The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman
Thousands of curious Berliners in the center of the German capital have been sizing up over 1,000 giant dominos set to topple on Monday to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The 2.5-meter high (8 ft. 2 in.) colorful plastic foam dominos have been lined up along a 1.5 kilometer (one mile) stretch of terrain once occupied by the Berlin Wall in the area around the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag parliament building. The dominos will be tipped over in a ceremony on Monday to symbolically mark the toppling of the wall and the beginning of the end of communist East Germany on November 9, 1989. The dominos have been decorated by various artists as well as Berlin school children to reflect upon what reunification represents to the people of East and West Germany. The dominos are a powerful, symbolic message Many of the dominos carry messages, like "We are one people". One labeled "bleeding heart" shows a sword cutting through the city of Berlin, starting a crimson flow of blood speckled with crosses.
The 2.5-meter high (8 ft. 2 in.) colorful plastic foam dominos have been lined up along a 1.5 kilometer (one mile) stretch of terrain once occupied by the Berlin Wall in the area around the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag parliament building.
The dominos will be tipped over in a ceremony on Monday to symbolically mark the toppling of the wall and the beginning of the end of communist East Germany on November 9, 1989.
The dominos have been decorated by various artists as well as Berlin school children to reflect upon what reunification represents to the people of East and West Germany.
The dominos are a powerful, symbolic message
Many of the dominos carry messages, like "We are one people". One labeled "bleeding heart" shows a sword cutting through the city of Berlin, starting a crimson flow of blood speckled with crosses.
In a press conference on Nov. 9, 1989 GDR central committee spokesman Guenter Schabowski unintentionally announced that citizens could travel to West Germany immediately. It was the beginning of the end for East Germany. Guenter Schabowski's press conference on November 9, 1989 was a fairly dull affair for most of its duration, according to those present. But a question by an Italian journalist right at the end turned it into one of European history's most memorable events. Schabowski was asked just before 7 p.m. about when a new law permitting GDR citizens more freedom of travel would go into effect. Schabowski famously told the journalist: "As far as I know, that goes into effect now, immediately." Since television viewers in both East and West Germany were following the live press conference, his comments electrified East Germans and eventually led to a redrawing of the European map. Immediately following the remark, GDR citizens rushed to the border separating East and West Berlin, wanting to visit the western part of the city. The GDR border guards were unaware of the press conference, and, taken aback by the crowds gathering in front of them, made repeated calls to their superiors asking for guidance. They successfully prevented citizens from crossing the border for three hours. But later in the evening, the guards relented and opened the borders. People were able to cross freely from East to West for the first time since the wall's erection on August 21, 1961.
In a press conference on Nov. 9, 1989 GDR central committee spokesman Guenter Schabowski unintentionally announced that citizens could travel to West Germany immediately. It was the beginning of the end for East Germany.
Guenter Schabowski's press conference on November 9, 1989 was a fairly dull affair for most of its duration, according to those present. But a question by an Italian journalist right at the end turned it into one of European history's most memorable events.
Schabowski was asked just before 7 p.m. about when a new law permitting GDR citizens more freedom of travel would go into effect. Schabowski famously told the journalist: "As far as I know, that goes into effect now, immediately."
Since television viewers in both East and West Germany were following the live press conference, his comments electrified East Germans and eventually led to a redrawing of the European map.
Immediately following the remark, GDR citizens rushed to the border separating East and West Berlin, wanting to visit the western part of the city. The GDR border guards were unaware of the press conference, and, taken aback by the crowds gathering in front of them, made repeated calls to their superiors asking for guidance. They successfully prevented citizens from crossing the border for three hours.
But later in the evening, the guards relented and opened the borders. People were able to cross freely from East to West for the first time since the wall's erection on August 21, 1961.
Hardy Graupner was working as a journalist in East Germany the night the Wall fell. Now a reporter for Deutshe Welle, he remembers the mixture of optimism and trepidation he felt as the world opened up to him. November 9, 1989, was a normal working day for me. I was on a newsreader shift for the English program of Radio Berlin International, East Germany's foreign broadcasting service. It was a time of many hectic developments in the East that were extremely hard to put into perspective from within the country. As an ordinary journalist, I only had rather limited access to foreign news agencies, which would have helped me to analyze the political events of that era better. When the news broke about Easterners now being able to travel to the West, I didn't really believe it at first. As far as I remember, our radio station chose to ignore the news for quite a while, with the editor-in-chief double-checking whether we were supposed to talk about it at all in our news bulletins. Later in the day, I saw on West German television how hundreds of easterners had wasted no time and gone to the Wall and crossing points to engage in lively debates with the border guards. What followed is well known -- the events of that night spelled the beginning of the end of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). And on that Thursday, 20 years ago, I wasn't quite sure whether I was heading towards a brighter future or a disaster.
November 9, 1989, was a normal working day for me. I was on a newsreader shift for the English program of Radio Berlin International, East Germany's foreign broadcasting service. It was a time of many hectic developments in the East that were extremely hard to put into perspective from within the country. As an ordinary journalist, I only had rather limited access to foreign news agencies, which would have helped me to analyze the political events of that era better.
When the news broke about Easterners now being able to travel to the West, I didn't really believe it at first. As far as I remember, our radio station chose to ignore the news for quite a while, with the editor-in-chief double-checking whether we were supposed to talk about it at all in our news bulletins.
Later in the day, I saw on West German television how hundreds of easterners had wasted no time and gone to the Wall and crossing points to engage in lively debates with the border guards. What followed is well known -- the events of that night spelled the beginning of the end of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). And on that Thursday, 20 years ago, I wasn't quite sure whether I was heading towards a brighter future or a disaster.
Willy Brandt was uncomfortable with the idea, Günter Grass -- who in those days spoke from the summit of Mount Morality -- considered it an abomination, and Gerhard Schröder, maneuvering for political position as a Social Democratic underling, eventually voted against it. François Mitterrand resisted as long as he could, and Margaret Thatcher, in her fierce opposition, held out even further.From the day after the Berlin Wall fell, and for the next month or two, the prospect of reunifying Germany met with extensive rejection, while the Cold War's leaders nurtured the notion that it could be negotiated and stalled into a still distant future.(That first free afternoon, meanwhile, as Angela Merkel later told reporters, she and her sister headed straight from East Berlin to visit the Big Rock Candy Mountain of free-world consumerism, the West Berlin department store KaDeWe.)
Willy Brandt was uncomfortable with the idea, Günter Grass -- who in those days spoke from the summit of Mount Morality -- considered it an abomination, and Gerhard Schröder, maneuvering for political position as a Social Democratic underling, eventually voted against it.
François Mitterrand resisted as long as he could, and Margaret Thatcher, in her fierce opposition, held out even further.
From the day after the Berlin Wall fell, and for the next month or two, the prospect of reunifying Germany met with extensive rejection, while the Cold War's leaders nurtured the notion that it could be negotiated and stalled into a still distant future.
(That first free afternoon, meanwhile, as Angela Merkel later told reporters, she and her sister headed straight from East Berlin to visit the Big Rock Candy Mountain of free-world consumerism, the West Berlin department store KaDeWe.)
In recent weeks polls have been released on the differences, and as often as not the similarities, between the former East and the former West in matters of love and real estate, table manners and car ownership. In ways both typically serious and atypically jocular, Germans seem to be groping for an understanding of what happened and what, along the way, they have become.Beneath the trivial differences lies a country more unified than anyone expected. That is not to say that there are not still some hard feelings, and particularly among those from the East, known officially as the German Democratic Republic. Despite great strides and an estimated $2 trillion in assistance since 1989, many there have not quite caught up to the West materially and saw their everyday way of life disappear along with the wall. "The things from the G.D.R. are no longer around, and have to be hauled out of museum cabinets, whereas in the West they don't have to remember because those things are still there," said Jana Hensel, a writer who grew up in the eastern city of Leipzig, when asked about the quiz show. "For East Germans it is still painful to have to remember the things they have lost," she said. But the fading divisions between the sides are most apparent among those with no memories of the wall or the G.D.R., the generation born after 1989. "For people from our generation, it's just a part of German history," said Sebastian Melchior, 19, a student at the Alexander von Humboldt High School here in the district of Köpenick in the former East. "For us this division doesn't really exist anymore." "My parents ask if people are Wessis or Ossis," he said, using the colloquial and slightly derogatory terms for the two groups, "but I just can't identify with that at all."
In recent weeks polls have been released on the differences, and as often as not the similarities, between the former East and the former West in matters of love and real estate, table manners and car ownership. In ways both typically serious and atypically jocular, Germans seem to be groping for an understanding of what happened and what, along the way, they have become.
Beneath the trivial differences lies a country more unified than anyone expected. That is not to say that there are not still some hard feelings, and particularly among those from the East, known officially as the German Democratic Republic. Despite great strides and an estimated $2 trillion in assistance since 1989, many there have not quite caught up to the West materially and saw their everyday way of life disappear along with the wall.
"The things from the G.D.R. are no longer around, and have to be hauled out of museum cabinets, whereas in the West they don't have to remember because those things are still there," said Jana Hensel, a writer who grew up in the eastern city of Leipzig, when asked about the quiz show. "For East Germans it is still painful to have to remember the things they have lost," she said.
But the fading divisions between the sides are most apparent among those with no memories of the wall or the G.D.R., the generation born after 1989.
"For people from our generation, it's just a part of German history," said Sebastian Melchior, 19, a student at the Alexander von Humboldt High School here in the district of Köpenick in the former East. "For us this division doesn't really exist anymore."
"My parents ask if people are Wessis or Ossis," he said, using the colloquial and slightly derogatory terms for the two groups, "but I just can't identify with that at all."
(Reuters) - The 20th anniversary of the opening of the Berlin Wall on November 9 will coincide with other significant 20th-century anniversaries for Germany, some far darker: Nov 9, 1918 - As defeat approached in World War One, Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated and Social Democrat Philip Scheidemann declared Germany's first republic from a window of the Berlin Reichstag parliament building. Known as the Weimar Republic, it collapsed in 1933 when Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party exploited its weaknesses to seize power. November 9, 1923 - Launched in a Munich Beer Hall the night before, Hitler's first attempt to seize power -- the Beer Hall Putsch -- quickly fizzled and the Nazi leader was imprisoned. November 9, 1925 - The Nazi Schutzstaffel -- the SS -- was founded. The elite armed wing of the party, it spearheaded the genocide of Jewish people throughout Europe. November 9, 1938 - Nazi thugs went on the rampage against Jews and Jewish property. At least 91 Jews were killed, 26,000 rounded up to be sent to concentration camps and thousands of synagogues, shops and other Jewish buildings were damaged. The broken glass that littered the streets of Berlin and other cities next morning gave the pogrom a name -- "Kristallnacht" (Crystal Night).
(Reuters) - The 20th anniversary of the opening of the Berlin Wall on November 9 will coincide with other significant 20th-century anniversaries for Germany, some far darker:
Nov 9, 1918 - As defeat approached in World War One, Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated and Social Democrat Philip Scheidemann declared Germany's first republic from a window of the Berlin Reichstag parliament building. Known as the Weimar Republic, it collapsed in 1933 when Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party exploited its weaknesses to seize power.
November 9, 1923 - Launched in a Munich Beer Hall the night before, Hitler's first attempt to seize power -- the Beer Hall Putsch -- quickly fizzled and the Nazi leader was imprisoned.
November 9, 1925 - The Nazi Schutzstaffel -- the SS -- was founded. The elite armed wing of the party, it spearheaded the genocide of Jewish people throughout Europe.
November 9, 1938 - Nazi thugs went on the rampage against Jews and Jewish property. At least 91 Jews were killed, 26,000 rounded up to be sent to concentration camps and thousands of synagogues, shops and other Jewish buildings were damaged. The broken glass that littered the streets of Berlin and other cities next morning gave the pogrom a name -- "Kristallnacht" (Crystal Night).
The fall of the Berlin Wall was a time of celebration, but also one of fear and uncertainty in the old East Germany. A country, and an ideology, collapsed. Factories closed, jobs disappeared and old values were turned upside down. All of East German society felt the impact of those dramatic events, but perhaps none were as vulnerable as the country's foreign contract workers, or Vertragsarbeiter. Over the years, tens of thousands of people had travelled to East Germany from fellow Socialist countries in the developing world; places like Angola, Cuba, Mozambique and Vietnam. They learnt technical skills and worked in factories.To some extent, the scheme was driven by a sense of solidarity between friendly, ideologically-linked states. But East Germany also used the migrant workers to overcome chronic labour shortages, and by sometimes keeping a portion of their wages, to pay-off debts owed to it by countries like Mozambique.
The fall of the Berlin Wall was a time of celebration, but also one of fear and uncertainty in the old East Germany.
A country, and an ideology, collapsed. Factories closed, jobs disappeared and old values were turned upside down.
All of East German society felt the impact of those dramatic events, but perhaps none were as vulnerable as the country's foreign contract workers, or Vertragsarbeiter.
Over the years, tens of thousands of people had travelled to East Germany from fellow Socialist countries in the developing world; places like Angola, Cuba, Mozambique and Vietnam.
They learnt technical skills and worked in factories.To some extent, the scheme was driven by a sense of solidarity between friendly, ideologically-linked states.
But East Germany also used the migrant workers to overcome chronic labour shortages, and by sometimes keeping a portion of their wages, to pay-off debts owed to it by countries like Mozambique.
"If you just take the simple example of telling some people from Western Europe where you are from, they are a bit taken aback," said Yaroslav Hrytsak, professor of East European modern history at the Ivan Franko University in Lviv, Ukraine. "This part of Europe still seems so far away, so remote, for many West Europeans."It is not only the languages, which the West Europeans regard as strange, difficult and impossible to pronounce," said Professor Hrytsak, 49. "There are mental, imaginary borders," he said. "It is as if we are still regarded as backward, poor, not quite Europe." <...> "These countries have been not very well behaved and rather reckless of the danger of aligning themselves too rapidly with the American position," Mr. Chirac said. "It is not really responsible behavior. It is not well brought-up behavior." <...> "Everything is different" between East and West, even today, [a deputy editor of the main daily newspaper in Poland, Gazeta Wyborcza, Helena Luczywo, 63] said. "The economic conditions. The living conditions. But the basic difference is the national collective memory." This, she said, was the main issue: "It is so important. There is no common memory." The freedom to remember, publicly, has been a release but also a burden for the countries of Eastern Europe. <...> All of this explains why, as yet, there is no unified European narrative. "National memory is divided along national lines," Mr. Hrytsak said. "It is very hard to overcome these kinds of borders. We need a space to overcome them." Today, this space is being created by the younger generation from Eastern Europe -- people who never experienced the wall. ...
"If you just take the simple example of telling some people from Western Europe where you are from, they are a bit taken aback," said Yaroslav Hrytsak, professor of East European modern history at the Ivan Franko University in Lviv, Ukraine. "This part of Europe still seems so far away, so remote, for many West Europeans.
"It is not only the languages, which the West Europeans regard as strange, difficult and impossible to pronounce," said Professor Hrytsak, 49. "There are mental, imaginary borders," he said. "It is as if we are still regarded as backward, poor, not quite Europe."
<...>
"These countries have been not very well behaved and rather reckless of the danger of aligning themselves too rapidly with the American position," Mr. Chirac said. "It is not really responsible behavior. It is not well brought-up behavior."
"Everything is different" between East and West, even today, [a deputy editor of the main daily newspaper in Poland, Gazeta Wyborcza, Helena Luczywo, 63] said. "The economic conditions. The living conditions. But the basic difference is the national collective memory."
This, she said, was the main issue: "It is so important. There is no common memory." The freedom to remember, publicly, has been a release but also a burden for the countries of Eastern Europe.
All of this explains why, as yet, there is no unified European narrative. "National memory is divided along national lines," Mr. Hrytsak said. "It is very hard to overcome these kinds of borders. We need a space to overcome them."
Today, this space is being created by the younger generation from Eastern Europe -- people who never experienced the wall. ...
http://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2009/11/08/sur-facebook-sarkozy-raconte-ses-coups-de-pioches -dans-le-mur-de-berlin_1264369_823448.html In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Paraphrase: the Sarko version has been greatly embellished and twisted to fit with the 9th November. It was the next day, the 10th, that the wall was attacked and people came from all over just to be there. This photo can't be from the 9th.
Rewriting history...
