20 Years On: The Fall of the Berlin Wall

Berlin Wall

Source: Associated Press/BBC

The world has changed a lot since 1989. It is hard to imagine that Germany was once divided into two parts for many years after World War II.  It is hard to believe that city of Berlin was once divided by a wall and difficult to fathom that it has been 20 years since the wall came down and sparked a chain of events that eventually led to the end of the Cold War. For all those too young to remember the Cold War, all you need to know is that it meant constant tension, threat of a nuclear war and inspired some of the best movies of our time! Who can forget all those films where the bad guys always  seemed to speak Russian? Did someone say Hunt for Red October? In the end, the West 'won' the Cold War but it is ironic that 20 years later, capitalism has basically imploded and we are all feeling the effects of the world economic crisis. 

I'm trying to remember 1989. TV Images that come to mind revolve around sledgehammers hacking away at the Berlin Wall, families being reunited and celebrations all over Germany. I also recall how real and fake chunks of the wall were up for sale everywhere. In fact, if the internet was up and running in 1989, I'm sure chunks of the wall  (real and fake) would have been all over E-Bay.

Speaking of East Germany, a couple of months ago, I finally got round to seeing the 2003 film Good Bye Lenin! which is set in Communist East Berlin. The film  is a comedy/drama that chronicles events from just before the collapse of the wall in 1989 all the way up to German Reunification in 1990. Aside from the amusing plot underlying the film,it shows the shocking disparities between  life in East Germany compared to the much wealthier West Germany. Was also interesting to see the rapid changes that took place as communism gave way to capitalism literally overnight! Of course the major catch for me was that I watched the film entirely in German with no subtitles .Thanks to the good people over at Wikipedia, I was actually able to follow the story!


Today, celebrations are set to take place all over Germany. Hopefully, the rest of the world will reflect on other barriers such as race, religion, ethnicity that separate people all over the world. Can't we all just get along?