20th Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall

[classicman]

As Germany celebrates the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, I can't help remembering my spooky 1971 visit during the Cold War. When we crossed back to the West, tour buses were emptied at the border so mirrors could be rolled under the bus. They wanted to see if anyone was trying to escape with us.

Back then, life in the East was bleak, gray and demoralizing because of ongoing political repression and their unresponsive Soviet-style command economy.

Today, Berlin feels like the nuclear fuel rod of a great nation. It's so vibrant with youth, energy and an anything-goes-and-anything's-possible buzz that Munich feels spent in comparison.

A sleek Radisson Blu Hotel now stands on the place where the old leading hotel of East Berlin once stood. I remember staying there during the Cold War, when a West German 5-mark coin changed on the black market would get me drinks all night. Now five euros is lucky to get me a beer, and the lobby of the Radisson hosts an eight-story-tall exotic fish tank the size of a grain silo with an elevator zipping right up the middle.

As a booming tourist attraction, Berlin welcomed more visitors than Rome in 2009. The crush of tourists makes parts of the new Berlin tacky -- even some sights associated with the Wall.

Checkpoint Charlie is a capitalist freak show. Lowlife characters sell fake bits of the wall, World War II-vintage gas masks and East German medals. Two actors dressed as American soldiers pose for tourists between big American flags and among sandbags at the rebuilt checkpoint. Across the street at "Snack Point Charlie," someone sipping a Coke says, "When serious turns to kitsch, you know it's over."

However, the nearby Museum of the Wall at Checkpoint Charlie is worthwhile, telling a gripping tale and recounting many ingenious escape attempts. It includes plenty of video coverage of those heady days when people power broke down the barriers. While dusty, disorganized and slightly overpriced, all of that just adds to its charm. It's the best place in Berlin to get a handle on the Cold old days

In the new Berlin, it's actually getting hard to find traces of the Wall. Look for a double row of cobbles in the streets marking the former path of the 100-mile "Anti-Fascist Protective Rampart," as the communists called it. These innocuous cobbles run throughout the city, even through some modern buildings.

The Wall's most iconic sight, of course, is the Brandenburg Gate. Built in 1791, it is the last survivor of 14 gates in Berlin's old city wall. The gate was the symbol of Prussian Berlin ... and later the symbol of a divided Berlin. It sat unused, part of a sad circle dance of concrete and barbed wire, for more than 28 years.

Postcards all over town still show the ecstatic day -- November 9, 1989 -- when the world enjoyed the sight of happy Berliners jamming the gate like flowers on a parade float. The shiny white Brandenburg Gate was completely restored in 2002 (but you can still see faint patches marking war damage). When I'm there, I like to pause a minute and think about struggles for freedom -- past and present; there's a special room built into the gate for this very purpose.

Am I the only one who remembers this day and how absolutely amazing it seemed as it was happening?
I'm a little surprised that no on has mentioned this.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by classicman

Am I the only one who remembers this day ...

What day?

[Nirvana]

My mother brought me a piece of the wall, I cannot believe that piece of busted up concrete is 20 years old!

[classicman]

Yeh - I thought it would be neat to have one. Never bothered get it though.

I still remember this as, if nothing else, a universally symbolic moment in human history.

[glatt]

My family was living in West Germany in 1983, at the height of the cold war. Reagan was deploying short range nuclear missiles (Pershing II missiles) in West Germany and the cold war was in the German news a lot.

Our German neighbors had become good friends. We sometimes went sightseeing with them on long car trips. They had family who lived in West Berlin, and suggested we visit them. There were three different highways you were allowed to drive on through East Germany to get to West Berlin. The East German border patrol agents took our passports at the border and went into a nearby building to presumable photocopy them. They made us wait for 15 minutes and then let us drive away on the highway. We had been used to autobahn speeds in West Germany, and the speed limit was 100km/h on the East German highway. That's around 60MPH. My dad made sure to drive 5 km/h under the speed limit, and lots of cars were passing us, but our German neighbors in the car with us were very afraid and kept asking him to drive slower. We passed numerous speed traps, and saw lots of West German Mercedes pulled over by the side of the road. Each time we would pass one, the Germans would urge my dad to slow down even more. I'd never seen them scared before. I think they thought if you got pulled over, you might end up in jail forever.

When we arrived at the border of West Berlin, the East Germans inspected our car very closely (a VW Vanagon) to make sure we hadn't picked anyone up while crossing through East Germany.

The family we were visiting had a house on a small lake. It was a small cottage-like house, but the land was beautiful and the water was right there. Down the center of the lake was a line of buoys, kind of like a pool lane line, that marked where the border with East Germany was. On the far shore was a concrete wall. There were a few pleasure boats hugging the West Berlin shore, but everyone stayed far away from the buoys.

Because the cottage was so small, we slept in a couple of tents in the yard. That was fun. The family we were visiting was really cool, and we really enjoyed staying with them. At night, in my sleeping bag, I heard occasional bursts of machine gun fire coming from behind the wall across the lake. Maybe they were checking their guns or something. I don't know.

We wanted to walk into East Berlin, and it was allowed. There were various rules, like you had to exchange a bunch of currency each day at a ridiculous exchange rate, and you weren't allowed to bring any of it back across the border. I think it was like $50 per person each day, which was $300 for my family. So we crossed through Checkpoint Charlie. It was all very serious there at the crossing. No smiles anywhere. East Berlin itself was nothing much. We went to some touristy place where they were doing changing of the guards. It was interesting because the East German soldiers were goose stepping as they marched. They looked just like Nazis.

We had all this money, but there was nothing we wanted to buy. We got some crappy food near the tourist place. We saw the ugly tv tower they were so proud of. As it was getting dark, we were looking for a place to get some dinner, and found a pub near the border, but when we walked into the place the conversation stopped, and nobody would look at us or wait on us, so we left. We ended up putting our pile of unspent money on the curb on a street corner a few blocks from Checkpoint Charlie before we came back over to the West again. Probably made some East German pretty happy. Getting back to the West wasn't so bad. We had nothing with us, and we were on foot. We had passports, and they only made us wait around 15 minutes before letting us back in the West. It was really nice to see the the American flag and be welcomed by a US soldier when we crossed back over.

The wall was completely covered with graffiti on the Western side, and perfectly clean on the Eastern side with a large no man's land area and barbed wire keeping you back away from it if you approached from the East. Always a few guard towers in sight.

Anyway, those were my memories of the Wall, and I was shocked when it came down 6 years later. I really thought it would be there forever, and I didn't believe it was really happening until a month or so had gone by and they hadn't clamped down again. 1989 was an amazing year. I saved the newspaper that came out that day. It's in a trunk in my living room.

[Nirvana]

I watched it happening on TV and could not believe it was really happening. Being German made it all the more surreal and poignant!

[TheMercenary]

Cool post glatt. Thanks for sharing.

[Nirvana]

That is a great story Glatt, thanks for sharing!

[Radar]

I got to go through checkpoint charlie during my senior year of high school with a tour group. I was nervous.

I was glad when the Berlin Wall came down, but pissed that Reagan and his idiot followers kept claiming that it was they who toppled the Soviet Union and who brought down the wall. The wall came down during the Bush administration and Reagan had nothing to do with it. His saying, "Tear down that wall Mr. Gorbachev" was not the reason the wall came down.

It was pretty rough economically in Germany when the wall first came down. But they've recovered nicely since then.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Radar

Reagan had nothing to do with it.

Where is the "bites tongue" smilie?

[Radar]

I realize some people are too dumb to know that the Soviet Union, like all communism, was already crumbling and falling on its own. Reagan tripling our national debt and spending a trillion dollars on star wars vapor-ware wasn't what made them fall. Reagan just happened to be the guy there when it fell. He tried to take credit for it even though he had nothing to do with it int he same way he tried to take credit for the release of the Iranian hostages which he also had NOTHING to do with.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Radar

The wall came down during the Bush administration and Reagan had nothing to do with it.

Originally Posted by Radar

Reagan just happened to be the guy there when it fell.

right back atcha pal

[Radar]

Originally Posted by classicman

right back atcha pal

Bush was there when the wall fell.

Reagan was there when the Soviet Union collapsed.

Neither of them was responsible for either of those things.


Radar Classicman

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Radar

...the same way he tried to take credit for the release of the Iranian hostages which he also had NOTHING to do with.

Now that right there is funny. Read 'Guests of the Ayatollah,' by Mark Bowden. I don't think I ever heard that he claimed directly to have had anything to do with the release of the hostages, although there may have been plenty of propaganda about that he in someway was directly involved. But to be clear on the fact this one is clear, on January 20, 1981, Reagan was sworn into office and within minutes all of the hostages were released. I believe, as I think most do, there was indirect pressure. There is no clear evidence either way.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I hate to interrupt this pissing match, but I wanted to thank glatt for sharing his impressions of cold war Germany. Thanks glatt.