Aminet 44/Aminet 44 (2001)(GTI - Schatztruhe)[!][Aug 2001].iso/Aminet/docs/mags/TheCrypt17.lha/crypt17/text2/berlin/berlin

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                A Personal Account of The Fall of the Berlin Wall

                       The 11th and 12th of November, 1989

                                  Andreas Ramos

      On  Thursday,  the 9th of November, 1989, and Friday the 10th, the TV
      and radio in Denmark was filled with news about the events in Berlin.
      The  Wall  was  about  to  fall.   On  Saturday  morning, the 11th of
      November,  I heard on the radio that East Germany was collapsing.  At
      the spur of the moment, I suggested to Karen, my Danish wife, and two
      Danish  friends,  Rolf  Reitan  and Nana Kleist, that we should go to
      Berlin.   We  talked  about what one should take to a revolution:  it
      was  a  very  cold,  dry  November day.  We settled on a dozen boiled
      eggs, a thermos pot of coffee, extra warm clothes, sleeping bags, and
      a  battery- powered radio.  The four of us packed into my 25 year old
      Volkswagen bug and we drove off.

      It's  normally  an  eight hour drive from Aarhus, Denmark, to Berlin.
      We  took  the  Autobahn  down  to  Hamburg and then across one of the
      transit  routes  to Berlin.  Berlin is in the centre of East Germany.
      There  are  only three highways which allow access from West Germany.
      At  the  border city of Braunschweig (Brunswick), on the German side,
      we  began  to  see  the  first Trabants.  These are small East German
      cars.   They  don't  just  look  like toy cars, they look like Donald
      Duck's  car.   It  was  designed  by  a famous East German industrial
      designer  during  the 50s and it never changed.  It's the only car in
      the  world  with  tail  fins.   It  has  cheap, thin metal that rusts
      easily.   The  two-  stroke engine buzzes like a lawn mower and pumps
      out  clouds  of  smoke.   God  help  you if you're standing near one.
      Trabants,  which  Germans  call  Trabis, have a top speed of about 50
      miles an hour.

      After  a  pizza  in  Braunschweig, we drove towards the German/German
      border.   It  was  about 11 p.m.  at night now.  The traffic began to
      slow down.  Soon there was very heavy traffic.  In the distance there
      was  a tremendous cloud of light.  No one knew what was going on.  On
      the  radio,  reports  followed one another, contradicting each other.
      Soon,  we began to pass cars that were parked along both sides of the
      Autobahn.  People were walking along, all heading towards the border.

      We  finally  reached the border just after midnight.  The East German
      border  was  always  a  serious place.  Armed guards kept you in your
      car,  watching  for  attempts  at  escapes.   Tonight was a different
      country.   Over 20,000 East and West Germans were gathered there in a
      huge  party:  as each Trabi came through, people cheered and clapped.
      East   Germans  drove  through  the  applause,  grinning,  dazed,  as
      thousands  of  flashbulbs went off.  The traffic jam was spectacular.
      The  cloud  of  light  turned  out  to  be  the headlights of tens of
      thousands of cars in a huge cloud of Trabi exhaust fumes.  We got out
      of  the  car  and  began  walking.  Between lanes of cars, streams of
      people  were  walking, talking together.  Under one light, a group of
      musicians  were playing violins and accordions and men and women were
      dancing  in circles.  Despite the brilliantly cold night, car windows
      were open and everyone talked to each other.

      We met people from Belgium, France, Sweden, Spain, England:  they had
      all  left their homes and come to see the wall be torn down.  Germans
      were  drunk  with  joy.  Everyone spoke in all sorts of languages and
      half  languages.   French spoke German and Spaniards spoke French and
      everyone  spoke a bit of German.  We walked for a while with a French
      family  from  Belgium:  the mother had packed her two young daughters
      into the car and came to see the German revolution.

      Along with everyone else headed towards Berlin were thousands of East
      Germans;  they had been in West Europe for a blitz tour with the kids
      and  grandmother  in  the  back, to look around and drive back again.
      Without  passports,  they  had  simply  driven  through  the borders.
      Amused  West  European  border guards let them pass.  They smiled and
      waved to everyone.

      At  the  checkpoint,  which is a 25 lane place, people milled around.
      It  was  nearly  3  a.m.   by now.  It had taken us three hours to go
      through  the  traffic jam of cheering and applause.  West Germans are
      environmentally  conscious and if they're stuck in traffic, they turn
      off the engine and push their cars.  East Germans, on the other hand,
      sat  in  their  Trabis,  putting out clouds of exhaust.  Everyone had
      their radios on and everywhere was music.  People had climbed up into
      trees,  signs,  buildings, everything, to wave and shout.  Television
      teams  stood around filming everything.  People set up folding tables
      and  were handing out cups of coffee.  A Polish engineer and his wife
      had run out of gas; someone gave us some rope, so we tied the rope to
      his car and pulled them along.

      We  walked  through  the border.  On both sides the guard towers were
      empty  and  the  barbed  wire was shoved aside in great piles.  Large
      signs  told us that we needed sets of car documents.  The East German
      guard  asked  if  we  had  documents.   I  handed him my Danish cat's
      vaccination documents, in Danish.  He waved us through.

      We were finally inside East Germany on the transit highway to Berlin.
      We  could  see  headlights  stretching  into the distance, a river of
      light  winding through hills and valleys as far as one could see.  We
      counted  our  odometer  and  saw  that in the opposite direction both
      lanes  were  filled and stopped for 35 kilometres.  We counted people
      and cars for a kilometre and guessed that perhaps another one hundred
      thousand people were headed westward towards West Germany.

      We  drove  along, listening to the radio.  The only thing was Berlin.
      Reporters  went  back and forth, describing the events on the streets
      and  where  people  had  gathered at the wall.  There were reports of
      shoving  and arrests.  Large crowds were beginning to form into mobs.
      Police  stood  around.   There were reports of rumour of soldiers and
      military vehicles, both East and West.  At one point in the wall, the
      crowd  had  begun  to tear down the wall.  They succeeded in carrying
      away a 3 meter tall slab.

      We  arrived in Berlin at 4:30 a.m., five hours longer than usual.  We
      drove  first  to  Brandenburgerplatz,  where  the  statute  of Winged
      Victory  stands  atop  a 50 meter column, which celebrates a military
      victory  in  the 1890s over Denmark.  Cars were abandoned everywhere,
      wherever  there  was  space.   Over 5,000 people were there.  I began
      talking  to  people.   We  left  the  car and began to walk through a
      village  of  television  trucks,  giant  satellite  dishes, emergency
      generators,  and  coils  of cables, and tents.  Cameramen slept under
      satellite  dishes.   At the wall, West German police and military was
      lined up to prevent chaos.  West German military trucks were lined up
      against  the  wall, to protect it from the West Germans.  Hundreds of
      West  German police stood in rows with their tall shields.  On top of
      the  wall,  lined  up at parade rest, stood East German soldiers with
      their  rifles.   Groups  of West Germans stood around fires that they
      had built.  No one knew what was going on.

      After  a  while,  we walked to Potsdammer Platz.  This used to be the
      centre  of  Berlin.   All  traffic once passed through the Potsdammer
      Platz.  Now it was a large empty field, bisected by the wall.  Nearby
      was  the mound that was the remains of Hitler's bunker, from which he
      commanded  Germany  into total defeat.  We talked to Germans and many
      said  that  the  next  break in the wall would be here.  It was still
      very  dark  and  cold  at  5  a.m.  Perhaps 7,000 people were pressed
      together, shouting, cheering, clapping.  We pushed through the crowd.
      From  the East German side we could hear the sound of heavy machines.
      With a giant drill, they were punching holes in the wall.  Every time
      a  drill  poked through, everyone cheered.  The banks of klieg lights
      would  come  on.   People shot off fireworks and emergency flares and
      rescue  rockets.   Many  were using hammers to chip away at the wall.
      There  were  countless  holes.   At one place, a crowd of East German
      soldiers  looked through a narrow hole.  We reached through and shook
      hands.   They  couldn't see the crowd so they asked us what was going
      on and we described the scene for them.  Someone lent me a hammer and
      I  knocked  chunks of rubble from the wall, dropping several handfuls
      into  my  pocket.  The wall was made of cheap, brittle concrete:  the
      Russians had used too much sand and water.

      Progress  seemed  rather  slow  and  we figured it would take another
      hour.   The car wouldn't start any more without a push.  We went back
      towards  the  city for coffee or beer or whatever.  We drove down the
      Kurfurstendamm  (the  Ku'damm),  the  central boulevard.  Hundreds of
      thousands  of people were walking around, going in and out of stores,
      looking  around,  drinking cheap East German champagne.  Thousands of
      champagne  bottles  littered  the  streets.  Thousands of Trabis were
      parked  wherever  they had found a space, between trees, between park
      benches,  on  traffic  islands.   Everything  was open:  restaurants,
      bars,  discos,  everything.   Yesterday over two million East Germans
      had  entered  Berlin.   The  radio  reported  that  over 100,000 were
      entering  every  hour.   With  Berlin's  population of three million,
      there  were  over five million people milling around in delirious joy
      celebrating  the  reunion  of  the  city after 21 years.  A newspaper
      wrote banner headlines:  Germany is reunited in the streets!

      The  East  German  government  was collapsing.  East German money was
      worthless.   West  Germany  gave  every  East German 100 Deutschmark,
      which  amounted  to  several  months wages.  The radio announced that
      banks and post offices would open at 9 a.m.  so that the people could
      pick  up  their  cash  with  a  stamp in their identification papers.
      Thousands stood in line.

      We  left  our  car  in  front  of the Gedankniskirchen, the Church of
      Remembrance,  a  bombed  out ruins of a church, left as a memorial to
      the victims of the war.

      We  walked into a bar.  Nearly everything was sold out.  A huge crowd
      was  talking  and  laughing  all  at once.  We found a table.  An old
      woman  came up and asked if we were Germans.  We said no, Danish, and
      invited  her and her family to our table.  We shared chairs and beer.
      They  were East Germans, mother, father, and daughter.  She worked in
      a  factory,  her  husband was a plumber, and the daughter worked in a
      shop.   They  came from a small village several hundred kilometres to
      the south.  The old woman said that she had last seen Berlin 21 years
      ago  and  couldn't recognize it.  They told us about the chaos of the
      last  few  weeks.  I asked them what they had bought in Berlin.  They
      all  pulled  out  their squirt guns.  They thought it was so funny to
      fill up the squirt guns with beer and shoot at everybody.  The family
      had  chased a cat in an alley and eaten a dinner of bananas, a luxury
      for  them.   We  talked  about  movies;  they  knew the directors and
      cameramen.   The  father  was very happy at the idea of being able to
      travel.   He  wanted  to  go to Peru and see Machu Picchu and then to
      Egypt  and see the pyramids.  They had no desire to live in the West.
      They knew about unemployment and drug problems.  Their apartment rent
      was $2 a month.  A bus ticket cost less than a penny.

      At  seven  a.m.   or  so,  we  left and headed back to the Potsdammer
      Platz.   Old  Volkswagens  don't have gas gauges.  The car ran out of
      gas.   Someone  said  that there was a gas station five blocks ahead.
      People  joined  us  in  pushing  the car to the gas station.  When we
      arrived,  people were standing around.  The electricity had failed in
      the  neighbourhood so the gas pumps were dead.  The owner shrugged at
      the  small  bother  and  waved us towards the coffee.  Dozens of East
      Germans,  young,  old, children, stood around drinking coffee.  After
      an  hour  or  so,  the electricity came on and we filled up the tank.
      With  a  crowd  of  people,  we pushed the car up and down the street
      three times to get it to start.  We drove back to Potsdammer Platz.

      Everything  was out of control.  Police on horses watched.  There was
      nothing  they  could do.  The crowd had swollen.  People were blowing
      long  alpine  horns  which  made a huge noise.  There were fireworks,
      kites,  flags  and  flags  and  flags,  dogs, children.  The wall was
      finally  breaking.   The  cranes  lifted  slabs aside.  East and West
      German  police  had  traded  caps.  To get a better view, hundreds of
      people  were  climbing  onto  a  shop  on  the  West German side.  We
      scampered  up  a  nine  foot  wall.   People  helped each other; some
      lifted,  others pulled.  All along the building, people poured up the
      wall.   At the Berlin Wall itself, which is 3 meters high, people had
      climbed  up and were sitting astride.  The final slab was moved away.
      A stream of East Germans began to pour through.  People applauded and
      slapped their backs.  A woman handed me a giant bottle of wine, which
      I  opened  and  she and I began to pour cups of wine and hand them to
      the  East  Germans.   Journalists  and TV reporters struggled to hold
      their  cameras.   A  foreign news agency's van with TV cameras on top
      was  in  a  crowd of people; it rocked and the cameramen pleaded with
      the  crowd.   Packed  in  with thousands, I stood at the break in the
      wall.   Above me, a German stood atop the wall, at the end, balanced,
      waving  his  arms and shouting reports to the crowd.  With all of the
      East  Germans  coming  into  West Berlin, we thought it was only fair
      that  we  should  go to East Berlin.  A counterflow started.  Looking
      around, I saw an indescribable joy in people's faces.  It was the end
      of  the  government  telling people what not to do, it was the end of
      the  Wall,  the  war, the East, the West.  If East Germans were going
      west,  then we should go east, so we poured into East Berlin.  Around
      me,  people spoke German, French, Polish, Russian, every language.  A
      woman  handed  her  camera to someone who was standing atop rubble so
      that  he  could  take  her  picture.   I  passed  a group of American
      reporters;  they  didn't  speak anything and couldn't understand what
      was  going  on, pushing their microphones into people's faces, asking
      "Do  you  speak  English?"  Near  me, a knot of people cheered as the
      mayors  of  East Berlin and West Berlin met and shook hands.  I stood
      with  several  East  German  guards,  their  rifles  slung over their
      shoulders.   I  asked them if they had bullets in those things.  They
      grinned   and  said  no.   From  some  houses,  someone  had  set  up
      loudspeakers  and  played  Beethoven's ninth symphony:  Alle Menschen
      werden Bruder.  All people become brothers.  On top of every building
      were  thousands  of people.  Berlin was out of control.  There was no
      more  government,  neither  in  East nor in West.  The police and the
      army  were helpless.  The soldiers themselves were overwhelmed by the
      event.   They  were part of the crowd.  Their uniforms meant nothing.
      The Wall was down.

      After  a while, we left and went back to the city, to find some food.
      The  TV  was  set  to East German TV.  The broadcasters began showing
      whatever  they  wanted:   roving  cameras  in the street, film clips,
      porno,  speeches  from  parliament, statements, videos, nature films,
      live  interviews.  West Berliners went out of their homes and brought
      East  Germans  in  for food and rest.  A friend of ours in Berlin had
      two  families  sleeping  in  her living room.  The radio told that in
      Frankfurt,  a  Trabi had been hit by a Mercedes.  Nothing happened to
      the  Mercedes  but  the  Trabi  was  destroyed.   A  crowd  of people
      collected  money  for  the  East  German  family;  the  driver of the
      Mercedes gave them her keys and lent them her car for the weekend.  A
      West  German  went  home,  got his truck, and drove the Trabi back to
      East  Germany.   Late  Sunday, the West German government declared on
      radio  and  TV  that  East  Germans  had  free  access  to all public
      transportation:   buses,  streetcars, and trains, plus free admission
      to  all  zoos,  museums, concerts, practically everything.  More than
      80%  of  East  Germany  was  on  vacation  in West Germany, nearly 13
      million  people,  visiting  family  and friends in the West.  After a
      week, nearly all returned home.

      After  a  dinner  of  spaghetti,  we got back into the Volkswagen and
      headed  home.   The  radio talked about delays of ten hours, but then
      again,  that  was  just another rumour.  At the border, there were no
      guards  any  more.   Late  the next morning, we were back in Denmark.
      1989:  The End of Communism in Central Europe

      In  1848, Europe went through a year of revolution, as kings fell and
      democratic  governments  were created.  1989 was another one of these
      years  for  Europe.   With  countries  that  are  literally  a  short
      automobile  trip  apart,  where people tend to know each other, where
      international  news  is  local  news,  political  movements leap like
      wildfire  from  city  to  city.   April  5:   Poland.   The Communist
      government  and  Solidarity  agree  to  share  power  and  hold  free
      elections.   May  8:  Yugoslavia.  The nationalist Slobodan Milosevic
      is  elected  as  president.  June 4:  Poland.  Solidarity wins a huge
      majority  of  the  vote, including 96 of 100 Senate seats.  Aug.  19:
      Poland.   Mazowiecki is elected as Poland's first non-Communist prime
      minister.   Sept.   10:   Hungary.   60,000  East  Germans go through
      Hungary  to  cross  into  Austria.  Sept.  27:  Yugoslavia.  Slovenia
      asserts  its  right  to  secede  from  Yugoslavia.   Oct 7:  Hungary.
      Socialist  Workers  Party  (formerly  Communist)  renounces  Marxism,
      embraces democratic socialism, and is renamed the Hungarian Socialist
      Party.  Oct.  18:  East Germany.  Mass demonstrations force President
      Eric  Honecker  to  resign.  Oct.  18:  Hungary.  Parliament ends the
      one-  party monopoly and announces elections for next year.  Nov.  9:
      East Germany.  The Berlin Wall is opened and five million people come
      to  Berlin to celebrate the end of the Wall, the end of the Cold War,
      the  end  of  Communism, and the reunification of Germany.  Nov.  10:
      Bulgaria:   Todor  Zhikov,  head of state and leader of the Communist
      Party  for 35 years, resigns.  Nov.  17:  Czechoslovakia, Hundreds of
      thousands  of protesters march in Prague.  Dec.  10:  Czechoslavakia.
      President  Husak  resigns  and  installs  a  coalition  cabinet  with
      communists  in  the  minority.   Dec.   13:  Bulgaria.  The Communist
      Party  renounces  their  monopoly  on  power.  Dec.  16-21:  Romania.
      Security  forces  opens  fire on thousands of demonstrators; hundreds
      are killed and buried in mass graves.  As Christmas arrives, everyone
      in  Europe watches the revolution on television.  Dec.  22:  Romania.
      The  army  revolts,  joining  with  demonstrators, and the Council of
      National  Salvation  declares  the government to be overthrown.  Dec.
      25:  Romania.  In an two-hour trial, the Communist dictator Ceausecsu
      and  his  wife  are convicted of genocide and immediately executed by
      machine gunfire.  Dec.  26:  Poland.  Radical free-market reform plan
      is  announced.   Dec.   29:   Czechoslavakia.   Playwright  and human
      rights  campaigner  Vaclav  Havel,  who  spent  years  in prison as a
      dissident,  is  the  new  president of Czechoslavakia.  Links to More
      Sites...   To  link  to  this  page, use www.andreas.com/berlin.html.
      Visit  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica's article about the Berlin Wall.
      The Free University of Berlin has a short history of the wall.  A web
      site  in  East  Berlin  has  more links about the wall.  For the 10th
      Anniversary, there's www.wall-berlin.org.  Matthias Melcher maintains
      the  University  of  Heidelberg's links to German history.  Photos of
      the  Wall  at  www.dieberlinermauer.de (The Berlin Wall.) See Steffan
      Iwersen's  photos.   Jim  LeBlanc  was  a translator with the US Army
      during  the 80s.  He took many photos of the Berlin Wall, both before
      and  after,  which  show the change in the city.  Chris De Witt has a
      collection   of   essays   and  pictures.   Cliff  Docherty  wrote  a
      description  of  life in Berlin in 1983 during the wall.  I was often
      in  Berlin  throughout  the 80s and his description is accurate.  The
      Ghost of the Wall.  World Book Encyclopedia's The Wall Comes Down.  A
      collection  of  articles  that  examines  the Berlin Wall, why it was
      built,   and   why   it   fell.    BiW:   Berlin  Wall:   Background,
      construction,  measurements,  and  its  fall.  Chris De Witt's Berlin
      Wall.  Concrete Curtain.  On the tenth anniversary of the fall of the
      Berlin  Wall.   Concrete  Curtain:   The Life and Death of the Berlin
      Wall:   The  Caen Memorial and the DHM of Berlin.  Fall of The Berlin
      Wall:   Timeline  of events and social and political impact.  Fall of
      the  Berlin  Wall:  Photos and newspaper articles from the days after
      November 9th, 1989.  History Of the Berlin Wall in Text and Pictures.
      Lost  Border:   Photographs  of the Iron Curtain The landscape of the
      Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall and the subsequent reconstruction of
      central  Berlin.   footnotes...   If  you're writing about the Berlin
      Wall  for  your school or studies, you can also look at other issues.
      For  example,  Korea  was also divided into two parts:  communist and
      Western.   They  also  have  a  wall  that  divides  the  country and
      families.   North  Korea  is barely able to survive.  The USA, Japan,
      and  China  support  North  Korea  so it won't collapse.  South Korea
      wants  to  reunify,  but  they  can't  bear the costs of developing a
      country  that  is  in  near  ruins.   So  everything that happened in
      Germany  will  also happen again in Korea.  You can learn about Korea
      and compare the two.

                             © Andreas  Ramos  1989.