20 years ago today, the Berlin Wall came down!
1) Some historical background!
After World War 2, the US, the UK, France and the Soviet Union took over parts of Germany!
The parts taken by the US, the UK and France eventually became the independent nation of West Germany! West Germany became one of the most prosperous and freedom-having nations in Europe!
The part taken by the Soviet Union became East Germany. While it was technically independent, it was a Soviet satellite! East Germany was a communist nation! Its standard of living was lower than West Germany! There was no freedom of speech, assembly or religion! The government spied on its citizens, paranoid about dissenting thought!
Within East Germany was Berlin! Being that Berlin was the traditional capital of Germany, it was split between the US, the UK, France and the Soviet Union! West Berlin became an little outpost of West Germany! It was a small oasis of freedom surrounded by East Germany!
Because many East German tired to escape to West Germany via West Berlin, the East German government built the Berlin Wall to prevent its citizens from escaping! It was guarded by soldiers ready to kill anyone who tries to pass by!
The Berlin Wall was a symbol of imprisonment!
Meanwhile, in the Soviet Union, while it was a military power, in the 1980s, things were going down! It was loosing money partly because its communist policy stifled the economy! Also, the oil-exporting Soviet Union was hurt by declining oil prices! It was also loosing its war in Afghanistan, with the Afghan troops supported by the US, Pakistan and several Arab nations! (ironically, 20 years later, the US troops are the ones fighting in Afghanistan)
The Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev felt the government went too far in suppressing civil liberties! He also wanted to negotiate an arms reduction treaty with the US!
The US president at the time, Ronald Reagan was skeptical of Gorbachev's desire for peace and freedom!
So, in 1987, Reagan went to West Berlin and made the legendary statement "General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
While that didn't happen immediately, Gorbachev eventually declared that he would no longer interfere with the domestic happening of nearby nations. So, basically, if the dictators of Poland, East Germany, etc had a problem with protesters, they were on their own! They could no longer cry to the Soviet Union for help!
The pro-Democracy movement gained momentum in Poland, Czechoslovakia (now separated into Czech Republic & Slovakia), Hungary, Romania and of course East Germany!
East German were finding their way to West Germany by going through Czechoslovakia and Hungary!
It got to the point where the East German government gave in and allowed the people to travel to West Germany!
The Berlin Wall came down on November 11, 1989!
There were celebrations! Long lost relatives found each other! People of a same language and heritage, separated by a wall, came together!
It was a legendary moment in history!
The following year, West Germany and East Germany united! There was now just Germany!
While some in other European nations worried about what a re-united Germany could mean, based on what happened earlier in the 20th century, Germany became the largest economic power in Europe! IT was a democracy! Civil liberties! It became so pacifist that they didn't even want to help the US invade Iraq.
Meanwhile, the Soviet Union dissolved into 15 different countries, with Russia being the largest and most famous one!
While Russia had its struggles, it was no longer as dangerous as it used to be! While its civil liberty situation isn't perfect, it has more civil liberties than it did in the Soviet days!
The other Eastern Europeans nations became democracies with various levels of prosperity!
The main exception was Yugoslavia. While the other European nations were peaceful in the 1990s, Yugoslavia had its ethnic conflicts and bloody warfare! It dissolved into several new nations (ie Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Kosovo)
2) What was I think when the Berlin Wall came down?
I was still in elementary school, but even at that age, I was already addicted to looking at the atlas and reading the encyclopedias :)
So I totally remember seeing what was then current-day maps with an West and East Germany, Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. None of them are on the atlas anymore!
So even then, seeing the Berlin Wall going down, I knew something was changing! I knew I was watching history! Well, obviously, I understand the situation more now then I did back then, but still even then I knew history being made!
3) The fall of the Berlin Wall also inspired a few songs!
The most well-known was "Winds of Change" by the rock band Scorpions. The video for that song commemorated the fall of the Berlin Wall, as well as protest movements from around the world!
Jesus Jones song "Right Here, Right Now" while it doesn't directly address the Berlin Wall, the video for the song showed the Berlin Wall coming down!
Check those songs out on YouTube, myspace or i-tunes!
