berg than in kreuzberg these days
but as far as i know berlin still has no official closing hours.
the closing will be due to no costumers
many turkish people live in kreuzberg meanwhile and poor people living on hartz iv (welfare)

recently i saw a caricature in the paper
an old couple walking the streets
he sighs: "i want the wall back"
she: "i don.t think it is possible, it gets a bit complicated with major projects"
(due to stuttgart 21 and the demonstrations against the new central station)

but i am full of hope for the new generations

there are changes in the city
major changes

and if everything turns out right, we will have a green governing mayor (female) by next september

This is one of the major points in the collapse in the Soviet Union. I believe the Soviet Union was doomed from the beginning.

reply to post by Romantic_Rebel



yeah everything was linked with each other at that time

glasnost and the monday demonstrations and than the falling down of the whole Warsaw pact

reply to post by orange-light


Hi,

You're making me 'homesick!' I really rated Berlin - in my opinion the best capital city in Europe. Space, freedom, great old architecture, a (relatively low cost of living) and a cosmopolitan way of life. Also many of the older traditions were still being maintained although I noticed 'Christmas' had started to be brought forward(fortunately not to September as it has in the UK!)

And better still - laws are there for guidance.... (I lived for 3 years in Olivaer Platz and 2 years in Friedenau - both 'West')

It is a pity that the Wall Coming down really isn't celebrated - as Romantic Rebel said - it was one of the key events in the fall of communism and I still remember hearing about it and not believing it.

Enjoy a Weisbeer (or two) for me!

Peace!

reply to post by The Wave


ahh if you are homesick, than klick on the link "living in an orange peel" - i contributed some berlin pictures there, and will add more

olivaer platz that.s at the ku'damm

i have lived in wedding, kreuzberg, tegel, wittenau and now hermsdorf
yeah all western boroughs

the non celebration maybe is due to the second rememberance day today - the so called Kristallnacht - a day full of sorrow

not good together with this day full of joy

so maybe it resembles the strange and devided attitude germany and the germans have towards their own history


i will drink a weisse red for you

I really love my adoptive city, there is indeed no better city to live in. It's green and cosmopolitan and beautiful and alive. The people are great, the rents are low, it's safe, good universities and good bars Sure, it's much better in the summer, but even now when it's mostly gloomy, there's no place where I'd rather live.

I always noticed how Wessis tend to live in western neighbourhoods and Ossis in the east. But I thought that it has more to do with the neighbourhoods themselves than with whether they were east and west. Berliners tend to be very "patriotic" when it comes to the neighbourhood they live in.

So I was kind of shocked when I met Ossis (fairly young, grad students) that said they always felt more DDR than German. I can imagine how the generation of their parents feels, if they feel like that.

I was serving in Germany at the time, and we went up to assist the german police during the celebrations.

An amazing atmosphere which i'll never forget.

CX.

reply to post by Wallachian



hey wallachian - long time not seen

just to explain for our international friends on ATS

Wessi = slang for people having lived in the old west of german, people from eastern germany think they are somewhat arrogant and and smart-alecky

Ossi = somebody from the former eastern part of gemany, yeah people from the old west express also some prejudices with it - those people are labeled backward and too much depending on the old regime

i can highly recommend a travel to berlin, as wallachin said: bars are great and people - yeah i would call them special
berlin people can be nice, they are great somehow, also kind of melting pot like new york city.
it aint easy these days to find somebody who is originally from berlin - my son and his dad are examples of that kind
on the other hand you have people from all over germany - in the "good old days" of the wall no young man living in west berlin had to go to the army - germany has until now something which is called: general conscription – they are working on it to abolish it and get a voluntary army - as a kind of profession.

anyway this made berlin a melting pot with german people of all origins - but it feels like as if the swabians have the majority, as the saxons have the majority in the east.

berlin people are great - but they can be somewhat harsh - the more you get the feeling it is annoying, the more it is meant hearty - this is called "berliner schnauze" (berlin kisser maybe).

sticking to neighborhoods:
guess this is not as different as it is in other german cities - east and west
german people are not that flexible when it comes to living as maybe american.
if somebody buys or builds a house – it is a lifetime decision.

Great thread, I thank you for it wholeheartedly!

Even though I haven't experienced these times consciously (an infant at the time) it makes me feel unbelievably proud of the people who stood up and fought to unite and to tear down the borders which brought much pain and emotional upset. I shed tears of joy.. it shows that freedom is not to be taken for granted.

reply to post by Clairaudience


thanks for your kind words clairaudience

even if you have been a child at that time or other that have not been born at that time like my son
i guess it is you it is them why those people of 1989 took the burden to fight that government to tear down borders and walls

you are right: freedom is not granted
we have to fight for it every minute
and it is worth while

still there are too many borders and frontiers in this world
unfortunately most of them are not made out of stone

stone walls are easily to be torn down, the invisible borders are the ones we have to be aware off!