The Fall of the Wall - 25th Anniversary

[Prue]

Considering what's going on in the Ukraine etc, it's good to think back and appreciate how incredibly lucky Germany was to get re-united. Glad that the Fall of the Wall was achieved without any bloodshed. And glad that Gorbatschow was in charge, not Putin.

[JoeyBanana]

There was certainly a great factor of luck involved (and incompetence). The most lethal bullet dodged, however, was Honecker and i'm fairly certain Putin would've given his commie seal of approval to Krenz's coup as well, guy was getting too cocky for mother Russia! At least that's my opinion, nobody wanted him anymore after Leipzig.

Speaking of Gorbatschow, it's kind of a shame that his idea of a united Germany taking on a sort of mediator role between the US and Russia hasn't worked out. It could've helped to maybe avoid the current tensions. But then again, that's the CSU/CDU for you, their leadership ain't go no balls, i fear.

But on a more serious note, yes, it's really great that it happened without bloodshed. There was a very insightful documentary on Arpad Bella, the man who decided to let east germans escape to the west at the paneuropean picnic without permission, not unlike Harald Jäger later in Berlin. But i can't remember the title, not even sure if it's available in english, but it was great. Anyway, i think that those two played a rather significant role in the peaceful unification process, too.

[Commodore]

day of mourning for sologdin

[Prue]

I agree, Hungarians like Arpad Bella played an important role, too. E.g. that they allowed East Germans to enter the West German embassy. Or allowed them to flee over their border.

---

Oh, I like the 'Lichtmauer' btw, i.e. the illuminated helium balloons they used to mark where the wall used to be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42sDo8L32jc

They are letting them fly atm during the celebrations in Berlin.

[MinDonner]

I assume The Hoff is being suitably honoured for his crucial role?

[Prue]

Lol I haven't seen him so far. But they only broadcast the speeches. Gorbatschow is guest of honour. Then there was a performance of Beethoven's 9th symphony (only the Freude schöner Götterfunken part) and now there are fireworks.

Maybe Hoff was part of the entertainment program on stage in the afternoon or so though.

[Wee baby Shamus]

As a teenager in the 80's I went through Check Point Charlie twice. Once to go from West Berlin to East Berlin and then a few hours later back to West Berlin.

What was really weird was while in East Berlin my brother and I started playing Hacky-Sack and an East German cop told us to stop. Which of course we did.

[sologdin]

day of mourning for sologdin

ha not at all. good thing to end the soviet empire.

[Fez]

This is one of those things that I always think of as happening so long ago, and yet, nope, I was alive for it. I was too young to be paying attention, and I don't remember it all, but I was around. Yet in my head, I always forget that, and just think of it as 'history,' and not the sort that has continuing verberations in the modern world.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

It was something we were told could "never" happen when I was in High School history and German class. We were surprised when it did.

[Aemon Stark]

I definitely wasn't old enough to appreciate the significance of the event (or notice it). But I probably really only learned of it in 1992 when I was old enough to watch the Simpsons:

http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/AdrianFohr/clips/the-otto-show/view

(It's fair to say that I wasn't old enough to understand just who or what Spinal Tap was...)

[Spring Bass]

Good riddance to the Warsaw Pact regimes. They had some perks for their folks, but any regime that needs walls and soldiers to keep their people inside the country is pretty fucked up.

[Jo498]

It was something we were told could "never" happen when I was in High School history and German class. We surprised when it did.

I was in 11/12th grade and had only in June 89 been to a school trip to Berlin. This was almost obligatory for German students at this time, highly subsidized, but you had to listen to some talks or attend seminars on the political situation etc. (Of course there was enough time left for sightseeing and (West) Berlin nightlife.) One Day in East Berlin crossing at Checkpoint Charlie under the scrutinizing glances of the Eastern police/customs officers. One had to exchange 25 Westmark to Ostmark for each day and person. Not so easy to spend, favorites were (classical) LPs, music scores and books (politically neutral German classics or maths books, the GDR had rather formidable maths and science classes even in high school).

Nobody, no teacher, no political commentator I remember did expect this, even only 6 months before the fall of the Wall. Even afterwards in early 1990 many things seemed to be open. It was seriously entertained to have two parallel German states for a while, or at least more independence for the eastern part. Or a neutral Germany "between" NATO and the Eastern bloc. In the end it was de facto not a unification, but the East became part of the West. It was incredible luck for Kohl and his conservatives who would almost certainly have lost the next election if it had not been for the fall of the Wall. Of course they hardly kept any of the promises regarding a flourishing East, most of it was sold out to western corporations and many Easterners felt screwed. Especially some of the ones from the oppositional and civil rights groups of 89 had envisioned a state somehow "between" capitalism and socialism. The actual development felt like a "hostile takeover" and, of course, in the late 90s/early 2000s everything shifted overall (economically) much further from the left than it had been during the 70s/80s.

Both the troubled EU and the bad relation to Russia of today seem to be results of developments started 25 years ago. As Gorbatchev pointed out recently the West has not "kept the deal". Which was that because the unified Germany stayed in the NATO (instead of becoming bloc-free) there should be no further expansion of the NATO to the East. Gorby's vision was a "common house of Europe" mitigating the differences between Western and Eastern Europe and supposedly loosening the connections to the US (and mayb UK).

But that's not what happened, of course the West seized the opportunity after Russia became weak under Yeltsin. So while I have no clue whether Putin would have sent the tanks in 89, Gorby seems quite sympathetic with Putin in 2014.

The EU integration and the common currency were forced (especially by France) to prevent Germany from becoming überpowerful economically. It has not worked out all that well either.

Sure, maybe that's still about the best outcome possible and we should be grateful that nothing really catastrophic happened. (The demise of the Eastern bloc was obviously much harder for people in the former Soviet Union not to speak of former Yugoslavia.) But there is a lot of self-righteously patting ourselves on the back right now and studiously ignoring all that problems.

[The Marquis de Leech]

Of course they hardly kept any of the promises regarding a flourishing East, most of it was sold out to western corporations and many Easterners felt screwed.

Thus giving rise to electoral maps like this one:

http://www.bundeswahlleiter.de/de/europawahlen/EU_BUND_09/ergebnisse/bundesergebnisse/themkarten/tk_stimmenanteile_k_99_29.png

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

RBPL,

That map was quite striking. Who are the West Germans supporting and who are the East Germans supporting?

[JoeyBanana]

@Jo498

I agree, things are certainly not perfect.

Although let's not entirely blame Kohl or west german industry, the GDR economy was in a very poor state and other factors such as migration or infrastructural defficency contributed to the development of the West/East disparity, too. Another important distinction needs to be made within Germany as well, many west german states are having similar problems (to a lesser degree), while the greater economic power still remains where it always has been.

[The Marquis de Leech]

RBPL,

That map was quite striking. Who are the West Germans supporting and who are the East Germans supporting?

That's a map of where Die Linke (the Left Party) gets its support. The Left Party descends from the old Party of Democratic Socialism, which in turn was the renamed Socialist Unity Party of the GDR.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

RBPL,

Is the SUP the old ruling communist part of the GDR?

[JoeyBanana]

RBPL,

Is the SUP the old ruling communist part of the GDR?

The SED, yes. Die Linke does have plenty of western socialists and former SPD politicians that were disappointed/angry with the SPD, the traditional socialdemocratic party of the West, and it's really a coalition of the entire german left (or far left, if you will) including many smaller communist/socalist parties of East and West. The SPD's result is almost a mirror of the other electoral map, see here, even though it's not quite the party it's pretending to be/used to be.

Despite being far from the party it was under Brandt or even Schmidt, the SPD still absorbs a large portion of the left voters in the West.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

I'm surprised there is electoral support for the party that created the Berlin wall and a policy of killing people who attempted to leave the GDR.