Germany celebrates 30 years since fall of Berlin Wall

Nationwide celebrations have kicked off in Germany to mark 30 years since the Berlin Wall fell. The event shows that "no wall... is so high and so wide that it could not be broken through," said Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Read more at:
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-celebrates-30-years-since-fall-of-berlin-wall-live-updates/a-51178230

EU: How barriers still divide Europe 30 years since fall

How barriers still divide Europe 30 years since fall of Berlin Wal

Read more at:
https://www.euronews.com/2019/07/11/how-barriers-still-divide-europe-30-years-since-fall-of-berlin-wall

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The Berlin Wall: Twenty-five years on

Since 1789 pieces of the Bastille have been sought-after decorations on mantelpieces in France. Two centuries later, bits of the Berlin Wall have travelled all around the globe. It is “the only monument that exists on all continents,” except possibly Antarctica, says Axel Klausmeier, the boss of a Berlin foundation for its remembrance.

That says a lot about what Germans call their “peaceful revolution”, which climaxed with the breaching of the wall on November 9th 1989. This weekend Germans will mark its 25th anniversary with a celebratory bash.

As the first successful liberal revolution in German history, 1989 ranks in importance with 1789, says Rainer Eppelmann, head of a foundation studying the East German dictatorship. Even better, unlike that French revolution 200 years earlier, the German one was non-violent. Because the Berlin Wall divided not just a city but also a country, a continent and the world, its fall implied a global promise of liberty. In geopolitics the “end of history” seemed possible, though it later gave way to a “clash of civilisations”, as duelling book titles put it in the 1990s.

German expectations were highest. “Now what belongs together will grow together,” predicted Willy Brandt, a former chancellor and mayor of divided Berlin, the day after the wall fell. Contemplating the environmental and economic dereliction of 45 years of communist rule, Helmut Kohl, then chancellor, envisaged “blooming landscapes” in the east.

A generation on, Germans still debate whether they have grown together and to what extent the east has bloomed. In terms of motorways and other infrastructure, the east sparkles today. In certain social indicators, such as women’s participation in the workforce or the enrolment of toddlers in crèches, it even leads the west. But overall, according to polls, eastern Germans are still less content than westerners.

After years of net migration from east to west (which only recently abated), parts of the east are depopulated, especially in rural areas. Eastern Germany’s GDP per head is still only 67% of that in western Germany. Its productivity is 76% of the western figure and the number of patents filed just 29%. Its unemployment rate is 9.7% to the west’s 5.9%. Apart from a few industrial clusters, the east has hardly any large companies (see article).

Yet a closer look reveals that the differences within eastern and western Germany are now greater than those between them. Saxony in the east, especially around Dresden and Leipzig, is comparable to Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, two vibrant regions in western Germany. Parts of Lower Saxony and Westphalia, in the west, are as downtrodden as Brandenburg or Mecklenburg, in the east.

Read more: The Berlin Wall: Twenty-five years on | The Economist

The Globe and Mail: The evolution of the new Europe begins - by Doug Sauders

Unity, Peace and Power

For the complete report from the The Globe and Mail click on this link

As the leaders of Europe and the United States gathered to commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Europe in the freezing rain at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate last night, they were quietly meeting to push for future revolutionary changes. Pressed close together in the cold night as they watched speeches and a symbolic toppling of dominoes, Europe's leaders tried to hammer out the future leadership of the continent, a decision that will further extend the unification of Europe that began with the Berlin Wall's opening on Nov. 9, 1989. For the European leaders, the 20th anniversary of the wall's fall came at a propitious moment, only six days after Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus, himself a key figure in the democratic revolutions of 1989, finally agreed to become the last of 27 European Union heads of state to sign the Lisbon Treaty, a new constitution for the continent-wide bloc. Europe will now become more like a national federation, with a president and a foreign minister, both appointed by the leaders of all 27 countries.

Note EU-Digest: watching the celebrations in Berlin last night one could not escape from the feeling that finally it is starting to dawn on us the citizens of the EU that we are one, at least in spirit and purpose.

The Telegraph: Berlin Wall anniversary: Nicolas Sarkozy 'used pickaxe' after rushing from Paris

For the complete report from the Telegraph click on this link

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has shared his memories of the fall of the Berlin Wall, telling his Facebook fans he chipped away at the concrete slabs with a pickaxe on November 9, 1989. Mr Sarkozy posted his personal account as he headed to Berlin to join European leaders for joyous celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of the collapse of the Wall. The president recounted that he traveled to Berlin from Paris on the morning of November 9 after hearing the first news reports of the mass influx of East Germans to West Berlin.Then a 34-year-old member of parliament, Mr Sarkozy was with other French politicians who headed straight for the Brandenburg gates "where an enthusiastic crowd had gathered to welcome the looming opening of the Wall". "We then headed for Checkpoint Charlie to see the eastern side of the city and finally confront this wall and I was able to take a pickaxe to it," recounted Mr Sarkozy.

Times Online: Berlin all fired up for wall-to-wall partying - by Peter Millar

For the complete report from the Times Online click on this link

Tomorrow night, at the climax of the biggest official party seen in Europe, with Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, hosting Gordon Brown, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, and Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president — to name but a few — the slabs will crash into one another like dominos, representing the chain of events that 20 years ago brought the cold war to an end. The first “domino” will be pushed over, fittingly enough, by Lech Walesa and Miklos Nemeth, the veteran Polish and Hungarian anti-communist campaigners. They will be joined by two other main actors in the drama of 1989: the former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev and Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the then West German foreign minister.

The officially organized street party is costing EURO 5.15m (US$7.56m) and kicks off with a Daniel Barenboim-led concert at the Brandenburg Gate, followed by Bon Jovi performing their single We Weren’t Born to Follow and an extravagant firework display as the thousand dominos fall. All of Germany is celebrating what the newspaper Die Welt yesterday called “the unexpected joy” that hit the country on a cold night in November 1989 when popular unrest, democracy protests, and a series of misjudged measures and misunderstandings caused the Berlin Wall to fall.

In today’s difficult climate, nobody in Germany is claiming reunification came without economic pain, but with Germany having already climbed out of recession, one newspaper editorial could claim yesterday that “if we are not the happiest nation on earth, at least we are a happy nation”.