November 9th, 1989, an East German official at a press conference announcing a new travel policy between East and West Germany was informed that travel between the two 'countries' was to be made much simpler, but not the time line, and inadvertently made this policy effective immediately.

Though not the actual time of the physical wall's destruction (and more than 2 years after Reagan's famous 'Tear down this wall!' speech), it IS a significant date in history. Just months earlier, people could have been (and were) shot for attempting to make the same crossing they freely could do that night.

So, where were you on that day 20 years ago? Do you remember it? Please give your thoughts.

For those too young to remember a time of a split Germany, and who only learned about the Berlin Wall in history books, what are your impressions of these teachings. It is always interesting to me seeing how different the effect is on people who learn of events to those who have lived them.

It makes me wonder what my kids' thoughts on 9/11 will be when they are taught about it in history in years to come.

Well I don't know alot about this topic, didn't learn much about it in history or anything. However, there was a segment on the news last night, which included an interview with one of the people who (I think) was part of the wall's tearing. He had remnants of it. But this fellow has decided instead of keeping the pieces as a memory, he wants to give them to the tourists with an interest in the history of the wall, and the tearing down of it as well.

When this happened, I was a baby. Not even 2. Not sure how much my parents know about it, since my dad was a truck driver at the time, and my mom was raising my two older brothers as well as myself. With 1, 3, and 5 year old kids, not sure how well one would be keeping track of events such as the tearing of the Berlin Wall.

I'm sorry I don't really know what to say about this, but this topic does intrigue me.

I was in the living room of my family's rented home in California. I remember it vividly, though as a third grader, I didn't understand the full historical significance of the event. Still, without understanding exactly what it meant, it was just such an exciting and hopeful moment.

I think people who learn about an event a generation after it happens tend to have a more analytical, less emotional take on it. I can talk about the historical significance of the JKF assassination, I can talk about its effect on the democratic process and its effect on US foreign and domestic policy. But I can't relate to the feeling of crushed hope that my parents felt when they first heard the news. So I'd say that second-hand history tends to be history without emotion, whereas first-hand history is history loaded with emotion.

SS

PS--"Tear down this wall" was Reagan, not Nixon.

Lol, I actually knew that, but just watched Frost/Nixon, I guess I had Nixon on the brain. But thanks, I corrected the OP.

I don't remember where I was on the night it happened as I was in Jr. high and thinking about worldwide issues was not on my agenda then.

That being said, I do remember being home to watch Pink Floyd's "The Wall - Live in Berlin" the following July. Music events of that magnitude were way more important, although I didn't quite appreciate the significance of the event itself.

~spidey

Well, when we watched the wall being destroyed, I was a newlywed, had a really cool apartment, and was in a change of life phase. I was way into Reese's peanut butter cups and ate a ton of them that night. All washed down with Coke, of course.

I don't remember that the event had much importance to our generation, other than being a fixture that was always sort of "there", but older friends of mine (born in the early 1950s) saw this as a sign of relief, as they were the ones who had air raid drills in elementary school and we grew up with bell bottoms and muscle cars firmly in place, though there was often discussion of nuclear war.

As I remember, to those of my (at the time younger) group, the whole idea of a thing like The Wall was silly and out dated, and I remember thinking of how Ronald Reagan (who actually spent money on cold war related defense) took a whole lot of credit for this wall coming down, when it was his generation that was more or less responsible for the
thing being there in the first place.

coke....must have....

You're lucky. My music-related memory of the Berlin Wall coming down was much more scarring:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxAd2sHtMf0

SS

I must say that i relate on the terms of not remember much about the Fall Berlin Wall..I just started to hear about it sense last week on CNN and BBC News Networks and sense my country is a former colony of Germany so it kind of felled close as i was watching the documentary and wow the events that happened after the Fall of the Berlin Wall i must say were pretty much amazing...

Where are you from? The USA I assume?

Personally, I don't think my own children will have many thoughts about it, since they won't be american children, and the event will likely be mentioned but in passing on the 20th anniversary.

Last September 11, I IM'd a few of my friends around the world about it since I was curious. It turns out a large proportion didn't even KNOW it was the anniversary of 9/11. In my country, it is a 10 second mention in the news, perhaps with a few seconds of footage of the towers coming down.

I am guessing in 20, 30 years after that event, there will be very little mention of it, beyond a passing mention in the news. Kids may hear about it in history class, but what with the wealth of history they already need to learn, I doubt it will be mentioned past being named as a catalyst to the war in Iraq.

In America I am guessing it is much different, for obvious reasons, but the end of the partition of Germany and the fall of the wall was obviously a momentous occasion that spelt freedom for thousands upon thousands of people, and it is also a cause for celebration, rather than a cause for sadness, as is with 9/11.

I just can't bring myself to think that outside of America, the two events are as equally momentous. But that's just my opinion.

True, but that's a two-way street. Honestly, if it weren't for internet forums and Facebook, I wouldn't have even known it was the 20-year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. I think for many Americans nowadays, the fall of the Berlin Wall was more of just a memorable moment in the bigger picture of the collapse of Soviet Communism instead of a "momentous" event in and of itself.

SS

Wow, the Berlin Wall falling. I remember that day. I had just come home from school, and I was watching the McNeil-Leherer hour. They were talking about the Baltic States(Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania). By chance, I had turned the channel to ABC news, and they had a special report that the GDR was going to allow free travel; I was puzzled by this because they NEVER allowed such a thing. An hour later, I saw a special report on the situation because lots of people gathered at the gates to go to W. Berlin. I got scared because the Cold War was still going on, and this was a few years before the USSR dissolved and no one knew how the Red Army would react.

Sure enough, we hear that they are letting people go unmolested and freely; I think it was Dan Rather or Tom Brokaw reporting it. I couldn't believe my eyes watching the people just celebrating on top of the wall. I say this because teachers at my HS were like that wall is never coming down, especially with the Soviet army still in the GDR.

I'm not German, but witnessing that on the TV and seeing complete strangers hugging each other, dancing and singing like that just brought tears to my eyes.

1989 was a good year, Poland had Lech Walesa leading the Solidarity movement. Vaclav Haval was starting the Velvet Revolution, Romania was getting rid of their blood thirty dictator, Hungary opened its borders with Austria, 1989 what a year!

One thing that I seriously reflect on is how much people paid dearly for the price of freedom, and they did so with their lives, and the lengths at which one went to be free.

The feeling at the time was of joy, hope for the future. That the cold war was ending and we were not going to get nuked. The headless chicken mode the terrorist and eco-doomsayers want to encourage is a mildly damp flannel flicked in the face of the those that lived under the threat of real Armageddon and IRA bombs (my brother was up close and personal to it twice in London).
No wonder my generation (late teens in the 80's) either went all stupid dayglo pop, nihilistic goth or party-at-the-end-of-time metal.

Note: Its that bloody Scorpions track that I really detest.

-LS

I live in the USA, but was born in Australia. Though both my kids were born in the USA.

But you're right partially I guess, geographical proximity to the event does have some baring on how much it affects the individual (and for how long). I was living at the time less than 30 miles from Ground Zero (ie. the World Trade Centers) when 9/11 happened. And I definitely did not go to work that day.



But here I think you're wrong. For example I think most people alive at the time can remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard Kennedy was shot. Even if they were not American, it rippled around the world, just like I think everyone now remembers 9/11 and how much it changed things, and the impact it had on the world. The Berlin Wall coming down was a significant point in history as it signaled the end of the Cold War, and those who lived (and understood) the Cold War knew how much different things would be when the threat of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) was gone.

But for example, I am way too young to remember Kennedy being shot, but I can see it in my Dad's eyes, and in his tone of voice if the subject comes up that it was the defining moment for a generation. Though you might possibly be right that the date might pass into obscurity in time, because it is not a hopeful or positive event (we don't mark the day Kennedy was shot after all). This is why I wonder if for my kids, things like 9/11 will be to them like Kennedy's assassination is to me. Something that one really cannot appreciate the impact of the event without having been there.

You're 100% right in that. I can remember myself what I was doing when I heard the news that the towers had been brought down - and I can't remember just about anything else from back then!

It's interesting for me to look back at past events that happened before I was born, or when I was a child, and know that the reaction to these events would have been similar to the reaction to 9/11. 9/11 and the subsequent war in Iraq has probably been the single "big event" that's happened in my lifetime so far (excluding events in the '80 & '90s when I was a kid), so I guess you are right in what you say. 9/11 will be yet another blot against humanity... one more warning to future generations as to what we humans are capable of... and I'm talking about the war in Iraq as much as I'm talking about 9/11.

One can only hope that some day in the distant future, if our species survives, that we find a way to overcome the evil that's inside of us all.

I was close to my fifth birthday when the wall fell, and my brother was only a year and a bit old at the time. I remember it being some big issue for my parents, but I was more interested in that "school" thing they kept forcing me to go to and wondering when it would end (it never ended... god-damned school).

Heh, it's the second part there that makes me look at the current crop of terrorists and think "yur doin terrerismz rong." I remember that being a genuine worry for most people for much of my life.