Fall of the Berlin Wall, 20 Years Ago Tonight

Tonight marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. I know it sounds like ancient history to some of the younger members here, but for some of us of a certain age, it's still hard to believe that it happened. Growing up, it was a given that there would always be a Soviet Union, and there would always be two Germanys. As an Air Force pilot, sitting EWO alert, it was more than just an abstract idea. And having gone TDY to RAF Mildenhall, refueling West German Tornados over the Buffer Zone adjoining East Germany, it was very real.

Months of turmoil and protests in the fall of 1989 caused the East German government to ease travel restrictions between the East and West. On November 9, a government spokesman announced the upcoming easing of restrictions. When asked when the changes would take effect, and not having any additional instructions, he replied "Immediately". When this news got out, thousands of East Berliners swarmed the wall, demanding to be let through the gates.

I remember watching the news that night, astounded at what I was seeing. As I said, growing up, the Berlin Wall was a fact of life, and seeing it fall was something that I never expected in my lifetime.

The Berlin Wall came to symbolize the separation between the East and West. Along with the larger Inner German Border, the fortified frontier which separated East and West Germany, it came to be a physical manifestation of what Winston Churchill had called the Iron Curtain. Over the years, thousands risked death or imprisonment by attempting to escape across the border, and more than 1,000 have been reported to have died in their attempts.

Truly a great day in human history that showed the world oppression will not stand. Amazing that generations born since that day will never know what it meant to live in a world where it was the U.S vs. the U.S.S.R.

I will forever have Reagan's "Tear down that wall" seared into several neurons. What a time to remember!


What's troubling though is that years after the Cold war, our relations with Russia are again,....at odds.

I was still quite young when this happened. I didn't understand the magnitude, but I knew it was big.

One of the coolest things I've EVER done in my life was touch a section of the wall that is kept in Los Angeles. Simply incredible.

I've had the chance to see a couple of sections of the wall. Eight panels of the wall, the largest ever displayed outside Germany, were on display for nearly 20 years in Rosslyn, VA (fans of The West Wing will recognize the location):

http://www.moose135photography.com/T...80_A9Se8-L.jpg

http://www.moose135photography.com/T...92_6EJfE-L.jpg

http://www.moose135photography.com/T...91_PKrnF-L.jpg

And in Hyde Park, NY, at the FDR Presidential Library, this sculpture created from a section of the wall is displayed:

http://www.moose135photography.com/N..._uwGPB-L-2.jpg

A few months after the fall, they began selling small chunks of the wall in collectible boxes in US stores, or at least trying.

This one was marked down to $8.98 in Bloomingdales, but if I recall correctly my mom found this for $2 in the clearance bin.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2507/...5f78d5fb_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2574/...b66855ac_o.jpg

I remember it quite vividly even though I didn't really understand the full context of what was going on. My dad was stationed in Berlin in the 60s and never thought he'd see it happen, so he was pretty excited. Then again, the 1989-era CIA seemed pretty surprised, too. :-)

The prospect of world peace seemed more likely than ever, or so we were told. For the next decade we lived in relative euphoria, even through the first Iraq war. And then 9/11 happened and it's been steadily downhill ever since. :-(

Anyway, here's a clip from a great ABC News special about the Wall made in the early 90s. I had the opportunity to watch the whole thing last week and it filled in a lot of gaps in what I knew and brought back some memories.

I remember this pretty vividly, as well... I was 14, an eighth grader, and ironically a few weeks before had been working on a group research paper on communism and its effect on Europe for my history class. As a RABID military and aviation nut, I guess I had a bit of a leg up on my classmates and as a result had a pretty good understanding that what was going on in Berlin was about as big a game changer as could be (at the time)... I didn't understand until a few years later what the expressions on my parents' faces meant... The image of that segment of the wall getting pulled/pushed down is as indelibly seared into my memory as seeing the Mets win the '86 series, watching the Challenger explode or watching 9/11 unfold on TV.