The Fall of the Berlin Wall…20 Years Ago Today
I can’t believe it’s actually been 20 years since the Berlin Wall came crumbling down on November 9, 1989. I’m starting to accept the fact that I’m actually getting older. Hell…I’ve reached 31! 
At the time this historical event took place, I understood what it meant. But, looking back, I think that I only understood the significance of the day in general terms. I remember that I was in 6th grade and had read about its origins and the affect it had on the people of Germany, Europe and even the rest of the world in school.
I heard the stories of my grandfather fighting in World War II in Germany and all the stories that he had to tell of going back years later and seeing the wall in person. It’s amazing to look back at all of the history and realize what a momentous day that November day actually was.
So…where were you when the Berlin Wall fell? Do you have any memories? Do you live, or have you ever traveled to Germany either before the wall fell…or after?
From Reuters:
It’s not often that a historic announcement comes, as an afterthought, almost by accident, at the end of an otherwise stultifyingly tedious press conference.
But that’s how the Communist East German government told an incredulous world that the Berlin Wall, that most potent symbol of the Cold War, would be thrown open after three decades.
I was fortunate enough to witness that most famous news conference of modern German history on November 9, 1989, called with no great fanfare by Politburo member and spokesman Guenter Schabowski.
For an hour he had rambled through the dull deliberations of a meeting of the Communist Party’s ruling Central Committee.
Many journalists had already left the small, stuffy windowless room on the first floor of the International Press Center where news conferences were held. Some had headed home, some drifted to the restaurant where the Stasi security police routinely observed foreign reporters by hidden camera.
Even though pressure had been building on the East German government for months to grant “Reisefreiheit” — or freedom to travel — Schabowski had nothing to say about that until near the end of his presentation when he was asked about travel rules by Riccardo Ehrman of the Italian news agency ANSA at 6:53 p.m.
“Therefore…um…we have decided today…um…to implement a regulation that allows every citizen of the German Democratic Republic…um…to…um…leave East Germany through any of the border crossings,” said Schabowski.
From CNN:
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.
From the New York Times:
Flanked by leaders from the former Eastern Bloc in Communism’s last days, and mobbed by a cheering crowd, Chancellor Angela Merkel launched a day of commemoration Monday of the fall of the Berlin Wall, retracing the steps of the first East Germans, herself included, surging to West Berlin 20 years ago.
Mrs. Merkel’s symbolic walk across the Bornholmer Strasse bridge, accompanied by Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, and Lech Walesa, the former shipyard worker who led a fight against Moscow-backed Communism in Poland, came as Berlin prepared for an evening of celebration to mark the moments on Nov. 9, 1989, when the wall began to crumble.
In a light drizzle hundreds of people gathered to observe the moment, some recalling the crowds who swelled the former East German checkpoint at the Bornholmer Street crossing point after an East German official announced that, with immediate effect, travel restrictions would be eased.
Mrs. Merkel has told reporters recently that she was one of those to walk into the west that night across the gray iron bridge at Bornholmer Strasse. Many of the hundreds crowding onto the bridge with her on Monday were former East German civil rights activists.
Tags: CNN, Moscow, Ronald Reagan, German, Caylee Anthony, Casey Anthony, Communism, Angela Merkel, Poland, Lech Walesa, Berlin Wall, Gorbachev, Mikhail Gorbachev, Bornholmer Street, East Germany, West Germany, Soviet Union, Eastern Bloc, Berlin, Berlin Wall Anniversary, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Cold War, Guenter Schabowski, Berlin Wall Memories, Communist Party
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November 10, 2009 at 11:41 am
I was holding my baby, born August 13 that year, in my arms when I saw on tv hpw that wall was coming down, and I cried my eyes out of joy. I was in Utrecht, not where I lived but in the house of my (now) husband and the father of my son. It was a very emotional moment, the end of so much fear and hate, the beginning of a new era without threat of an atomic bomb. The final end of cold war I suppose.
Of course there were also a lot of problems as the people from Eastern Germany needed jobs as well, and there stil is a lot that hasn’t been quite settled, but that moment I will never forget. We decided then and there to (try and) get another baby in time as times were changing. (And so we did.) A lot of people seem to have thought that way, as there was a babyboom a little later
If you want to read more: http://open.salon.com/blog/lost_in_berlin/2009/11/10/watching_the_dominoes_fall_in_berlin_reflections_on_11909
blogger Alan Nothnagel wrote about it.