Twenty Years ago…The ‘Wall’ Came Down…

[amicus]

During an interview with Greta Van Susteren, Bush 41, recalled the times and the events surrounding the fall of the Berlin Wall.

It seemed like ancient History to me; to think of a divided Europe, a powerful Soviet Union and the ever present threat of Nuclear War.

A few of us here on the forum, reached maturity during the 1950’s and know full well the constant worry, what with bomb drills in school, people building shelters in their backyards and basements and stocking up with a years worth of food and water.

England and France did not want an ‘unified’ Germany, still holding memories of World Wars One and Two, still, the ‘Bush team’, set about re-uniting a divided Germany.

For many, the existence of Euro-nations, united in economic and open travel between countries, would have seemed an unreachable and perhaps undesirable goal even during the 70’s and early 80’s.

Just a little trip down memory lane for me, perhaps an awakening for a younger generation; it really wasn’t all that long ago. I am curious as to how our European Litsters might respond to this Anniversary?

Amicus

 

[penandpaper]

So, it seems to me that Europe benefited from dropping their borders. How 'bout us? Hmm...

 

[slyc_willie]

I remember the night. Hell, I was there. I'd gone back to see my father just after my 18th birthday and ended up staying for a few weeks. We got word about the imminent party and made the pilgrimage to Berlin for the party. That was a crazy night. It was like a block party with ten thousand drunken people swinging hammers and picks. Someone gave me a hammer and I took a solid thwack. Kept the chunk for years after that.

It's amazing to not only remember such a piece of history, but to have been part of it.

My father told me for a few years afterward (he died in 1993) how various markets in the western half of Germany became flooded with East German techs and other skilled workers willing to work cheap, while the eastern half was an economic wasteland. Took quite a while for things to even out. When I was stationed in Germany in the early 90s, quite a few of the crimes I investigated -- especially those having to do with the black market and the drug trade -- were related to the fall of the Iron Curtain. It was a lucrative time for black hats.

Man. Twenty years . . .

 

[amicus]

Yeah, Slyc, I got goose bumps, chill blanes, a 'frisson' on reading your last line. Twenty years, my friend..seems like only yesterday...

Thank you for the priviliged inner look you offered.

ami

edited to add: I am watching the New Orleans Saints game in the Superdome right now...why do pictures of the Dome during Katrina keep flashing before my eyes?

 

[slyc_willie]

Yeah, Slyc, I got goose bumps, chill blanes, a 'frisson' on reading your last line. Twenty years, my friend..seems like only yesterday...

Thank you for the priviliged inner look you offered.

ami

No more "inner" than ten thousand or more others in the world could offer from that night. Alas, that was also the first time I got really drunk (damn that sweet homemade German wine!), so a good chunk of it is hidden in my personal miasma called a brain.

Certain things stay with you. I'm sure you recall vividly where you were when you heard the news about JFK, or Bobby, or King. We'll all remember where we were and what we were doing on 9/11/01. I wonder what events that have yet to transpire will figure prominently in my mind, so that when I get the question, "Grandpa, where were you when . . .?" I'll have an interesting story to tell.

 

[SeaCat]

Oh how well I remember when the wall came down. I was on vacation visiting family and friends in Germany that winter. I spent Christmas with family then traveled to Berlin for New Years. (I think Germany had a collective hangover for three days after New Years that year.

Cat

 

[kromen]

I was also stationed in Germany at the time, military brat. Happened to be close to Berlin for a football game and took a quick detour for a piece of the wall to display at school. I had a personal piece but lost it during the move stateside (my mother may have tossed it with the rest of my crap that gathered dust on my shelf).

 

[amicus]

I had the benefit of traveling much of western Europe on a motorcycle in 1970, long befor the Wall came down and although I did not venture into the vicinity of Berlin, at the advice of others, I did see the barbed wire barricades and the machine gun toting Russian soldiers manning the guard towers.

There are several old 'spy' movies and films about people escaping from East Berlin during those years, Michael Caine starred in one, but at the moment I cannot recall the title...

Thanks to those of you who have the memories and who also shared them.

Amicus

 

[Liar]

1987, I was 10 years old, and just beginning to get aware of the political world around me. There were words like glasnost and perestroika on the news. Innocolus and obcsure terms I had no idea what they meant, but somehow sensed was important, and something I would remember for the rest of my life. It was the first indication that something big was about to happen over there in the strange and scary place east of the (baltic) sea.

Gorbachev's reforms, and the crack in the unified Soviet wall that followed between him and the commie hardliners, was a key part of what inspired and energized reformist unions in Poland and Hungary, and made Latvian nationalists dream little dreams of freedom..

And so it began.

The whole thing from a toppled Berlin wall, to the gristly revolution of Romania, went by in a blur in -89. Another week, another nation. The thing I remember most vividly though, were not the wall or the other news close by, but Tiananmen Square. It was somehow more "real" to my then twelve year old brain, than what was happening on my very doorstep.

Another week another nation. Then came the Soviet states, the Baltics first at tugging at the old bonds and delcaring themselves independant, while Moscow finallty imploded upon itself, in a farce of a coup, where a drunk on a tank became the new God of Russia.

I just Googled to get some facts straight about this era, and came upon one event that I hadn't heard about before:

December 8, 1991: Three men, the presidents of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, meet in the Belovesjeskaja woods in Belarus and decide to dissolve the Soviet Union.

Fuck, they should make a movie. That sounds like an epic ending.

 

[amicus]

Hello, Liar, and thank you for your thoughts.

I also recall the Tianamen Square event and wondered if Communist China would follow the Soviet Union into the History books...

Tendrils of thoughts....1917, the October Revolution, the end of WW1, the 'roaring twenties', Paris Jazz, the Great Depression, the re-emergence of Germany, even the Socialist and Nazi 'Clubs' in the US, the drama of spies and secrets...I was born in 1939, just before the German's marched on Poland, so I guess this history of events is a little closer than to most, but still, that History is so much more available with modern means than ever before...and, to digress, the Japanese Empire expanding during the 30's and the eventual alliance with the Nazi's...

...no wonder it is sometimes difficult to get a firm handle on the 'big picture' (movie, Creation, Peter O'Toole)...

thanks...

ami

 

[cloudy]

the ‘Bush team’, set about re-uniting a divided Germany.

You're seriously losing what little intellect you have left. Reagan was president when Germany reunited.

 

[Liar]

Um, didn't Reagan's presidency end in January 1989?

That being said, crediting the "Bush team" for anything but cheering on at the sidelines is hyperbolic and America centric to the extreme. More than anything, Germany reunited itself.

 

[amicus]

Y'know, Cloudy, I am not infallible and may even make an error, but not this time:

July 5, 1990 Bush attends London North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Summit and unveils a new vision for NATO as a more political alliance. This allows the Soviet Union to accept unified German membership in NATO, which is the last major obstacle to German reunification and trade issues.

And my intellect is just fine, thank you.

Ami

 

[cloudy]

Um, didn't Reagan's presidency end in January 1989?

That being said, crediting the "Bush team" for anything but cheering on at the sidelines is hyperbolic and America centric to the extreme. More than anything, Germany reunited itself.

Technically, true, yes, but all the work leading up to the wall coming down was done during the Reagan presidency, not Bush the greater's.

 

[amicus]

Ah, Liar, your edit, jes couldn't leave well enough alone, cudya?

~~~

http://www.presidentialtimeline.org/html/timeline.php?id=41

January 20, 1989
Bush is inaugurated as the forty-first President of the United States.

February 23, 1989
Bush attends the funeral of the Showa Emperor Hirohito in Tokyo, Japan, making him the first President to visit Asia before visiting Europe.

February 26, 1989
Bush becomes the first President to speak live on Chinese television.

March 1, 1989
Bush establishes the National Space Council, headed by Vice President Dan Quayle.

April 30, 1989
Bush attends the Bicentennial celebration of George Washington’s Inauguration in New York City.

May 21, 1989
Bush delivers the commencement address at Boston University in the presence of French President Francois Mitterand and Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohammed, noting that “an ideological earthquake is shaking asunder” the foundations of Communism.

May 28, 1989
Bush attends the Summit celebrating the fortieth anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Brussels, Belgium.

August 10, 1989
Bush nominates General Colin L. Powell to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

November 9, 1989
The East German government announces that, after 28 years, border crossings would again be permissible.

December 2, 1989
Bush meets with Mikhail Gorbachev in Malta to promote U.S.-Soviet relations.

December 20, 1989
Bush announces U.S. military action in Panama leading to the capture of renegade dictator Manuel Noriega.

June 11, 1990
Bush announces that U.S. and Mexico will begin negotiations on a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

June 25, 1990
Bush meets African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela.

June 27, 1990
Bush announces the Enterprise for the Americas Initiative and the eventual goal of a free trade area covering the entire Western Hemisphere.

July 5, 1990
Bush attends London North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Summit and unveils a new vision for NATO as a more political alliance. This allows the Soviet Union to accept unified German membership in NATO, which is the last major obstacle to German reunification and trade issues.

July 23, 1990
Bush nominates David H. Souter to be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

July 26, 1990
Bush signs the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, prohibiting discrimination based on disabilities.

August 2, 1990
Iraqi forces invade Kuwait.

August 8, 1990
Bush deploys U.S. forces for the defense of Saudi Arabia.

October 3, 1990
German reunification occurs when East Germany is incorporated into West Germany.

November 15, 1990
Bush signs the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, deemed to be the most significant environmental legislation ever passed. The Amendments seek ways to reduce smog and atmospheric pollution, which includes prohibiting the use of leaded gasoline in motor vehicles by the end of 1995.

November 19, 1990
Along with other leaders of the two alliances, Bush signs the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, dramatically reducing North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Warsaw Pact forces in Europe.

November 22, 1990
Bush spends Thanksgiving Day with the troops in Saudi Arabia.

January 16, 1991
Acting under the authority of the U.N. Security Council, Bush orders the beginning of Operation Desert Storm.

February 23, 1991
Bush directs General Norman Schwarzkopf to use ground forces against Iraqi forces in Kuwait.

February 27, 1991
Bush addresses the Nation on the suspension of combat in the Persian Gulf.

April 8, 1991
Bush proposes the establishment of a Cabinet-level Department of the Environment.

July 8, 1991
Bush nominates Clarence Thomas as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

July 31, 1991
In Moscow, President Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev sign the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), reducing, for the first time, the strategic nuclear forces of the two superpowers.

~~~

It appears to be an America Centric world, Liar, because it is....

'ow bout them epples?

always kick 'em when they're down

ami

 

[Liar]

Ah, Liar, your edit, jes couldn't leave well enough alone, cudya?

~~~

http://www.presidentialtimeline.org/html/timeline.php?id=41



~~~

It appears to be an America Centric world, Liar, because it is....

'ow bout them epples?

always kick 'em when they're down

ami

You cite presidentialtimeline.org as evidence and conclude it's an America Centric world? Hockay.

The Two Plus Four Agreement (where the US was one of the four) and the political rethoric from Reagan proposing a more open DDR are two parts of a very big puzzle towards unifying Germany. The rest of said puzzle had very little to do with the United States.

 

[amicus]

Dear Liar, I have no doubt that other factors were at work and many other nations involved.

I even try to imagine living in a piddling little nation without consequence in world affairs and even attempt sympathy at times for those truly on the sidelines....

Since World War Two, emphasizing the Berlin Blockade, it was a center ring slugfest between the United States and the Soviet Union all over the world as everyone watched with bated breath that some idiot would press the button.

The 'new world order' following the demise of the Soviet Union is still being adjusted and now the Chinese Communist's seem to be the quiet menace in the world with the Islamic Terrorists taking center stage for the time being.

And still it is the United States acting as a central 'hub' that the world turns on.

I didn't make it that way, but I can read and I do not need to see the world through American eyes to observe reality.

Amicus

 

[Boxlicker101]

I found it rather interesting to compare the progress in Capitalistic West Germany with the lack of same in Socialist East Germany. It was quite similar to the comparison now to North and south Korea.

 

[TE999]

I found it rather interesting to compare the progress in Capitalistic West Germany with the lack of same in Socialist East Germany. It was quite similar to the comparison now to North and south Korea.

Yes indeedy. West Germany was manufacturing and driving Beemers, East Germany was gluing together and attempting to drive Trabants. Darn that Capitalisim anyway.

Except North Korea's being run by a delusional maniac with guided missles and nukes.

 

[amicus]

I don't recall the circumstances, but I saw a satellite viewpoint on the 'darkside' of earth where the electric lights could be seen from space. It was coldly startling to see a brightly lit South Korea and an almost totally dark North Korea.

There, but for the grace of SEATO, goes Asia.

Amicus...