Berlin Wall
WALL, BERLIN, GERMANY
The Guardian view on the fall of the Berlin Wall: history’s lessons
Berlin Wall, German Berliner Mauer, barrier that surrounded West Berlin and prevented access to it from East Berlin and adjacent areas of East Germany during the period from 1961 to 1989. In the years between 1949 and 1961, about 2.5 million East Germans had fled from East to West Germany, including steadily rising numbers of skilled workers, professionals, and intellectuals. Their loss threatened to destroy the economic viability of the East German state. In response, East Germany built a barrier to close off East Germans’ access to West Berlin and hence West Germany. That barrier, the Berlin Wall, was first erected on the night of August 12–13, 1961, as the result of a decree passed on August 12 by the East German Volkskammer (“Peoples’ Chamber”). The original wall, built of barbed wire and cinder blocks, was subsequently replaced by a series of concrete walls (up to 15 feet [5 metres] high) that were topped with barbed wire and guarded with watchtowers, gun emplacements, and mines. By the 1980s that system of walls, electrified fences, and fortifications extended 28 miles (45 km) through Berlin, dividing the two parts of the city, and extended a further 75 miles (120 km) around West Berlin, separating it from the rest of East Germany.
Berlin Wall timeline
1949: Germany is formally split into two independent nations - the Federal Republic of Germany (FDR or West Germany) and the German Democratic Republic (GDR or East Germany).
1952: East Germany closes the border with West Germany, but the border between East and West Berlin remained open.
13 August 1961: The border between East and West Berlin is closed too, and the wall starts to be built overnight.
1987: US President Ronald Reagan visits Berlin and urges Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to bring the wall down.
4 November 1989: One million people attend a protest in East Berlin's main square Alexanderplatz. Within days of the demonstration, the East German government resigns.
9 November 1989: Thousands of people in East Germany go to crossing points and demand to be let through. The border guards stand back as thousands of people flood into West Berlin and start to tear down the wall.
3 October 1990: East and West Germany are officially reunited.
The owl of Minerva begins its flight only with the coming of the dusk,” wrote Hegel in the Philosophy of Right. This was a poetic way of saying that wisdom and understanding only come with hindsight, and history never ceases to play itself out in unanticipated ways. As Germany marks the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall this weekend, a flapping of wings is audible.
After the extraordinary events of 9 November 1989, when east Berliners poured through the Wall’s checkpoints, calling time on the cold war and the communist era in Europe, many assumed that a definitive victory had been won for liberal democracy. Francis Fukuyama famously suggested the triumph of western values could signal “the end of history”.
China’s massacre of pro-reform protesters earlier that year pointed to alternative outcomes; and Mr Fukuyama has since revised his view. But for 20 years or so, Europe seemed to bear the verdict out. This was liberalism in excelsis. As the EU expanded eastwards, the former Warsaw Pact countries democratised, privatised state assets and grew considerably richer, despite economic pain and severe hardship along the way.
Yet three decades on from the destruction of what West Berlin’s mayor, Willy Brandt, called the “Wall of Shame”, the liberal consensus that swept all before it in the 90s and 2000s is suddenly fragile. This feels like a shadowed, equivocal anniversary. In eastern Europe, rightwing nationalist parties have flourished in the smaller towns and rural areas that have seen little of the wealth accrued in capitals such as Warsaw and Budapest, and have suffered as young people have upped sticks and left. Barriers have sprung up again: barbed wire fences keep out refugees and migrants on Hungary’s eastern borders. The country’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, styles himself the champion of “illiberal democracy”, an authoritarian brand of nationalism that targets minorities and disdains the notion of universal human rights. In Poland, the Law and Justice party – re-elected for a second term last month – has defied liberal democratic norms to target judges and control the media. Close to Berlin, in the east German state of Thuringia, the CDU finished behind the far-right nationalist AfD in state elections.
The depressing emergence of an aggressive rightwing populist nationalism has not been confined to the east. The rise of Matteo Salvini’s League party in Italy, the support for Marine Le Pen in France and the Brexit referendum result can also be traced, in part, to flaws in the liberal thinking which remade Europe with supreme self-confidence after 1989. Too little attention was paid to the regions, places and individuals which lost out in the emerging single market, established in 1993. The fallout from the 2008 crash exposed the truth that though European societies grew wealthier over the last 30 years, they also grew more divided, as governments took a back seat and allowed market forces to dictate.
There are tentative signs that some necessary rethinking may be under way. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, shaken by the yellow-vest protests that began a year ago, has pledged to increase public spending, ignoring deficit warnings from Brussels. In an interview this week, he observed that “Europe has forgotten that it is a community, by increasingly thinking of itself as a market, with expansion as an end purpose”. He would like to see a common eurozone budget, with real fiscal firepower, to enable a fairer distribution of wealth and resources across the EU. The European Central Bank’s new president, Christine Lagarde, has called on governments with budget surpluses, such as Germany and the Netherlands, to spend more to stimulate pan-European growth. In Britain, both major parties are proposing 1970s levels of public spending ahead of next month’s election.
The fall of the Berlin Wall brought freedom and hope. But the veneration of free market principles that followed was overdone. With hindsight, the lessons of 1989 look different, telling us that a recalibration of the relationship between governments and the market is overdue, and might head off the nationalist surge in both east and west.
The Guardian will engage with the most critical issues of our time – from the escalating climate catastrophe to widespread inequality to the influence of big tech on our lives. At a time when factual information is a necessity, we believe that each of us, around the world, deserves access to accurate reporting with integrity at its heart.
Our editorial independence means we set our own agenda and voice our own opinions. Guardian journalism is free from commercial and political bias and not influenced by billionaire owners or shareholders. This means we can give a voice to those less heard, explore where others turn away, and rigorously challenge those in power.
The Berlin Wall came to symbolize the Cold War’s division of East from West Germany and of eastern from western Europe. About 5,000 East Germans managed to cross the Berlin Wall (by various means) and reach West Berlin safely, while another 5,000 were captured by East German authorities in the attempt and 191 more were killed during the actual crossing of the wall.
WALL, BERLIN, GERMANY
The Guardian view on the fall of the Berlin Wall: history’s lessons
Berlin Wall, German Berliner Mauer, barrier that surrounded West Berlin and prevented access to it from East Berlin and adjacent areas of East Germany during the period from 1961 to 1989. In the years between 1949 and 1961, about 2.5 million East Germans had fled from East to West Germany, including steadily rising numbers of skilled workers, professionals, and intellectuals. Their loss threatened to destroy the economic viability of the East German state. In response, East Germany built a barrier to close off East Germans’ access to West Berlin and hence West Germany. That barrier, the Berlin Wall, was first erected on the night of August 12–13, 1961, as the result of a decree passed on August 12 by the East German Volkskammer (“Peoples’ Chamber”). The original wall, built of barbed wire and cinder blocks, was subsequently replaced by a series of concrete walls (up to 15 feet [5 metres] high) that were topped with barbed wire and guarded with watchtowers, gun emplacements, and mines. By the 1980s that system of walls, electrified fences, and fortifications extended 28 miles (45 km) through Berlin, dividing the two parts of the city, and extended a further 75 miles (120 km) around West Berlin, separating it from the rest of East Germany.
Berlin Wall timeline
1949: Germany is formally split into two independent nations - the Federal Republic of Germany (FDR or West Germany) and the German Democratic Republic (GDR or East Germany).
1952: East Germany closes the border with West Germany, but the border between East and West Berlin remained open.
13 August 1961: The border between East and West Berlin is closed too, and the wall starts to be built overnight.
1987: US President Ronald Reagan visits Berlin and urges Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to bring the wall down.
4 November 1989: One million people attend a protest in East Berlin's main square Alexanderplatz. Within days of the demonstration, the East German government resigns.
9 November 1989: Thousands of people in East Germany go to crossing points and demand to be let through. The border guards stand back as thousands of people flood into West Berlin and start to tear down the wall.
3 October 1990: East and West Germany are officially reunited.
The owl of Minerva begins its flight only with the coming of the dusk,” wrote Hegel in the Philosophy of Right. This was a poetic way of saying that wisdom and understanding only come with hindsight, and history never ceases to play itself out in unanticipated ways. As Germany marks the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall this weekend, a flapping of wings is audible.
After the extraordinary events of 9 November 1989, when east Berliners poured through the Wall’s checkpoints, calling time on the cold war and the communist era in Europe, many assumed that a definitive victory had been won for liberal democracy. Francis Fukuyama famously suggested the triumph of western values could signal “the end of history”.
China’s massacre of pro-reform protesters earlier that year pointed to alternative outcomes; and Mr Fukuyama has since revised his view. But for 20 years or so, Europe seemed to bear the verdict out. This was liberalism in excelsis. As the EU expanded eastwards, the former Warsaw Pact countries democratised, privatised state assets and grew considerably richer, despite economic pain and severe hardship along the way.
Yet three decades on from the destruction of what West Berlin’s mayor, Willy Brandt, called the “Wall of Shame”, the liberal consensus that swept all before it in the 90s and 2000s is suddenly fragile. This feels like a shadowed, equivocal anniversary. In eastern Europe, rightwing nationalist parties have flourished in the smaller towns and rural areas that have seen little of the wealth accrued in capitals such as Warsaw and Budapest, and have suffered as young people have upped sticks and left. Barriers have sprung up again: barbed wire fences keep out refugees and migrants on Hungary’s eastern borders. The country’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, styles himself the champion of “illiberal democracy”, an authoritarian brand of nationalism that targets minorities and disdains the notion of universal human rights. In Poland, the Law and Justice party – re-elected for a second term last month – has defied liberal democratic norms to target judges and control the media. Close to Berlin, in the east German state of Thuringia, the CDU finished behind the far-right nationalist AfD in state elections.
The depressing emergence of an aggressive rightwing populist nationalism has not been confined to the east. The rise of Matteo Salvini’s League party in Italy, the support for Marine Le Pen in France and the Brexit referendum result can also be traced, in part, to flaws in the liberal thinking which remade Europe with supreme self-confidence after 1989. Too little attention was paid to the regions, places and individuals which lost out in the emerging single market, established in 1993. The fallout from the 2008 crash exposed the truth that though European societies grew wealthier over the last 30 years, they also grew more divided, as governments took a back seat and allowed market forces to dictate.
There are tentative signs that some necessary rethinking may be under way. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, shaken by the yellow-vest protests that began a year ago, has pledged to increase public spending, ignoring deficit warnings from Brussels. In an interview this week, he observed that “Europe has forgotten that it is a community, by increasingly thinking of itself as a market, with expansion as an end purpose”. He would like to see a common eurozone budget, with real fiscal firepower, to enable a fairer distribution of wealth and resources across the EU. The European Central Bank’s new president, Christine Lagarde, has called on governments with budget surpluses, such as Germany and the Netherlands, to spend more to stimulate pan-European growth. In Britain, both major parties are proposing 1970s levels of public spending ahead of next month’s election.
The fall of the Berlin Wall brought freedom and hope. But the veneration of free market principles that followed was overdone. With hindsight, the lessons of 1989 look different, telling us that a recalibration of the relationship between governments and the market is overdue, and might head off the nationalist surge in both east and west.
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… like you, are reading and supporting the Guardian’s independent, investigative journalism than ever before. And unlike many news organisations, we made the choice to keep our reporting open for all, regardless of where they live or what they can afford to pay.The Guardian will engage with the most critical issues of our time – from the escalating climate catastrophe to widespread inequality to the influence of big tech on our lives. At a time when factual information is a necessity, we believe that each of us, around the world, deserves access to accurate reporting with integrity at its heart.
Our editorial independence means we set our own agenda and voice our own opinions. Guardian journalism is free from commercial and political bias and not influenced by billionaire owners or shareholders. This means we can give a voice to those less heard, explore where others turn away, and rigorously challenge those in power.
The Berlin Wall came to symbolize the Cold War’s division of East from West Germany and of eastern from western Europe. About 5,000 East Germans managed to cross the Berlin Wall (by various means) and reach West Berlin safely, while another 5,000 were captured by East German authorities in the attempt and 191 more were killed during the actual crossing of the wall.
