November 9
© Jürgen Müller-Schneck
Today, November 9, marks the fifteenth anniversary of the end of the Berlin Wall, the accursed "wall of shame" that divided the once and future capital of Germany for 28 years and separated neighbor from neighbor and family member from family member. For those of us who grew up during the Cold War, there was nothing so symbolic of the contrast between freedom and totalitarianism than the ugly gray mass of concrete, cinder blocks and barbed wire that began to go up during the wee hours of August 13, 1961.
And likewise, when the leaders of Communist East Germany opened the border during the early evening of November 9, 1989, the moving images of throngs of elated but dazed Germans pouring through the once-impermeable Berlin Wall made it clear that the Cold War had ended. The physical and psychological barriers had begun to come down throughout eastern Europe that fall, but no event had the magnificent, monumental symbolism even approaching the opening of the Berlin Wall.
I can't begin to imagine the feelings of shock, fear, and disheartenment as Berliners awoke on that Sunday morning in 1961 to find that their city had been divided by rolls of barbed wire soon to become an ugly concrete and cinderblock wall. Neighbor was separated from neighbor, family members from family members.
The boundary between zones (and between two ways of life) ran down streets and through back yards. Imagine your city torn in two by a wall of concrete, guarded by marksmen with submachine guns with orders to shoot to kill any would-be refugee.
And then flip forward 28 years to the evening in November 1989 when, with little advance notice, the border was once again open - wide open. Suddenly, the hated wall, which had taken on an aura of permanence, had been breached. I can't begin to imagine the surge of joy that Berliners felt on that November night as they stood atop the wall hugging and toasting each other, and knowing that the isolation and separation from loved ones was over and that their community and their nation would one day again become one, as it did some eleven months later.
© Heiko Burkhardt
I would like to have been in Berlin in the days following the opening of the Wall; it would have been exciting to be a part of one of the few monumentally good events in history. Though I wasn't in Berlin in 1989, I visited the city twice during the early 1990s. There were then still a number of outward signs of the city's long division - one city block would be drab, dingy, and smell of coal smoke and cheap Eastern-bloc automobiles that coughed smoke. And one block away would be brightly lit, clean, and well-maintained businesses, with the inevitable line of Mercedes. What a contrast. In between the two was a wide strip cleared of buildings and trees - this was the no man's land or "death strip" cleared by the East German government so their border guards could get a clear view of (and clear shot at) any would-be escape from the so-called "worker's paradise". In some small way, I feel a twinge of regret that I didn't visit Berlin while the Wall still stood. Though I can imagine what life in a totalitarian state is like, imagination isn't a substitute for seeing and understanding in the flesh.
But when I last visited Berlin, so many changes were afoot. The city skyline was littered with dozens of construction cranes; now that Germany was united again, Berlin was no longer an "outpost" in an island of Soviet-controlled East Germany. Berlin would soon become Germany's capital, and there were countless construction projects to be completed - particularly in land occupied by the security zone near the former border and in some of the areas with wartime destruction still unrepaired in 1993.
Even today, there are still strong divisions within Germany; in the east, where Soviet-era factories that once belched smoke into the sky are shuttered and where unemployment is high, many are disillusioned with capitalism; in turn, many from the west are perturbed by the expense of bringing the "new provinces" into line with the west or annoyed by what they perceive as laziness. No doubt the scars left in Germany first by Naziism, then by the destruction by war, and by the nation's division will take more time to heal, but I know of no one who thinks fondly of the Berlin Wall.
An interesting footnote is that Germany celebrates reunification on October 3, the anniversary of the day in 1990 when the two countries were bound as one, and not on November 9, the day the Berlin Wall opened. November 9 is a very loaded date in German history and, as such, isn't suitable for a national holiday.
November 9, 1918
As the military situation in World War I deteriorated to an irrevocable conclusion and as Germany's economy collapsed and economic unrest threatened civil war, a republic was declared in Berlin. The Kaiser (emperor) was deposed and subsequently went into exile, and on November 11, an armistice was signed that ended World War I.
Unfortunately, the new republic was never stable (in part because of the harsh reparations dictated by the Versailles Treaty and the resulting economic collapse. The fact that the armistice occurred after the declaration of the German Republic allowed political opportunists like Adolf Hitler to successfully lay blame at the feet of the "November criminals" of the Republic (rather than on the Kaiser and his imerial government) for Germany's defeat in World War I and for all the subsequent woes. Successful exploitation of this propaganda angle helped the Nazis gain power a decade later.
November 9, 1923
This was Hitler's Munich "Beer Hall Putsch", wherein Nazis tried to take over the provincial government of Bavaria by armed mob. This was to be the opening battle of a right-wing revolution, but the job was bungled badly; some of Hitler's mob were killed or injured, and the future dictator was arrested. But the event gained national (and even worldwide) publicity for the fledgling Nazi Party and, after Hitler assumed power in 1933, November 9 became one of the significant holidays in the Nazi calendar as one of the first battles of the Nazi movement and as a day to honor the fallen.
The setback taught Hitler that political power could be more easily attained via legal methods; his rise to power in 1933 was achieved not through armed battle but through skillful manipulation through constitutional means.
November 9, 1938
Kristallnacht - the night of broken glass. In what was portrayed as the "spontaneous" anger of the German people against the killing of a German diplomat, but which in fact was a pogrom orchestrated by the secret police, thousands of synagogues and Jewish-owned businesses in Germany are damaged or destroyed by mobs. Though the Nazi government began curtailing the civil liberties of minority groups (particularly Jews) immediately after assuming power in 1933, Kristallnacht marked the first overt, large-scale persecution of Jews and is believed by some to be the event that served as the opening for the larger horrors of the Holocaust.
During Kristallnacht, some 1,500 synagogues throughout Germany were destroyed, as were some 7,000 Jewish-owned businesses, and many Jews were beaten and hauled off to concentration camps. To add insult to injury, the Jewish community in Germany was forced to pay for damage to non-Jewish businesses and to indemnify the companies holding insurance on their properties.