BS: Fall of Berlin Wall 1989

Subject: BS: Fall of Berlin Wall 1989
From: mg
Date: 10 Nov 09 - 04:44 PM

Deckman reminded me today of my trip in 1989 when parts of the wall were still up and people were traveling back and forth..cautiously I think..between East and West. I wanted to witness and participate in the end of a war and WWII it was. I had planned to be there Christmas but due to train schedules etc. I was there the day after..after arriving in Venice instead in the morning of Christmas Day..with the porters at the train station singing opera and the sun just coming up and people coming over the bridge..and a lovely bathroom at the train station I should add.

I made it to Berlin the next day..saw lots and lots of what looked like Menorrahs in windows in East Germany. I asked a train employee if we were in east or west Germany...East or West..makes no difference he said. It was early morning when I got there and only one couple was in sight..and the woman had the exact REI jacket as me. No stores open so I had to scratch at the wall with my bare hands and first I wrote the names of my nieces and nephews on the wall. I took some chips from the wall..which was very soft..like rotten almost. Not at all sturdy. There were guards behind the wall in E. Germany and I handed them some chocolates. There was no sound but later you would hear this tap tap tap and more and more as people came with hammers to chip away. There was still quite a bit. Then streams of the little Yugo? cars coming through..people said to buy bananas..they were shocked at the prices. A woman in a restroom kept saying fifty phenig fifty phenic in shock..we paid for her visit to the loo. It was very hard to find anything open and I walked forever and finally found something in East Germany..which was beautiful like Venice...not at all grey and bleak like were were told.

Went through Checkpoint Charlie and came back, which was nice.

I saw something on Yahoo yesterday I think asking for pictures..does anyone have that link? I can't find it. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Fall of Berlin Wall 1989
From: Amos
Date: 10 Nov 09 - 05:11 PM

'I Gave my People the Order -- Raise the Barrier'

Lieutenant-Colonel Harald Jäger was in charge of the East Berlin checkpoint at Bornholmer Strasse on Nov. 9, 1989, and was the first border guard to allow East Germans to cross over to the West -- without an order from his superiors. In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, he describes that historic night.

AN interview with the Lt-Col can be found on this page. Very moving.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Fall of Berlin Wall 1989
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Nov 09 - 05:49 PM

Good day. But we didn't half bugger things up afterwards. Or rather, the people in charge, because the rest of us didn't have a chance to take the historic chance we had for a new beginning, either in the West or the East.

Subject: Lyr Add: LONG WAY TO GO (Michael Rofkar)
From: michaelr
Date: 10 Nov 09 - 06:51 PM

Watching the anniversary celebration made me remember the mixed feelings I had at the time, and reminded me that I wrote a song about them some time after.


LONG WAY TO GO (Michael Rofkar)

Hush -- I hear that sound again
It's the sound of marching feet
But I can't tell if it's the people walking tall
Or if it's soldiers patrolling the streets
        They say there's a change all over the world
        A new order takes the place of the old
        But after the party comes the big hangover
        And the winds of change still blow cold

Oh I know you're happy about your new-found freedom
Better be careful, better go slow
`Cause we've come a long we down an unmapped road
But we've still got a long way to go

Now statues fall and empires crumble
The revolution has its day
Heads will roll and great men are humbled
Are you sure you'll find freedom this way?
        We're on the bloody trail of history
        And the world around us burns
        Oh it's never been any great mystery
        It's just that we still refuse to learn

And I won't stand here and fuel the flames
As we witness the fall of Rome
`Cause we've come a long way down a twisted road
But we're still a long way from home

So let's have another speech about the new world order
Let's have another victory parade
But if you look a little closer there is gunfire at the borders
And they're putting up barricades
        And we pat them on the back and we say "Good Luck"
        To the ones we used to love to hate
        They're every bit as free as you and me
        Now ain't that something to celebrate?

Don't be fooled into thinking that our troubles are over
Change comes quickly but progress is slow
`Cause we've come a long way down a twisted road
But we're still a long way from home

Yes, and don't take for granted the freedoms you have
They could still melt away like the snow
`Cause we've come a long we down an unmapped road
But we've still got a long way to go

(Copyright 1991/Published by Kudzu Tunes)


Is this now a music thread?

Subject: RE: BS: Fall of Berlin Wall 1989
From: mg
Date: 10 Nov 09 - 07:11 PM

Sure..but sometimes despite all the misery in the world there is cause to be happy..mg

Subject: RE: BS: Fall of Berlin Wall 1989
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Nov 09 - 07:25 PM

A measure of happiness, and on that day an enormous measure.

But a terrible disappointment for millions of people, that need never have happened, if only our governments in the West hadn't betrayed the hopes of those who tore down the wall. And betrayed our hopes as well.

I remember we had an East German dissident band over in Harlow playing just after this, mad with joy - and leading the house in singing the Internationale.

Looks like a good song, Michael, and prescient. The truth is, they're all music threads, if they are worth anything at all, even if the music is under the surface.

Subject: RE: BS: Fall of Berlin Wall 1989
From: GUEST,Bob The Builder
Date: 11 Nov 09 - 12:15 AM

Considering the entire wall was constructed in such haste,
how well built was it ?
and did the project comply with proper regulations
and conform to acceptable materials standards ?

Subject: RE: BS: Fall of Berlin Wall 1989
From: GUEST,Bob the Builder
Date: 11 Nov 09 - 12:18 AM

It looked to me like it was on the verge of falling down.

I could have fixed it, yes I could !

Subject: RE: BS: Fall of Berlin Wall 1989
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 11 Nov 09 - 04:17 AM

Poem 17 of 230: THROUGH WHAT WAS

During Europe's summer, '88,
    At a wall my bag was checked:
A brief smile at what gave it weight;
    Sun-cream lid back - mood unwrecked.
I walked past plain buildings and cars,
    And entered a small food-store.
Its goods were plain, also: no sweet bars;
    The essentials - not much more.
As I bought crispbread, with money changed,
    A row began, at counter,
Between two, it seemed, Germans estranged -
    Clothes, to me, the sole pointer.
I headed back through the wall that was,
    Then signed a reunion book.
Reflecting, I'm happy/sad because
    The Left-cause, too, has been shook.

From http://blogs.myspace.com/walkaboutsverse (e-book)
Or http://walkaboutsverse.sitegoz.com (e-scroll)
(C) David Franks 2003

Subject: RE: BS: Fall of Berlin Wall 1989
From: ard mhacha
Date: 11 Nov 09 - 04:42 AM

Visiting Berlin last year and taking in every tour available I found it a fascinating city. I asked a few people about the STASSI and how they managed to melt away without meeting too much in the way of their role in the repressive eastern section.
The only two people I met who were willing to talk about the STASSI were two students who were very angry that these people were now in the best jobs, they told me there were very few taken in to account for their activities, they hinted at the"let sleeping dogs lie" alternitive, in their opinion, wrongly pursued by the authorities.

I would recommend Berlin to anyone contemplating a visit, a city for every taste.

Subject: RE: BS: Fall of Berlin Wall 1989
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 11 Nov 09 - 04:46 AM

Anyone see this:

Two Metre High, MTV Irony

Subject: RE: BS: Fall of Berlin Wall 1989
From: Mr Happy
Date: 11 Nov 09 - 08:19 AM

Its oft forgotten that it was the Hungarian government that started the ball rolling for the East Germans, by opening their border

Subject: RE: BS: Fall of Berlin Wall 1989
From: michaelr
Date: 11 Nov 09 - 10:20 PM

Thanks, Kevin. It sometimes depresses me how often I'm on target with a gloomy prediction.
My wife said of that song "it's pretty cynical". I think a cynic is a realist who hasn't been proven right yet.

Crow Sister -- that's a huge "oops" for Bono, isn't it? Big hit on his credibility.

Subject: RE: BS: Fall of Berlin Wall 1989
From: ard mhacha
Date: 14 Nov 09 - 06:15 AM

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2009/1114/1224258801609.html

Subject: RE: BS: Fall of Berlin Wall 1989
From: ard mhacha
Date: 14 Nov 09 - 06:20 AM

The blue clicky above confirms the attitude of the Germans about the STASI, it seems these arrogant criminals can still flaunt their superiority over the people they tortured.

Subject: RE: BS: Fall of Berlin Wall 1989
From: kendall
Date: 14 Nov 09 - 06:22 AM

My my is it possible? I was Captain of the Explorer when that wall went up. Doesn't seem that long ago.

Subject: RE: BS: Fall of Berlin Wall 1989
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 14 Nov 09 - 06:52 AM

I visited the border, though not in Berlin, in June of that year.
No one saw what was coming even so soon before, and people were still being shot.
I was with a military group, and within a few minutes vehicles brought more guards who watched us with binoculars.
Our guide warned us not to "show zer arses" which apparantly some vistors did and which brought official complaints from the other side.
It seems now like a different world, which of course it was.

Subject: RE: BS: Fall of Berlin Wall 1989
From: Stringsinger
Date: 14 Nov 09 - 11:20 AM

Reagan was not responsible for the collapse of the Berlin Wall as pandered.
Mikhail Gorbachev was. He effectively ended the "cold war".

Subject: RE: BS: Fall of Berlin Wall 1989
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 14 Nov 09 - 11:35 AM

Thatcher, Reagan and their ilk were certainly not responsible for it coming down, in fact they feared and resented it. In fact Gorbachev stated in a recent interview with a Dutch paper (De Volkskrant)that once the Wall threatened to come down he had a fuming Margaret Thatcher on the phone imploring him to send in the troops to put a stop to it all. 'Let them stay behind the wall' she shouted (according to M.G.).

Subject: RE: BS: Fall of Berlin Wall 1989
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 14 Nov 09 - 12:52 PM

For what it's worth, I think my above poem, "Through What Was," may have been published by the couple of German newspapers I sent it to on the anniversary day - according to my myspace stats, German visits have quickly gone from 7th to 3rd on my list.

Subject: RE: BS: Fall of Berlin Wall 1989
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 14 Nov 09 - 01:23 PM

Politicians usually cling to power like grim death and fight tooth and claw to get more.
I do not believe that the Kremlin did anything to hasten the fall of the wall which could only result in the end of the Soviet superpower, and them.

Thatcher hated communism with a vengeance.
Is there any real evidence that she was not delighted when the wall fell?

Subject: RE: BS: Fall of Berlin Wall 1989
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 14 Nov 09 - 01:34 PM

In 1987 Reagan made a speech at the wall.
He said

There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace.

General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate.
Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.
It is worth reading.
http://www.myfreedompost.com/2009/11/reagans-berlin-wall-speech-mr-gorbachev.html

Subject: RE: BS: Fall of Berlin Wall 1989
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 14 Nov 09 - 02:12 PM

Is there any real evidence that she was not delighted when the wall fell?



There's Gorbachev's statement in the article I referred to, you'll need to translate though. According to the article several countries were not pleased with the idea of Germany re-uniting.


http://www.volkskrant.nl/buitenland/article1313221.ece/Laat_ze_maar_achter_de_Muur

Subject: RE: BS: Fall of Berlin Wall 1989
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Nov 09 - 02:13 PM

A DAY THAT SHOOK THE WORLD

Paris November 09, 2009

In 1975, physicist Andrei Sakharov and a group of fellow Soviet academicians warned the Kremlin leadership that unless the nation's ruinous defense spending was slashed and funds refocused on modernizing the nation's decrepit, obsolete industrial base and its wretched state agriculture, the Soviet Union would collapse by 1990.
Their grim warning was prescient. Twenty years ago this week – 9 November, 1989 - boisterous German crowds forced open the hated Berlin Wall, Communist East Germany collapsed in black farce, and the once mighty Soviet Empire began to crumble.

This was one of modern history's most dramatic and dangerous moments. No one knew if the dying Soviet Union would expire peacefully, or ignite World War III.

In November, 1989, the vast empire built by Stalin that stretched from East Berlin to Vladivostok was on its last legs. The USSR had 50,000 battle tanks and 30,000 nuclear warheads, but could not feed its people. Military spending consumed 20% of the economy. As I saw for myself while traveling around the Soviet Union in the late 1980's, conditions were often primitive, even third world outside the big cities.

Afghanistan's `mujahidin' had all but defeated the mighty Red Army. Poland's Solidarity Union, secretly funded by Pope John Paul and the CIA through Panamanian shell companies, had risen in revolt. So, too, ever rebellious Hungarians, joined by Lithuanians and East Germans.

The old joke in Moscow was that the East Germans were the only people who could make Communism work. Now they were in revolt.

The reformist Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev had to make a fateful decision: allow events to take their course, or order the Red Army and KGB to crush the spreading uprisings – and run the risk of war with NATO, particularly so if the Warsaw Pact's armies turned their guns against the Soviet occupation forces and fighting spread across the Inner German Border.

Unlike his brutal Soviet predecessors, Mikhail Gorbachev was a man of profound moral values, a genuine humanist and   idealist who believed he could reform the USSR through democratic socialism and patient, open debate – his 'glasnot and perestroika.'   

After a violent incident staged by Communist hardliners in the Baltic, President Gorbachev refused to use force against his own people.

But once fear of repression was removed, the Soviet Union, a nation of 120 languages spread over eleven time zones, shattered. Gorbachev simply could not control the ensuing whirlwind of nationalism his reforms had sown.   

Today, most Russians revile Gorbachev for wrecking the Soviet Union. The sinister Communist era, including Stalin's monstrous crimes, are being sugar-coated with nostalgia.
Russia's Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, called the collapse of the Soviet Union `the greatest tragedy of the 20th century.'

In truth, the Soviet Union was history's most brutal, murderous tyranny that killed three times more victims than Hitler.

Gorbachev did not plan to destroy the Soviet Union but to reform and revitalize it. But by refusing to hold it together by force, he brought about its doom.

Gorbachev did the world a huge favor.

In any event, the Soviet Union was destined to crumble, Gorby or no Gorby. Like the old Ottoman Empire, the USSR could only survive by gobbling up its neighbors.

In 1989, the state that had run on virtual war footing since 1945, died of exhaustion. As Voltaire said of Prussia, the Soviet Union was an army, disguised as a state.

For me, Gorbachev was one of the greatest men of our time. He put international law, basic humanity, and civilized behavior before the demands of brute power. We must also salute Gorbachev's chief lieutenant and powerhouse behind the reform movement, former Georgian KGB chief and Soviet Foreign Minister, Eduard Schevardnadze, who urged total de-communization and disarmament.

Later, as president of independent Georgia, Shevardnadze was overthrown – ironically - by a US-organized revolution.

Gorbachev purged hardliners from the Soviet military-industrial complex, vetoed an anti-missile system, sharply downsized the Soviet military, and wisely ended the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, a lesson Nobel Peace Prize Winner Barack Obama has yet to learn.

But when Gorbachev and Shevardnadze sensibly sought total nuclear disarmament, President Ronald Reagan, obsessed by the unworkable Star Wars anti-missile project, refused Russia's offer that would have eliminated all nuclear weapons and missiles.

Other courageous Russians reformers who helped end the Cold War deserve to be remembered: Anatoly Chernayev; Georgi Shakhnazarov; former ambassador to Canada, Alexander Yakovlev; and Gorbachev's brave, cerebral wife and confidante, Raisa.

Germany's Chancellor Helmut Kohl and President H.W Bush also merit kudos for their able management of the Cold war's end. By contrast, Britain's Margaret Thatcher shamefully relapsed into Europe's evil old ways by trying to block German unification.   

President Gorbachev kept begging the western powers to launch another Marshall Plan to rescue the dying Soviet Union and democratize it. Tragically, they did not. Instead, the Clinton administration chose to treat the new, battered Russia as a client state.

Communist die-hards launched a farcical, drunken coup against Gorbachev that was thwarted by the courage of the then still sober Russian president, Boris Yeltsin; Aviation Marshall Yevgeny Shaposhnikov; and – a story that is still little known in the west - KGB moderates.

In 1990, I was the first western journalist ever allowed into the dreaded Lubyanka Prison, the headquarters of KGB, to interview senior KGB officers of the elite First Directorate (from whence came Vlad Putin) who had turned against the Communist Party and were seeking to reform Russia.   

In the end, Gorbachev was left the leader of a nation that had ceased to exist, the USSR, the object of popular wrath, a great statesman without a country, a Russian King Lear on a blasted heath.

Twenty years later, the world owes Gorbachev an enormous debt of gratitude for ending the Cold War, and freeing Eastern Europe and the Baltic states. Thank our lucky stars Gorbachev was in power when the Soviet Union met its inevitable collapse – or we could have faced World War III.   

Mikhail Sergeyevitch Gorbachev showed that once in a millennium a great political leader can rise above the law of the jungle.   

Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2009

Subject: RE: BS: Fall of Berlin Wall 1989
From: kendall
Date: 15 Nov 09 - 05:59 AM

It's amazing how people can focus on the part they want to be true while ignoring the underlying truth. Ronald Raygun did not end the cold war. That credit goes to Gorbechev, Lec Walesa and the Pope. Not to mention American TV.

Subject: RE: BS: Fall of Berlin Wall 1989
From: ard mhacha
Date: 15 Nov 09 - 06:39 AM

Thank you Little Hawk for pasting that highly interesting article.

Subject: RE: BS: Fall of Berlin Wall 1989
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Nov 09 - 01:30 PM

Not only did Reagan not end the Cold War...I think the end of the Cold War more or less deprived Reagan of his defining purpose in life....taking on the "Evil Empire" in a final climactic shootout on the streets of "Dodge City"! ;-) He must have felt lost when the Soviet Union collapsed, the enemy vanished, and the gunfight was no longer to be.

He clearly was quite nonplussed when Gorbachev proposed mutual disarmament of all Russian and American nuclear weapons at their summit in Iceland. It wasn't accoring to the script, and he didn't know what to say! He'd have been much happier negotiating with some hardass commie bastard like Joe Stalin or Leonid Brezhnev.

Subject: RE: BS: Fall of Berlin Wall 1989
From: ard mhacha
Date: 26 Nov 09 - 05:02 PM

Another article from The Times of the Stasis influence in East Germany.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6899929.ece

Subject: RE: BS: Fall of Berlin Wall 1989
From: Joe Offer
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 02:07 AM

It was an interesting experience to live in Berlin in 1972-73. Wiedervereinigung (reunion of East and West) was part of the vocabulary, but nobody seriously believed it would happen.

My job was to study the East German government, and it was probably the most interesting job I've ever had. The SED (Socialist Unity Party) ran a pretty tight ship. The East German government had its share of normal problems, but it seemed to be a workable government. Life didn't seem to be horrible for most people - it seemed about as regimented as the life I was living in the U.S. Army. But most people seemed to get at least a reasonable amount of enjoyment out of life.

I got very little information about dissent or about security matters, though; so my impression of East German life may have been a bit skewed. The movie The Lives of Others told a very sad story of the STASI, and I have no reason to think it was untrue. but it seemed that if people kept their mouths shut and stayed out of politics, they could have a pretty good life. My area of study was agriculture - not much exciting there, but I knew every brand of tractor and harvesting combine used in East Germany.

I lived in Berlin for twenty months, and got out twenty times, mostly for one-day vacations in West Germany. A few days before departure, we'd have to get "flag orders" cut, printed in English, French, and Russian. The two Duty Trains left at 7:30 PM, and arrived in either Frankfurt am Main or Bremerhaven at 7:30 the next morning. The fare was paid by the West German government, and we had what were considered first-class sleeping cars (aging, but very clean). When we left West Berlin and entered East Germany, the Soviets reviewed our flag orders while East German guards ran dogs under the train to ensure we weren't carrying stowaways.

I made a point of staying awake while we were in East Germany, because it was like being 50 years back in time. The cobblestone streets were quiet, lighted with the yellowish glow of gas lamps. No neon, and very little traffic. The high point of the trip for me was Magdeburg on the West German border, which had a roundhouse that always had six or seven locomotives steamed up and ready to go. We'd stop at the border for the dogs and orders again, and then I'd sleep until we arrived at our destination.

Most of the time I was in Berlin, I forgot I was living in a walled city. The Wall went mostly through quiet parts of town where nobody went very often, so I often didn't see the Wall for weeks. The Brandenburg Gate and Potsdamer Platz areas, once very busy places, were usually deserted.

I haven't been back to Berlin since I got out of the Army in 1993, but I hope to get there soon. I'm looking to rent an apartment (with Internet) there for a month - anybody got suggestions for me?

-Joe-


Oh - Bob the Builder wondered about the sturdiness of the hastily-built Wall, which went up in just a few days in 1961. By 1972, most of the Wall had been rebuilt. If I recall correctly, most of it was ten to twelve feet high, built of cast reinforced concrete, with a rounded top that was hard to grip. And behind the wall was a no man's land, about a hundred yards wide, with barbed wire and mines and other defenses.

Subject: RE: BS: Fall of Berlin Wall 1989
From: ard mhacha
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 04:53 AM

An interesting read Joe, I have read and seen most TV and films of all things to do with the East Germans. The Wall, The peoples story by Christopher Hilton gives a far different picture of life in the eastern sector.
For a comprehensive picture of the true horror this book is a must read.
Joe, I have had a couple of recent visits to Berlin which I found to be a fascinating city, for anyone like yourself that experienced the `pre-wall` city the change have been enormous.

Subject: RE: BS: Fall of Berlin Wall 1989
From: michaelr
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 11:46 AM

On the day of the anniversary, I watched a Deutsche Welle newscast in which a university researcher described the results of a survey taken among students this year.

The survey found that most students in Berlin knew little to nothing about the old East Germany, but many tended to have romanticized notions about what it had been like. A certain vague nostalgia pervaded about everyone having a guaranteed job, food, and a place to live.

To be sure, it must have been a shock to find oneself thrown into free-market capitalism overnight, thereby dimming awareness of the fact that one had had no choice in the matters of what one's job was, what foods were available, or where one dwelled.

Subject: RE: BS: Fall of Berlin Wall 1989
From: ard mhacha
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 01:12 PM

Matt Frei`s excellent series of programmes on the history of Berlin, the third and last programme in this series
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00p5yv4/Berlin_Ich_bin_ein_Berliner/

Subject: RE: BS: Fall of Berlin Wall 1989
From: ard mhacha
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 02:32 PM

The great cover-up, nothing should be held back, read this incredible article on the Stasi.

http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/16-02/ff_stasi?currentPage=4