25th Anniversary: When the Berlin Wall Fell

Lasrick writes Today is the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. This retrospective describes how quickly the Wall was erected, and how Berliners were completely caught off guard by its construction: "Berlin's citizens woke up one morning in August 1961 to find coils of barbed wire running down the middle of their streets; the first inkling some people had that anything was amiss was when their subway train didn't stop at certain stations. Later, the first strands of wire were replaced with a cement wall, along with watchtowers, a wide 'death strip,' and an electrified fence."

Comments

Darmok

[Anonymous Coward]

Shaka, when the walls fell.

Re:Darmok

[TWX]

Thank you for doing your part to turn what is general news that I can get coverage for on every single television station (even the music video station!) and finding a way to make it nerd-appropriate.

Re:Darmok

[Bovius]

I cannot tell you how pleased I am that this is the first post here. Thank you, kind sir or ma'am, whoever you are.

Re:Darmok

[gavron]

Darmok and Gilad.

At Tanagra.

Re:Darmok

[AHuxley]

Nerd-appropriate would be just how many Western brands and firms sent their production lines to the East.
Cash that then supported the East German gov for years.
Nerd-appropriate would be just how quickly Western political leaders had their East German files found and then removed.
Nerd-appropriate would be where some top East German security experts later found work in the USA.
The ability of the West to track most of the East German and Russian gov and mil movements.
The fall of the wall still has many good tech stories but all the press likes is the escapes and television news.

Re:Darmok

[Anonymous Coward]

Nerd-appropriate would be...

You swanned past the Reichstag to the Berlin Wall
In chiffon - Christian Dior
Gazing at the debris through electrified barbed wire
So grey - what an awful bore

You thought the border guards parading looked so picturesque
And their goose-stepping was so surreal
Did you have any conception of the blood between the stone
Did you notice that their guns were real?

Re:Darmok

[kevingolding2001]

You swanned past the Reichstag to the Berlin Wall
In chiffon - Christian Dior
Gazing at the debris through electrified barbed wire
So grey - what an awful bore

Burma-Shave

Re:Darmok

[istartedi]

Reagan, speaking at the gate.

Concrete, not "cement".

[Anonymous Coward]

Concrete is made of sand, gravel, cement, and water.

Re:Concrete, not "cement".

[TWX]

Oh come on, it's not like it's written in stone!

Reminder of who not to credit

[damn_registrars]

From Reagan to Hasselhoff: 5 people who didnâ(TM)t bring down the Berlin Wall

In particular, even though the official American narrative is that Ronald Reagan personally tore it down with his death-ray eyes, the article has a more balanced view on the matter:

But one also shouldn't ignore that Reagan gave his speech on 12 June 1987, a good 29 months before the actual fall of the wall. And there is little evidence that it had much impact on the dynamics of the dissident movement in East Germany, or on Soviet politics at the time.

Re:Reminder of who not to credit

[phantomfive]

It's hard to imagine a single speech would cause the Soviet system to crumble, and Reagan had problems as a president, but he stood up for freedom, pointing out that keeping another country in a cage is evil.

Image if we had a president in office right now who stood up for freedom who said, "NSA, close down illegal surveillance." Someone who recognized that sometimes, the end doesn't justify the means. We have too many politicians and not enough leaders.

Re:Reminder of who not to credit

[Teancum]

What Ronald Reagan arguably did wasn't the speech, but his massive expansion of the U.S. military including the thousand ship navy and expanding the other branches as much too. It was something that Russia had to match and basically went bankrupt trying to do so (and America nearly did as well). It is hard to say that Reagan had no impact upon the events surrounding the fall of the wall, although another significant event that had a major role was the disarmament talks that happened in Iceland a little bit later... and Reagan just walking out in the middle of those talks.

Nobody is saying it was the speech that caused the wall to go down, but it was due to the fact that East Germany didn't fear the Soviet Union was going to crush any independent expression on the part of its leaders that caused the wall to go down. I doubt that would have happened under an extended presidency of Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale.

Re:Reminder of who not to credit

[phantomfive]

So, the summary didn't mention Reagan at all. The article didn't mention Reagan either. In fact, you were the one who brought up Reagan.
Sounds like you have some kind of weird anti-Reagan kneejerk that pops up from time to time. It's ok, relax and chill.

Re:Reminder of who not to credit

[timeOday]

Reagan vilifying the Soviet Union is totally irrelevant to Obama and the NSA. People everywhere love smack talk about faraway enemies, it always plays well. A better Reagan analogy would be the Iran-Contra scandal.

Now as to Obama, he did order Gitmo shut down. What happened? Congress rebelled, even Democrats, spinning up fear of Magneto-like supervillians too dastardly to contain in American prisons. Congress passed a law making it illegal to bring Gitmo prisoners to the US even for medical treatment, so now we spend millions flying medical equipment down there to rot.

I suppose a more forceful President might be able to prevail on the Congress more often, Teddy Roosevelt-style, and do something about the NSA, if they had some reason to do so, which they don't. It's hardly ever a voting issue. J. Edgar Hoover's FBI was used by both Democratic and Republican administrations to trample the Constitution for decades and voters never cared, because they were so scared of Communism they supported the purge. Now the roles are filled by a new cast of characters, but little has changed.

Re:Reminder of who not to credit

[timeOday]

Nations don't fall because of (un) diplomatic gestures. They fall because they are conquered, or go bankrupt. The Soviet Union fell because of its bad economy. However, the USSR did not increase military spending in response to the US buildup. There was never any reason to think they did, other that it was a nice story.

The USSR's 9-year Afghanistan misadventure, on the other hand, was extremely costly (look at the above graph from '79 to '89). US support for the Mujahideen surely increased that pain. But the American president who started backing them was, in fact, Jimmy Carter.

Re:Reminder of who not to credit

[tranquilidad]

It's not about a single speech and its timing.

Reagan's speech was part of a much larger program to pressure the Soviets. Reagan believed, fundamentally, that communism was evil and spent a lot of energy fighting it.

Now, you may rightly argue that Reagan didn't personally tear down the wall. You may reasonably argue that Reagan wasn't the only influence in getting the wall torn down.

Reducing Reagan's and Thatcher's programs against communism and all that represented it down to a single speech is unfair. Your concentration on the timing of the speech in relation to when the wall came down certainly seems to discount any other actions the US and other countries took.

Your concern that there were other speeches that aren't as well publicized as Reagan's is fine. How about highlighting a single line or a few lines from those speeches that brought as much focus as Reagan's imperative to Mr. Gorbachev? In fact, most people are probably unaware of what Reagan said in that speech other than his rallying cry and creating such a slogan is often a powerful mover.

Re:Reminder of who not to credit

[phantomfive]

but the most likely scenario is that the World Bank/IMF finally showed them enough money to go take a powder..

Uh, you consider that the most likely scenario?

I think it's funny all of you like to credit all your highfalutin ideology for conquering the beast

I know someone who was at the protests when the Soviet system fell. He didn't protest because he didn't enjoy the comforts of communism; he did enjoy them . He protested because he wanted freedom.

Re:Reminder of who not to credit

[fustakrakich]

Uh, you consider that the most likely scenario?

I certainly do. The Russian banks needed cash, real bad. The decision was a simple one to make. Business is business. How many other governments have done the same thing? Lots... The system didn't 'fall' by any means, where is Gorbachev? Resting comfortably for sure, the system changed, and everybody in the boardroom got paid. In fact nothing really changed upstairs, a minor rearrangement of the furniture, that's all.

Re:Reminder of who not to credit

[phantomfive]

Money can explain everything, but it's not always the right explanation. :)

You have a hypothesis there, but I'd love to actually see supporting evidence.

Re:Reminder of who not to credit

[FlyHelicopters]

I hate to tell you... but you're missing the obvious, as is that blog that you linked to...

The Soviet Union didn't increase spending because they COULDN'T. They simply didn't have the money.

They were faced with a United States that was pulling way ahead, between Star Wars (which wasn't real) and the Stealth Fighter and Stealth Bomber (which were), and many other new weapons... The Soviet Union simply couldn't compete...

So they gave up, knowing they couldn't keep up.

The spending worked just the way it was supposed to. If the Soviet Union could have spent it, they would have and the cold war would still be here.

Re: Reminder of who not to credit

[phantomfive]

And he got it: the freedom to be unemployed, the freedom to be poor, the freedom to be left alone to fend for himself in the social darwinist jungle that is capitalism. I hope he enjoys that.

Freedom always comes with a cost: it is scary at first, but once you get used to it, you'll never go back. It'd be like going back to CVS once you get used to Git.

My friend has the freedom to choose where he lives, what career he wants, freedom of speech, and he loves it.

Re:Reminder of who not to credit

[Sique]

Spoken as an East German: The Berlin Wall Speech was a gesture towards the own people in the U.S., nothing more, nothing less. It worked. The majority of the U.S. still believes this speech had a big impact on the East. We, the East Germans knew that the Berlin Wall was evil, we didn't need Ronald Reagan to point this out to us. We already had 200 shot dead who were trying to get over the Wall. We had thousands of people in prison who were caught planning to cross the Wall. We had singer-songwriter singing about the Wall, and how it cut us off most of the world. When those singer-songwrites sung about not being able to travel to Paris, we cheered, and we were looking up to them for having the braveness to do so. When Ronald Reagan did this, we were annoyed about the big posture and grandstanding and the arrogance of the most powerful man of the world, and we felt like he stole our symbol from us.

Re:Reminder of who not to credit

[DerekLyons]

Now as to Obama, he did order Gitmo shut down. What happened? Congress rebelled, even Democrats, spinning up fear of Magneto-like supervillians too dastardly to contain in American prisons. Congress passed a law making it illegal to bring Gitmo prisoners and not only did Obama fail to veto it, he signed it into law.

There, fixed that for you.
 
Seriously, I'm getting just a little fucking tired of the "Obama wanted to fix it, but the evil Congress blocked him" meme. Congress can pass laws - but they only become law either with the active cooperation of the President or only via an explicit override. President Obama has only vetoed two things to date - one utterly meaningless bill on notarizations, and one all but meaningless continuing budget resolution.
 

I suppose a more forceful President might be able to prevail on the Congress more often, Teddy Roosevelt-style

A more capable President would at least try.

Re:Reminder of who not to credit

[dunkelfalke]

Not only that, Chernobyl has also helped to bancrupt the USSR. The cleanup cost enormous, more than a yearly military budget.

Re:Reminder of who not to credit

[Tom]

In particular, even though the official American narrative is that Ronald Reagan personally tore it down with his death-ray eyes

Interestingly, here in Germany the narrative is pretty much that Reagan had nothing to do with the fall of the Berlin Wall whatsoever. The politician we consider to have had the most influence on events is Gorbatschov. Who, meanwhile, my russian friends think was weak and didn't have much influence...

Re:Reminder of who not to credit

[swb]

I'm curious how a command economy with what amounts to a captive labor force runs out money.

I don't dispute that the Soviet economy as a whole was ineffective, but lack of money for defense spending seems kind of hard to comprehend.

I can see labor efficiency getting worse, hard currency reserves being depleted, but when you can direct labor and physical capital for anything you want, how do you run out of money?

FWIW, I've mostly believed the Soviet Economy Collapse in Competition With The US meme, mainly because it seems to fit and no other explanation has really been offered.

Re:Reminder of who not to credit

[Alomex]

The politburo was informed in 1979 in a super secret session that the economy could no longer support the arms race and the USSR was broke. Nothing much seems to have come out of it, except that one young Comrade Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was in attendance. Some believe that this was the moment he started planning the changes needed for the USSR to survive.

As to Reagan his true contribution was his willingness to negotiate with the USSR. Thatcher had to point out to Reagan that Gorbachev was a willing negotiating partner. After a hesitating start Reagan got the message and bought full in on the negotiations. This was his contribution, not increase in spending, not the speech in the Berlin Wall, not his deficit increasing tax cuts.

Re:Reminder of who not to credit

[jittles]

I'm curious how a command economy with what amounts to a captive labor force runs out money.

I don't dispute that the Soviet economy as a whole was ineffective, but lack of money for defense spending seems kind of hard to comprehend.

I can see labor efficiency getting worse, hard currency reserves being depleted, but when you can direct labor and physical capital for anything you want, how do you run out of money?

FWIW, I've mostly believed the Soviet Economy Collapse in Competition With The US meme, mainly because it seems to fit and no other explanation has really been offered.

Their command economy was not efficient enough to produce all of the supplies they needed. They often had to buy Western grain to feed people. The leaders of the country wanted Western luxuries but, due to their restricted economy, had very limited hard money that was useful outside of the USSR. Hell, even the US relied on the USSR for some things. To build the SR-71, the CIA used shell companies throughout the world to buy titanium from the Soviets.

Re:Reminder of who not to credit

[Skater]

Don't believe everything you read on the internet. I've lived in the US my entire life, and I've read a lot about the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall, but the GP post was the very first time I'd heard this supposed strong connection between Reagan's speech and the wall falling. His speech may have been a significant event - everyone remembers "Tear down this wall!" - but I've never heard the theory that that's what caused the opening. I've also never heard that the Hoff had anything to do with it, either, other than singing atop it after the gates opened. I didn't bother to check the article for the other three people.

Re:Reminder of who not to credit

[Sique]

You as a Westerner are surely taught: Yes, only the freedom you earn for yourself is true freedom. You might earn it by overthrowing your oppressors or you may earn it by fending off the attempts to take your freedom. And we have seen again and again: Freedom that was brought from somewhere else didn't stay very long. Despite the claims of many ideologues, you can't export freedom. Yes, you can lead by example. Yes, you can overthrow an oppressor. But for a group of people to stay free they have to be able to earn their freedom themselves.

Yes, the U.S. helped very much to make 1989 happen, but not by giving speeches on the safe side of the Wall. They made 1989 possible by being much more successful in economics, building the much better cars, the better computers, creating the better clothing and the better movies and music. They helped by bankrupting the Soviet Union which was awash in oil money in the 1970ies and early 1980ies, by forcing the oil price down and getting the Soviet Union to waste their money in an arms race.

But at the same time, the U.S. made things worse by supporting every dictator who was crying "I'm against communism" loud enough. It made things worse by toppling democratically elected governments if they weren't anti-communist enough. It was easy for the communist propaganda to point at South America or Southeast Asia and say: If you are supporting the U.S., you are supporting Imperialism and suppressing people.

Of all the links you had to use

[Jiro]

... you linked to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. This is a left-wing organization (most of whose members are not atomic scientists), which opposed anything the US did that was hostile towards the Soviet Union--you know, the country that was responsible for the Berlin Wall to begin with.

This is equivalent to having a post about Bill Gates about how bad monopolies are. Sure, monopolies are bad, but it's a little odd.

The New Wall

[Anonymous Coward]

Will be built by Putin across Ukraine.

Re:The New Wall

[93 Escort Wagon]

Will be built by Putin across Ukraine.

With his bare hands, while riding on a bear.

Re:The New Wall

[dunkelfalke]

You surely jest, since it is the Ukrainian prime minister who wants to build a wall.

Teufelsberg listening post

[GrahamCox]

One of the installations made obsolete by the fall of the Berlin Wall was the NSA's listening post on the Teufelsberg (itself an artificial hill built from the millions of tons of rubble cleared after WW2, burying a Nazi training camp and the highest point in the city). This should be on the list of any self-respecting nerd's list of places to visit in Berlin. It's really eerie now, largely abandoned though sort of occupied by some sort of artists' commune. You can get into the radomes which housed the antennae, and the acoustics in there are incredible - a whisper will travel around the room and a sharp clap goes around and around. Rumour has it that the flooded basement rooms, which are currently inaccessible, house some strange and dark secrets. The whole place will give you the shivers (and a great view over the city). I visited last year just after the Snowden revelations, and the overwhelming sentiment was the hope that one day the rest of the NSA will go to ruin in the same way.

Nothing speaks more clearly to the failure of...

[Karmashock]

... Communism then the need to build a wall to keep its own "lucky" citizens from fleeing their joke of a society to the west.

If communism were better, it would have been we that had to build a wall to keep our people from defecting.

Some thoughts...

[Evtim]

10th Nov 1989 was surreal experience for me. I had prepared a birthday party for my friends but did not tell them [was supposed to be a nice surprise]. So in the evening I browsed the district and picked them up from the usual places where we congregated. While going to my place we all noticed that the streets have grown very silent....it was a rainy, coldish evening but still....where was everyone?

Once we entered my place the mystery was reveled - my father emerged from the living room with some tears in his eyes and ordered everyone in front of the TV. The wall was down....they were just announcing it on the central news...

Well that was a nice birthday party I can tell you:))

A quarter of a century later, having lived and work in the West for more than a decade now I can say a few things:

1. Those "communists" back home were not communists at all. They were just a bunch of power hungry criminals who hid behind a label....nobody ever implemented the basics of the Marxists ideology...no-one. "The means of production belong to the people producing the wealth" - I never saw this happening.

2. The few idealists that sincerely worked to implement the communist ideals were shunned away by careerist and criminals - many of them ended up in Gulags. Btw, this is not unique behavior for communists - do you think that [for example] if Christ walked today in the Vatican and asked them why are they breaking fundamental ideas of Christianity, like for instance being filthy rich, he will be met with open arms? I think we will crucify him again...

3. The version of the communist ideology that was presented to me in school was something that I subscribed for with both hands. Forget for a moment that no-one was actually trying to bring this future around - what they told us was very close to the Start Trek future. All basic necessities of life will be for free and accessible to all members of said society + a few extras brought up by civilization. The list went --> basic necessities are air, water, food, shelter, warmth [energy] and clothing. The extras were child-care, education and medicine.

4. Once the system collapsed and the new way started coming in, the greatest disappointment in my life began to occur. Namely - in short order I realized that the western system that we all thought "had figure it all out" turned out to be wasteful, inhuman construct that only pretends to work for humanity. Just like the "communists" then...I realize that the free market system does not serve humans and it is in fact the most wasteful system ever created. I realize that the western countries are using very well developed science to control and manipulate the citizenry. And we all know that it works...I realized that people here are no better human beings than us back home. In fact those of us that managed to remain humanists in poor, corrupted, police state - we are REAL humanists. In the west many people appear humanists only because the times are [relatively] good. But when the hard times come the veneer of civilization is quickly gone. Just look at the rise of extremism in Europe - one financial crisis [created by your inhuman market system, western people] and suddenly all kinds of nasty societal developments occur - xenophobia, intolerance, ultra-greed...

5. The whole communism-capitalism thing is pure 1984 stuff [we are always at war with Eastasia]. Do you see what happens today - a new cold war is coming. Or a hot one even...I wonder why that is? Is it because the people in the east really hate westerners [and vice-verse]? Are we, the common folk the reasons for this? Because according to politicians - yes, we want war. After all the politicians do our bidding, is that not so? Or could it be that on both sides we have criminals who are filling their pockets while hiding behind [or highjacking] ideological labels? Could it be that the problems of humanity have nothing to do with political labels? I think so....

In conclusion - let's celebrate the fall of East European criminal regim

Re:Some thoughts...

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Marxist communism fails wherever it is tried (and saw to the murders of over 100 million innocent people) because it's fundamentally broken. It lacks any of the value indicators that are essential to any economic system.

Marx believed firmly in the labor theory of value, and as such all economic power derived from human labor, not from mechanical power and as such almost completely ignores the value of intellectual work, the guy who figures out the right way to apply labor to raw materials is fantastically more effective than the one who does it the wrong way.

Communism is also terrible at effectively allocating resources since it lacks the price signals that bundle cost and relative value and communicate them in a way that enables efficient allocation of resources to maximize what people collectively perceive as good, which is why communist economies always fail, and will always fail, even in the presence of automated systems that produce and distribute all of the essentials of life to everyone equally.

"All basic necessities of life will be for free and accessible to all members of said society + a few extras brought up by civilization. The list went --> basic necessities are air, water, food, shelter, warmth [energy] and clothing. The extras were child-care, education and medicine."

And yet that's very much what exists in the social welfare systems of most western countries today, with a few exceptions. They focus, quite rightly, on trying to get people back to work, but for the most part nobody starves by the roadside. Simultaneously they harness the desire for self improvement and reward it, creating an incentive for advancement.

As to the rest to be honest it just looks like a lengthy paranoid misanthropic screed.