Posted on 11/07/2009 5:38:36 PM PST by presidio9
The Berlin Wall came down 20 years ago, but few of the news stories marking the anniversary have explained the event's full significance. The Cold War had been raging for 14 years before the wall went up on Aug. 13, 1961. How could its collapse, on Nov. 9, 1989, have heralded the Cold War's demise?
Berlin was always the centerpiece of the Cold War and, more often than many remember, very nearly the front line of real combat.
At the end of World War II, the city was divided into four sectors, each occupied by one of the four allied armies—U.S., Soviet, British, and French. As the East-West divide hardened into a Cold War, so, too, did the division of the city, into East and West Berlin.
Clearly West Berlin was an anomaly: an island of freedom locked 100 miles inside Soviet-controlled East Germany. In 1948, Josef Stalin mounted a blockade, cutting off the city from its Western suppliers. The United States responded with an airlift that went on for 300 days, until Stalin finally backed off and signed an agreement with the other three powers, guaranteeing Western access to the enclave.
Ten years later, Nikita Khrushchev resumed the pressure, announcing that within six months, he would declare the '48 agreement "null and void" and placing all of Berlin under East German sovereignty—which is to say, under Soviet control. If the West resisted, he said, there would be war.
Western intelligence agencies didn't know it at the time, but Khrushchev's threat stemmed from desperation. Over the previous decade, West Berlin had grown free and prosperous while East Berlin had stagnated under the Soviet boot. Easterners were emigrating to the West in droves, using West Berlin as their transit point. By the fall of 1958,
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
Last week the Wash Compost had tons of Berlin wall stories - not a mention of Reagan either.
I remember exactly where I was when I heard on the car radio that they were tearing down the wall. I had small children and a full time job and did not spend every waking moment concentrating on the situation, but I had lived most of my life with the Cold War.
I started to cry and had to pull over. I guess I wouldn’t have thought it would affect me so. But it did.
And ringing in my ears was “Mr. Gorbachov, tear down this wall.” I can hear it to this day.
I remember it VERY well! I was a med student in Chicago, living in Evanston IL (and commuting all the way to downtown Chicago on the el) at the time. The fall of the Wall was SO amazing, so wonderful! I remember as a kid saying that I wanted to live long enough to see the Wall fall, never imagining it would happen when i was only 24.
I spent 27 months with the 42nd Eng Co Berlin Bde.
I for one am glad the wall came down it was an ugly reminder of what Communism is all about.
Of all the things that Jimmy Carter did, the single good thing I can say about him is, when he visited West Berlin in the spring of 1980. There was a slogan painted on the western side of the wall at Potsdamer Platz, that read “Freedom for Political Prisoners in East Germany” it was written in German.
Well a couple of East Berliners came over the wall in a bucket truck to paint over the slogan, one of them jumped and ran to freedom. From the eye witness reports he was a ‘hooking’ it to get away from the wall.
So thanks to Jimmy at least one brave soul found his freedom.
Just another piece of trivia: Chicago is called the “Second City” not because it plays second fiddle to NYC (or any other city), but because it is literally the second city built on that site after the fire. Unfortunately for the nickname, Chicago is not the first “Second City,” as the British burned down more than half of Manhattan during their occupation. Unlike Mrs. O’Leary, Nathan Hale (who was in Queens when it started) was executed in part for suspicion of starting the fire.
You’re giving Carter too much credit. I’m sure he was appaled by the whole spectacle. What goes happens in other sovereign states is none of our business. That’s what the UN is for.
I served in the Cold War, in Germany 1969-1970. We won.
I have tremendous respect for the guys that served, died and were wounded in Vietnam.
Korea, Germany and Vietnam were sort of separate fronts and battles in the Cold War.
Yet in a sense, I realize our troubles with Russia and China are probably not over with.
But because Carter decided to visit, at least one person was able to escape. I had the chance to be part of the honor guard when he arrived, but decided to go out drinking instead.
The guys that did go, said Carter was a short druppy little guy and they laughed at the way he walked.
I was stationed in West Berlin when Reagan visited and my wife was in the audience and heard him make his “...tear down this wall” speech. To this day she remembers it as one of the greatest public moments she ever witnessed.
As long as people envy and want something for nothing and corrupt politicians are willing to make outrageous promises on other people's backs, the threat is probably never going to go away.
Wow, I’ll bet it was. Gives me chills to this day.
Maybe one day we can again have a president who cares about freedom.
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