The Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall
On the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, you may be inclined to check the CBC archives.
The site is a digital archive of CBC footage and includes thousands of historical milestones, including then U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s famous speech at the Brandenburg Gate in which he implored Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.”
The site also contains historical anecdotes, like this one:
In a column for the Wall Street Journal 20 years after Reagan’s Berlin speech, his daughter, Patti Davis, wrote that both the U.S. State Department and the National Security Council vehemently opposed Reagan’s entreaty to Gorbachev. “They called it crude, unduly provocative, even unkind,” wrote Davis. “They argued that to speak about tearing down the wall would give Berliners false hope.”
The CBC also has a site dedicated to the fall of the wall, the site includes testimonials of people affected by the wall.
For a more innovative treatment check out this page from the BBC. It asks “Where is the Berlin Wall now?” and tracks down chunks of the wall that have been scattered across the globe.
If you can’t get enough of this kind of stuff, you may also want to check out this site from the New York Times that overlays photographs from 1989 with photographs from 2009. It’s a vivid way to present how much Berlin has changed in twenty years.
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Dear Sir,
I understand the pleasure Germans feel in regards to the fall of the Berlin Wall. However, it should never be forgotten that they brought the occupation and subdivision of Germany on themselves.
More than the cold war, two invasions of Russia in less than a quarter century, naturally left a fondness for their German neighbours, so much so, that they appreciated for a long time the fact that there were two, an understandable fact, considering their tremoundous losses in the Second World War, estimated at some 30,000,000 people.
However, one celebrates a new Germany, one divorced from her cult of militarism.
Faithfully yours,
Claude Cornet
Dear Sir,
I submitted a White Paper to Premier Wall of Saskatchewan, not so long ago, suggesting a Canadian Youth Standard, one integrating our youth in community oriented service. A mandatory service after leaving secondary school.
The purpose removes the aspect of street gangs, since integration removes the fear factor, and commun endeavor creates the natural bonding of youth, whilst fostering a natural pride in the Canadian nation.
Faithfully yours,
Claude Cornet
Interested in a reaction from Germany? Well, I fear you do not get to the bottom. Probably this simply shows the general limitations of reporting about foreign countries, at least I would not say either than one can get a real understanding of Canada from German media. Schreiber/Mulroney was all one heard from Canada here recently. And the CBC no longer “talks to Germany” since 1990.
Three points:
First, the matter with Schabowski’s stammering was that the press release he was reading out was supposed to be embargoed until 4 AM the next morning, since first orders had to be given down the chain of command in the military. Nobody seems to be inclined to do some serious research on this matter, but basically this was just the left hand not knowing what the right one was doing, because anything fell apart. The day before the leadership of SED (the leading but not only East German party) had stepped back, and four days later the formal government followed. The actual issue is that Schabowski and the others involved in this sloppy communication could have caused a blood bath, which presumably would have resulted in things continuing the Romanian way.
This leads to point two: The statement by one of your experts that the GDR was “the tightest dictatorship in the history of the world” is absurd. Just take a closer look at Romania, to stay in Europe. Not to talk about the rest of the world at all (North Korea, …).
And point three: You have to realize that you can not reduce “the regime” to a small number of people. There were just too many officials for setting them aside. And in many cases they quickly became friends with similarly minded folks from the other side. For a good example of this East-West mixture of narrow-minded people I recommend Dresden. Their termination from the world heritage list is just the most obvious result. And concerning the economics find out about Qimonda. The problem is that they have not much else than the semiconductor industry, created with huge subsidies while (at least this is the opinion of some critics) neglecting other branches.