The View from Right Field

A Christmas to Remember: Berlin, 2010

I recently listened to a podcast that asked the participants for one of their best Christmas memories, which got me thinking.  I have a lot wonderful Christmas memories.  For many years, it was mostly the five of us, my mother, Jennie, Ross, Susan, and me, and they were great.  Then, after my mother passed away, the four of us did some traveling over Christmas: Guadeloupe, Peru, and maybe the best: Berlin in 2010.

We went to Germany in December, 2010, to see the Christmas markets – and Germany in the snow.  And there was a lot of snow in 2010.  We decided to stay until December 26, so we could celebrate Christmas in Berlin. 

On Christmas Eve, we ended our sightseeing early and went back to the hotel for our own Christmas celebration.  Susan bought gifts for everybody at KaDeWe.  I bought what I call “Kindereier” at Kaiser’s, a food store¹ (and brought baseball cards with me – because you always give baseball cards for Christmas).

Gail Halvorsen, the “Candy Bomber.” RIP

Gail Halvorsen, who was known as “Candy Bomber” for dropping candy and sweets to the children of West Berlin while flying the Berlin Airlift in 1948, has passed away at the age of 101.  The story of the Airlift is amazing (as I have said before):

“In 1948, the Soviet Union blocked the western land routes to Berlin.  In response, and just three years after the Allies had defeated the Germans in a war that lasted almost six years for the British, the U.S. and Britain operated an around-the-clock airlift to supply West Berlin with everything it needed to survive, from food to coal.  The Airlift lasted fifteen months and turned enemies into fast friends.  It may have been the biggest defeat the Soviets suffered in the Cold War until the Wall itself came down in 1989.”¹ 

The story of the “Candy Bomber” and “Operation Little Vittles” may be even more amazing.  You can read about it here.²  You can read more about Colonel Halvorsen here.

60th Anniversary of the Berlin Wall

Sixty years ago today, the Berlin Wall went up.  It started with barbed wire and wound up with concrete, killing strips, and attack dogs.  The Berlin Wall seems out of date and out of history, at least out of the history we talk about today.  But for those who were alive during it, it was what history was about.

I am not going to write a lot about it here.  I have done that before.  You can find a post about the building the Wall here and pictures of the Wall here.  You can find posts about the fall of the Wall by looking in the “Berlin” subhead in “Categories” section in the right column.

Teaching American History in an Age of Woke-ism*

The Wall Street Journal recently had a review of a new book about Berlin after World War II – and especially the Airlift.¹  It looks fascinating.  I have read other books about the Airlift and have been to Berlin to see the sights of it – more than once.  It is a great story: How we turned a former enemy into an enduring friend, while defending freedom in the heart of Europe.² 

But I wonder how the Airlift is taught in school today.  Well, it probably isn’t.  But I wonder how it would be taught, if it was.  Would it be taught as a triumph of American policy and determination.  As a success story in the early days of the Cold War.  Something for Americans to be proud of.

The Sad Sale of the Thompson Center

Monday was a sad, but all-too-predictable, day in Illinois: The state officially announced the Thompson Center in downtown Chicago is for sale.  The building was designed by Helmut Jahn, and it opened in 1985.  While the building had issues when it opened, they were resolved.  The building is a gem of post-modern design, and it could have been a destination in downtown Chicago for architecture buffs and regular people – if it had not been owned by the State of Illinois. 

Instead of a go-to place in the center of Chicago, the Thompson Center has, under the State of Illinois, become a bit of a dump.  But it didn’t have to happen.  It isn’t the fault of the building or the design. 

“For Laws and Lech, Basil and Borders Opened – Thanks!” – Joan Beck’s 1989 Thanksgiving Column

As I mentioned back in 2009 (and 2010 and 2011), each year at Thanksgiving, Joan Beck, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune (among other things), would write a special column of Thanks.  This year being the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, I thought it appropriate to reprint her column from Thanksgiving, 1989:

“As we gather together to count the Lord’s blessings, 368 years after the first Thanksgiving Day, we are grateful, O God, for perestroika if it works and glasnost if it’s real, for the liberating breaches in the Berlin Wall and the integrated beaches in South Africa, for summits and summers and sunrises and symphonies and for the innate yearning to be free that no regime can trample forever.

The Fall of the Berlin Wall: 30 Years On. #BerlinWall30

This Saturday is the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.  Readers of this blog will know that I have written about the Wall a lot.  You can find what I wrote on the 20th and 25th anniversaries of the fall of the Wall by clicking on “Berlin” in the list of Categories in the right margin.  The 25th anniversary, which we were lucky enough to be in Berlin for, was especially great.  But things seem to have changed since then.

Events are going the wrong direction in parts of eastern Europe and eastern Germany.  Viktor Orban is solidifying control in Hungary.  Law and Justice recently won re-election in Poland.  And in eastern Germany, the AfD increased its vote in state elections.  The populism that has come to the West is also increasing in eastern Europe.  

70th Anniversary of the Berlin Airlift

I don’t have enough time to write a proper post on this subject, but I cannot ignore the 70th anniversary of the first flight of the Berlin Airlift, on June 26, 1948.  As I have said before, the story of the Airlift is amazing.  On June 24, 1948, the Soviet Union blocked the western land routes to Berlin.  Two days later, and just three years after the Allies had defeated the Germans in a war that lasted almost six years for the British, the U.S. and Britain started an around-the-clock airlift to supply West Berlin with everything it needed to survive, from food to coal.  The Airlift lasted fifteen months, and turned enemies into fast friends.  It may have been the biggest defeat the Soviets suffered in the Cold War until the Wall itself came down in 1989.

Instead of an Illinois "Brain Drain Tax," How About a Wall

Here is Scott Stantis’s cartoon in today’s Chicago Tribune on the “Illinois Exodus,” i.e., all the people leaving Illinois:

If the brain drain tax doesn’t work, here’s another idea: a wall.  Not like President Trump’s wall, however.  President Trump’s wall is designed to keep people out. 

Rather, a wall like the one they had in Berlin.  That was a wall to keep people in.  And think of all the jobs for people in the guard towers and in an Illinois Stasi, trying to figure out who might be trying to escape.

An Historic Day for Berlin – and the World

The Berlin Wall has now been down longer than it was up.  For those of us of a certain age, the Berlin Wall seemed like a permanent part of our world.  It was built when we were just children, and it was still there when we entered middle age.  When Erich Honecker said, in January of 1989, that the Wall would be standing in another 50 or even 100 years, we believed him.  We had no reason not to.  And yet, less than ten months after he said that, the Wall was down, and joy reigned not just in Berlin but around the world.

For something that seemed so permanent, it is amazing that it probably doesn’t even register for many people alive today.  For them, the Wall is just something in history that they may or may not have heard of, like the Battle of Midway, Appomattox, or the Second Continental Congress.  But the Wall is just as important as those, if we understand its lesson.