TWBN#4: The Berlin Wall and Other East European Monsters

I was lucky enough to visit Berlin before the Wall came down, so I got to see how strange it was to have that city (West Berlin) in the middle of East Germany, surrounded by a huge wall. Apparently the East German Government explained when they erected it that they had to protect East Berlin against the massive influx of West Germans that would happen when the wessies saw how well their neighbours were getting on. Nonetheless plenty of people tried to escape the other way (with often fatal consequences). There's a well-written book by an Australian woman about living in the East and some that tried to escape, called "Stasiland". Here's a link to an extract on the Guardian website. My partner lived in West Berlin for some time as an au pair when she was a teenager. When I first went there with her in 1987 (I think) to visit the family she had stayed with I thought it was fascinating, but now I think The Wall was desperate and quite ridiculous. The Wall allowed the close juxtaposition of these two opposed cultures and exacerbated their differences, which made for a great tourist attraction. I was struck by the playful response to it by people on the Western side See this site by Chris DeWitt for lots of pictures of the Wall and another for some more. A lot of it looks brutal and quite shocking. So a spectacle worth seeing, but a repressive experience for people in the East, I think, so I was very glad to see it come down; that was amazing to watch (that link goes to a story on the BBC site with testimonies from eye-witnesses).

The Fall of the Berlin Wall was part of a wider, very exciting breakdown of Soviet control over other Eastern European countries, starting in early 1989 with Poland, where the massive "Solidarnosc" (Solidarity) trade union, led by Lech Walesa, was able to defy General Jaruzelski and force free elections. That was a stunning victory and seemed to inspire people in other countries in the region to stand up to their governments. Previous protests had been crushed, but now somehow people seemed more powerful than the armies. The most memorable of that year were the Czech "Velvet Revolution", remarkable for the election of a Frank Zappa - loving playwright as president and the Romanian more violent one.

Brief Introduction to the Berlin Wall in English and German