"Mr. Gorbachev Tear Down This Wall" - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

LUVMBDiesels · #1 11-09-2009, 07:11 AM

Germany Celebrates Fall of the Berlin Wall

Monday , November 09, 2009

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BERLIN —
With prayers, music and pomp, Germany on Monday remembered the 20th anniversary of the day the Berlin Wall fell, sending East Germans flooding west and setting in motion events that soon led to the country's reunification. Chancellor Angela Merkel — reunited Germany's first leader to grow up in the communist east — started the day with President Horst Koehler and other leaders at a prayer service at a former East Berlin church that was a rallying point for opposition activists in 1989.
"We remember the tears of joy, the faces of delight, the liberation," Lutheran Bishop Wolfgang Huber told the congregation at the Gethsemane Church.
East Germany's fortified border crumbled on the evening of Nov. 9, 1989 after 28 years holding in the country's citizens — a pivotal moment in the collapse of communism in Europe that followed a confused announcement by a senior official.
At the end of a plodding news conference, Politburo spokesman Guenter Schabowski offhandedly said East Germany was lifting restrictions on travel across its border with West Germany.
Pressed on when the regulation would take effect, he looked down at his notes and stammered: "As far as I know, this enters into force ... this is immediately, without delay."
Schabowski has said he didn't know that the change wasn't supposed to be announced until the following morning.
East Berliners streamed toward border crossings. Facing huge crowds and lacking instructions, border guards opened the gates — and the wall was on its way into history.
Merkel said she was among the East Germans who, hearing Schabowski's words, thought "something might happen on the evening of Nov. 9." Like many others, she made her way across.
"We were speechless and happy," the 55-year-old recalled in an interview with ARD television.
Music from Bon Jovi and Beethoven was to recall the joy of the border's opening, which led to German reunification less than a year later and the swift demolition of most of the wall — which snaked around West Berlin, a capitalist enclave deep inside East Germany, for 96 miles (155 kilometers).
Memorials also were planned to the 136 people killed trying to cross the border. Candles were to be lit and 1,000 towering plastic foam dominoes placed along the wall's route to be tipped over.
U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said Sunday that "the ideals that drove Berliners to tear down that wall are no less relevant today. The freedoms championed then are no less precious."
Monday "should be a call to action, not just a commemoration of past actions," she said.
Also expected in Berlin for the ceremonies were the leaders of all 27 European Union countries and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev.
Thousands were expected to gather Monday night in front of the Brandenburg Gate, the symbol of Germany's division and then of its reunification, which for nearly three decades stood just behind the wall in no man's land.
Music and fireworks will hark back to the night of Nov. 9, 1989, when people danced atop the Berlin Wall in front of the gate. On that cold night, years of separation and anxiety melted into the unbelievable reality of freedom.
East Germans came in droves, many driving their sputtering Trabant cars. Hundreds of thousands crossed over the following days, as West Berlin stories stayed open late and banks gave out 100 western marks in "welcome money," then worth about $50, to each East German visitor.
By Nov. 12, more than 3 million of East Germany's 16.6 million people had visited the west, while tourists chiseled off chunks of the war to keep as souvenirs.
"That was the day of all days," said Walter Momper, the mayor of West Berlin at the time.
"I'm happy again every time I remember that we all got to this unification in such a peaceful way."

For everyone who remembers this day, it still brings tears to my eyes. For everyone not born back then, this was the most incredible time I have ived through. It was like a dark cloud was lifting from the world and the light of freedom was finally shining through. Once the wall came down, it was a matter of months before the rest of the Iron Curtain was gone. and less than three years later, the USSR was just a bad memory.

Incredible!

MS Fowler · #2 11-09-2009, 07:51 AM

I believe President Obama made a mistake in not attending, even after he was invited.

LUVMBDiesels · #3 11-09-2009, 10:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MS Fowler

I believe President Obama made a mistake in not attending, even after he was invited.

Maybe he will go to the rebuilding ceremony

OK Ok bad taste...

You are right he should have gone... If Only Reagan was here to go to this. It was the crowning achievement of his life when that wall came down even if it happened under Poppy Bush's administration.

Hatterasguy · #4 11-09-2009, 11:18 AM

It was a big moment in history. Never should have happend in the first place, we messed up the end game in 1945. Churchill warned everyone about it, no one listened.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAyXXepUgrE

davidmash · #5 11-09-2009, 11:38 AM

How about we give Mr. Gorbachev just a tiny bit of credit. After all, he was the leader of the evil empire and he might have had something to do with it.....

LUVMBDiesels · #6 11-09-2009, 11:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by davidmash

How about we give Mr. Gorbachev just a tiny bit of credit. After all, he was the leader of the evil empire and he might have had something to do with it.....

You are right although it was Gorby doing NOTHING that ended the cold war. He could have sent troops into Poland and killed off Solidarity and he could have invaded East Germany to keep them in line just as the USSR did to Hungary and Czechoslovakia...
Brezhnev would have never allowed this to happen.

BobK · #7 11-09-2009, 11:57 AM

I've been at the paper for almost 30 years so I remember it well. Never really thought I would see it happen in my lifetime. Side story: A woman who was the Editor of a paper in Berlin was visiting Cincy for two weeks at our papers when it happened. Here it was, the biggest story of her career and she was thousands of miles away , watching the story on TV (and our wire services) like everybody else. I felt so bad for her to be missing it in person. Imagine, she leaves one world and two weeks later she returns to a completely different one. Must have been wierd beyond belief.

LUVMBDiesels · #8 11-09-2009, 11:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hatterasguy

It was a big moment in history. Never should have happend in the first place, we messed up the end game in 1945. Churchill warned everyone about it, no one listened.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAyXXepUgrE

Agreed... we were tired and sick of war by that time and had no stomach for going after Uncle Joe Stalin. If we had to do it over again, we could have utilized captured Wehrmacht troops as a vanguard to go back into Eastern Europe and freed Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, etc. At the very least we could have ensured that the "free elections" that took place in those countries were really free...

Hatterasguy · #9 11-09-2009, 01:18 PM

It wouldn't have requied an invasion. WW2 was a failure, it started to save Poland from Germany. In the end Poland was saved from Germany only to be thrown to the communists. The premise that WW2 started on was not acheived. It took until 1990 for Poland to be freed from Soviet rule.

If the western allies took a hard line on the issue the Soviets probably would have backed down.

cmac2012 · #10 11-09-2009, 01:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hatterasguy

It was a big moment in history. Never should have happened in the first place, we messed up the end game in 1945. Churchill warned everyone about it, no one listened.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAyXXepUgrE

I disagree. Russia lost 20 million citizens, about, in both world wars. They did the bulk of stopping the Nazis. As ugly and awful as the Berlin Wall was, so were Russian losses. Germany was going to pay a price, one way or the other, and for Russia, that price was being controlled to the max.

Churchill didn't have the forces to stop the Russians from exercising their will on eastern Europe, and everyone else was too war-weary and depleted to do so.

johnjzjz · #11 11-09-2009, 06:42 PM

And i read the USA built the wall to keep them on their side WOW

MS Fowler · #12 11-09-2009, 11:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by johnjzjz

And i read the USA built the wall to keep them on their side WOW

This is a joke, right?
With the state of education one never knows if someone is joking, or ignorant of the history. I was alive at the time, and can remember that the Wall was built by the Soviets to prevent their people from leaving the "worker's paradise".

Honus · #13 11-09-2009, 11:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MS Fowler

I believe President Obama made a mistake...

Shocker

Jorn · #14 11-09-2009, 11:31 PM

I was in East Berlin three weeks before the wall came down, it was a pretty bizarre place. Westerners were already free to go to the other side with out a visa, you had to be back before 12 o'clock.

LUVMBDiesels · #15 11-10-2009, 06:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jorn

I was in East Berlin three weeks before the wall came down, it was a pretty bizarre place. Westerners were already free to go to the other side with out a visa, you had to be back before 12 o'clock.

I wanted to go before the wall came down so badly.

I wanted to go through Checkpoint Charlie and see the Worker's Paradise for myself. Now it is just another part of the city, albeit with crappy plumbing

I remember the pictures of the divided city at night on one side was this garishly lit up metropolis and on the other side it was a 1940's era town still dark as if the war was going on...

Of course the NYT puts the credit firmly on the right people French diplomacy and West German TV...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/world/europe/09berlin.html?em