Comments | deutsche_kultur: 9. November 1989 - Mauerfall (Fall of the Berlin Wall)

breakingthrunow in deutsche_kultur

9. November 1989 - Mauerfall (Fall of the Berlin Wall)

Nov 09, 2007 06:41

Today marks the exact day of the end of the Berlin Wall - der Mauerfall, or die Maueröffnung. This happened 18 years ago in 1989, I can't believe it's been that long. I searched for some videos so here they are.

Somebody's school project on the topic

Click to view

Here's yet another video, featuring what later became one of the "theme songs" of the whole ( Read more... )

gdr, events, history, 1980's, 20th century history, ddr, the west, the wall, reunification, the east, breakingthrunow, berlin, youtube, in the news

Comments 20

zarchasmpgmr November 9 2007, 15:23:23 UTC

Being born in 1962, and with the entire "us versus them" mentality that I grew up with, I still can't believe that the Iron Curtain fell in just a few short months...and peacefully.

Two of my co-workers from Software AG were Osties. (One worked in my development group, the other worked on a product that I had supported when in an earlier position.) My development co-worker came across when the borders fell between Austria and Czechoslovakia, and after the events of the following months, sent for his family. The other came across the old-fashioned way, and would not talk about the experience to others.

But both of them were experienced IBM mainframe programmers, having worked on systems that magically made it across into Eastern Europe, and on Soviet-built compatible computers. My development colleague was hired as an operator, but within a few years, because of his BS2000 operating system experience, was able to transfer into development.

mistressboy November 9 2007, 15:46:30 UTC

I watched one of the videos, and it gave me goosebumps. My mother would have been pregnant with me when the wall fell - to think how different my perception of Europe would be had the wall never fallen and I had been born into a world where it still existed.

Thanks for this. I always feel that because of when I was born, I've missed out on knowing about it.

akiko November 9 2007, 15:55:32 UTC

I like telling people that when I started learning German, Germany was 2 countries. My textbook, Unsere Freunde, published in 1978, had only the BRD states listed, with a differently-colored blob for the DDR. (The book was 10 years old when I used it, and we got to learn words for things like bellbottom trousers. And Schallplatte. Ooh, and Tonbandgerät. Very useful.)

My 9th grade ('89-'90) German teacher was an American woman, and I'm not sure whether she did anything with it or not. My 10th grade and on teacher was from Berlin, so we watched videos in class the next year.

(I don't want to admit this, but I liked the Scorpions, and their "Wind of Change" song played a lot on MTV & the radio in the early 90s. Didn't the video include scenes from the Mauerfall?)

breakingthrunow November 9 2007, 16:11:30 UTC

Yeah, the Scorpions video is here

The song probably seems really cheesy to others but it has a place in history for Germans who were around at that time, like a theme song (along with a few others). It's one of those things that just give me goosebumps even now. I guess you have to have been there.

akiko November 9 2007, 16:35:27 UTC

Yeah, I know what you mean. Looking back, the song is so cheesy, but it was the early 90s. Power ballads and hair bands were in vogue. And it just captured the sense of "Wow, look what's changing" with perestroika, glasnost, the fall of the Wall, and the end of Soviet Europe. And hope.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_of_Change

breakingthrunow November 11 2007, 01:35:29 UTC

Yes, exactly. It's a piece of Zeitgeist, really.

steinkind November 9 2007, 16:17:27 UTC

uh...18 years. i didn't realize it was that long ago already.

i didn't quite get what was happening when it happend. i was ten at that time and didn't quite understand what the fuss was all about. though i remembered that i was nevertheless touched when i saw genscher on the balcony in budapest (or prague?! not sure...).
now, i wish i would have been a little bit older at that time, just two years or so. so that i would have understood better what was happening. i mean, there was history made and i didn't get it. *g*

PS: a friend just told me a nice quote of walter ulbricht two months before the berlin wall was build:
"noone wants to build a wall..."
*g*

claudee November 9 2007, 19:41:40 UTC

Another theme song is "Wind of Change", which sends shivers down my spine when only thinking about it. Sung by the german band Scorpions.

aquila0212 November 10 2007, 13:54:47 UTC

Great song!