Remembering the Wall ... 20 years already

[Steven_Draker]

Twenty years to the day since the Berlin Wall was first breached ... as it was yesterday

A big celebration is expected in Berlin today.

 

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/11/08/article-1226164-0722E497000005DC-504_634x389.jpg

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1226164/World-leaders-gather-7m-Berlin-Wall-20th-anniversary-celebrations.html

[Lookin]

I recall taking the U-Bahn under the wall from West Germany to East Germany in the late sixties. I had to present my passport to get above ground at the Unter den Linden stop. Some beautiful old buildings including the dowdy but still impressive Hotel Adler. But in contrast to the bustling streets a mile away, here the streets were nearly empty. The shop windows had a handful of items, arranged more as display pieces than as items for sale. I didn't wander far, as I had the distinct impression that the two gentlemen a half block behind me had more than a casual interest in my doings.

 

Fast forward thirty-five years, and a friend and I are sitting at the outdoor cafe in front of the beautifully restored Hotel Adler. As we noshed on something mit schlag, a brand new pink Mercedes pulls up in front. Out climb two well dressed, middle aged women, visions in leopard- and zebra- skin outfits. While they oversaw the bellmen carrying in their mound of luggage, I snuck back to look at their license plate holder to see if my suspicions might be true. Sure enough: Mary Kay ®

 

It was nice to see how life had improved for those in the former GDR.

[HoseMaster]

I was there in 1990 on a backpacking trip across Europe. Took the train over to Berlin and saw "Checkpoint Charlie". There were vendors along the wall renting hammers and chisels. Several of us rented them and chipped ourselves several pieces of history.

[+ Charlie]

I made several trips through Checkpoint Charlie (named in my honor, of course) in the 70s and 80s, but the first one was the most memorable. We arrived at the Ostbahnhof by train from Prague, and realized that we had no East German currency to get to the checkpoint at Friedrichstrasse. To our amazement, several East Germans not only offered to help us find our way, but one even gave us the money for the trip. When we passed through to the West, it was like going from night to day, from the depressing grayness of everything in East Germany and Czechoslovakia, where we had been for a week, to the neon and glitz of West Berlin.

 

Today when I go to Berlin, I can't even tell where the division was.

[Mark Gordon]

Such is History Written

 

GDR press release at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall: "The Berlin Wall could not have come down, were it not for the vision of Erich Honecker in putting it up in the first place!"