As November 9 approaches, I am enjoying all of the 20th anniversary stories about 1989. (It helps that, due to the Internet, I am able to read articles from places other than the United States. If I only had United States media, there would not be that much to read.) I previously quoted Timothy Garton Ash as saying that "[t]he year 1989 was one of the best in European history." In fact, I think it can be argued that 1989 was one of the best years in world history. The victory of freedom that year could be felt in more than just Europe. Perhaps Elizabeth Pond got it right when she, among others, called it "Annus Mirabilis".*
While the celebrations on November 9 are in Germany, the events of 1989 happened across the continent. Solidarity had been fighting in Poland for ten years. Finally, in June of 1989, the government allowed a partially free election. Solidarity was allowed to run candidates for the newly-created Senate and 35% of the seats in the Sejm. Nobody knew what would happen. What did happen was amazing. Solidarity won 99 out of 100 seats in the Senate and 160 out of the 161 seats they were allowed to contest in the Sejm. The victory was so great that by August Tadeusz Mazowiecki of Solidarity was prime minister.
In Hungary, a reformer, Karoly Grosz, became premier in 1987. When long-time Communist leader Janos Kadar was forced to retire in May of 1988, the movement toward democracy began to pick up speed. In February of 1989, the Communist Party announced it would allow a multi-party system in Hungary and would hold free elections. In June Imre Nagy, executed after the 1956 Revolution, was reburied with full honors. In September Hungary announced that East German refugees in Hungary would be allowed to go to the West instead of being returned to the GDR.
In East Germany there were protests in May of 1989 about local elections that had been rigged even more than normal. After the elections, more and more people began attending the Monday prayer meetings for peace at St. Nikolai Church in Leipzig. There were maybe 500 right after the election; 1,250 a month later. Also in May, Hungary began dismantling the fence between itself and Austria, which meant East German vacationers could go to West Germany via Hungary. It was still illegal, but it could be done. Throughout the summer increasing numbers of East Germans escaped through Hungary to the west. Once Hungary decided, on September 10, to allow East Germans to go to West Germany legally, East Germany cut off travel to Hungary. East Germans then flocked to the West German embassy in Prague. On September 30, pressured by Czech communists who felt their rule was being destabilized, the East Germans allowed those occupying the embassy in Prague to go to the West. After they left, thousands more rushed into the embassy. On October 3, the East Germany closed its border with Czechoslovakia.
In the meantime, the Monday protests in Leipzig were growing bigger. Five thousand assembled on September 25. A week later it was 20,000. Protesters were met with force throughout East Germany on October 7 during celebrations of the GDR’s 40th anniversary. But on Monday, October 9, 70,000 marched in Leipzig, and the police, apparently unsure of their instructions, did not interfere. Erich Honecker was removed on October 17. There was a huge and peaceful demonstration in East Berlin on November 4. A new policy on travel was announced on November 6, but it was seen as too little, too late. In announcing yet another new travel policy on November 9, Günter Schabowski fumbled his words in a press conference, making both East Germans and West Germans think the border was being opened immediately. Berliners from both sides of the Wall rushed to the border crossing points, where guards, without clear instructions and facing bigger and bigger crowds, finally opened the Wall because there was little else they could do.
The focus shifted to Czechoslovakia as the momentum of freedom accelerated. In his book, The Magic Lantern, Timothy Garton Ash noted:
"My contribution to the velvet resolution was a quip. Arriving in Prague on Day Seven (23 November), when the pace of change was already breath-taking, I met Vaclav Havel in the back-room of his favoured basement pub. In said: ‘In Poland it took ten years, in Hungary ten months, in Eastern Germany ten weeks: perhaps in Czechoslovakia it will take ten days!’" (p. 78)
And it happened almost that quickly. In January Vaclav Havel had been in jail. In December he was elected President. Jan Carnogursky went from prisoner to Vice President in two weeks. Jiri Dienstbier went from stoker to Foreign Minister, though he joked he would have to find a replacement at the power plant before he could start.**
But of all of the events that happened in 1989 and in the two years that followed, as first the Warsaw Pact and then even the Soviet Union itself dissolved, it was, I think, in Berlin where the key event happened, the opening of the Berlin Wall. Berlin was, for over 40 years, on the front line of the Cold War. Civil War buffs go to Gettysburg and Antietam and dozens of other sites. Those with an interest in World War II can go to Pearl Harbor, Normandy, Coventry, the Cabinet War Rooms in London, and more.
But the Cold War doesn’t have the battlefields or memorials that other wars do – except in Berlin. Berlin is full of the history of the third great war of the twentieth century. In fact, you can argue that the Cold War started in Berlin. In June of 1948, the Soviet Union blocked all land and water access to Berlin. Unwilling to give in, the Allies decided to supply Berlin – by air.***
I don’t know if anybody expected that the Airlift would be as successful as it was. It started out slowly, but eventually, with the right people in charge, the British and the Americans were able to supply an entire city by air. By the time the Soviets finally gave up and reopened the land routes in May 1949, not only had the Allies saved Berlin, but they won the friendship of the people of Berlin. In less than four years, sworn enemies had become steadfast friends. At Tempelhof Airport in Berlin, the Airlift Memorial is one-third of a monument to the Luftbrücke, the air bridge, and to the American and British pilots who kept Berlin supplied that year. The other two thirds are in Frankfurt and Celle, in West Germany. You can learn about the Airlift at the Allied Museum in southwestern Berlin, a relatively new museum, opened only in 1998, that tells the story of the Allies’ almost 50 years in Berlin.****
Then, on August 13, 1961, came the Wall. The East Germans claimed it was built to protect them against aggression from the West, but anybody who ever saw it knew that was a lie. The Wall’s sole purpose was to keep the East Germans in. While virtually all of the Wall is gone now, bits and pieces can be seen here and there. Also, there are plenty of ways to learn about it. First, and always, there is Haus am Checkpoint Charlie, now called the Mauermuseum. The museum was opened in 1963, just a few yards from the Wall at Checkpoint Charlie, the crossing point for westerners wanting to go into East Berlin. The museum is getting a little worn, a little dated (we went again in May), but I recommend it for any first-time visitor to Berlin. It is one of best ways to get a feel for the Berlin that was divided from 1961 to 1989.
Near Checkpoint Charlie is a simple memorial for Peter Fechter, an East German bricklayer, who was shot while trying to escape over the Wall in 1962 and allowed to bleed to death by East German border guards.
You can also go to Bernauer Strasse, to the Berlin Wall Documentation Center, for more information on the Wall. Also at Bernauer Strasse there is a small section of the original Wall, with the death strip and all.
Near the documentation center is the place where the Church of Reconciliation stood. The church was trapped in the no-man’s land of the Wall from 1961 until it was finally destroyed by the East Germans in 1985. But now, a new building, the Chapel of Reconciliation, has been built on the site where the church stood.
You can take a bus to Glienicker Brücke. During the Cold War the bridge connected West Berlin with Potsdam, and it is where people like Gary Francis Powers and Natan Scharansky were exchanged.
You can also walk the Berliner Mauerweg, the Wall trail. Where the Wall once stood is now a path for walkers and bikers and, at Mauerpark, for bargain hunters at one of the best flea markets in Berlin.
And of course, there is the Brandenburg Gate. It was here in 1987 that Ronald Reagan challenged Mikhail Gorbachev: "General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
And when it comes to the victory of November 9, 1989, there are the iconic pictures of Berliners standing on the top of the Wall with the Brandenburg Gate in the background. For anybody who ever saw the Brandenburg Gate, cut off and standing alone on the other side of the Wall, that picture is a source of joy and gladness.
I remember our first time back in Berlin after the Wall was down. We were with our children. We got off the S-Bahn at Unter Den Linden. As we walked up the stairs to the street, I still remember seeing the Brandenburg Gate with people walking around it and cars driving through it – and no walls blocking them. It brought a tear to my eye.
But perhaps the best monuments to the victory of freedom in Berlin are those things that are no longer there: The border crossing checkpoints, such as Checkpoint Charlie or the one at Heinrich-Heine-Strasse or any of the others, where for 28 years traffic was blocked and one part of a city was kept from seeing the other part. Now the checkpoints and the blockades and the guards are gone. What is left is just a street, like in any city, where people are free to walk or drive wherever they want.
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A note on sources: I have not included links or cites to the facts in this post. It would have been too time consuming to do so. Please be assured I do have sources for all that is included. I have, however, provided links to some of the sights in Berlin that I have referred to, so that you can get more information on them.
* There was more to be excited about in 1989 than what was happening in Europe: The Cubs were winning again. In what Don Zimmer has called his greatest thrill in baseball, the Cubs won the National League East for the second time in six years. From the Lloyd McClendon game in May to the comeback against the Astros in August (see here), from Rick Wrona’s tenth inning suicide squeeze in June to Luis Salazar’s tenth inning double against the Cardinals on September 9, and finally from Mitch Williams striking out the side with the bases loaded on Opening Day to Mitch Williams striking out the last batter in Montreal with the tying run on third on September 26, it was a great year on the north side of Chicago, too.
** While I have l a recollection of reading this quote, I was unable to find a citation for it. It does, however, express the attitude of many of the leaders of the Velvet Revolution, so I wanted to include it.
*** An interesting point on why the Allies chose the airlift: To supply Berlin by land would have required the Allies to force their way through East Germany. We had the right to use the roads, but we would have had to attack the Soviets to do so. But the Soviets could not block the air routes. They couldn’t put up giant walls in the sky. With the airlift, the Soviets would have had to attack us to stop it. It was a matter of who had to attack first. On the land route, the Allies would have had to attack. On the air route, the Soviets would have had to be the attacker.
**** To get from the U-Bahn station to the Allied Museum, I walked down Clayallee. As I did, I came to a little park, Truman Plaza. In the park I saw a statue. From a distance it almost looked like George Washington or some other person from the American Revolution. And of course, it was. The statue was of Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben.
A final note: Of all of the posts I have written, I think I have enjoyed this one the most. In writing it I have reviewed files and books I have about 1989. It has been almost as exciting to read them again as it was to live through that year. With all of the troubles in the world today and all of the mean-spiritedness in our own country, it was been wonderful to think back on that year – and to look at two of my prized possessions from 1989: The front page of the Chicago Tribune sports page on September 27, 1989, reporting on the Cubs clinching the National League East in Montreal the night before. And the front page of the Chicago Tribune on November 10, 1989, reporting on the opening of the Berlin Wall.
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