Remembering the Fall of the Wall

Twenty years ago to the hour I sat in an army bus of the (West) German Bundeswehr in the town of Dannenberg, stuck in a traffic jam caused by (East) German Trabis exploring their new-found freedom to travel. My unit was posted right on the border to the East, charged with listening in to radio communications of the East German and (more importantly) Soviet forces in the GDR, and we were on the way to our radio tower, but that morning we felt extremely redundant. Sitting in traffic that morning - a most unusual experience in sleepy Dannenberg -, stared at from below in our olive-green whale of a bus by the disbelieving eyes of our long-lost compatriots, remains my most vivid memory of the day after the Berlin Wall (and all of the walls separating the two German states) opened. Five years ago I published my memories of that time.

For those who, like me, want to relive those days, the months leading up to them, and the time that followed, the major two German public broadcasters should be the first port of call: the ARD has put online several months of their major daily news bulletin, the Tagesschau, in the 'Autumn of Change' during September, October, and November, and in its series "Countdown Mauerfall", the ZDF has combined relevant excerpts from its daily news programmes for each day since the disputed local elections in the GDR in May 1989 - well worth seeing. Perhaps the most poignant vision is of Tagesthemen moderator Hanns-Joachim Friedrichs, though, who as late as 22:45 on that 9 November 1989 was the first in the German media to really articulate the enormity of the events: 'the gates in the wall are wide open'.

Also of interest: the New York Times' very nice collage of before-and-after photos of Berlin. Difficult to believe even now how much the city has changed. (HT: Deb Adams.)

Technorati : 1989, Berlin, Wall, change, politics, television
Del.icio.us : 1989, Berlin, Wall, change, politics, television