Germany Marks 50 Years Since Berlin Wall’s Construction
- Posted on August 13, 2011 at 10:19am by
Madeleine Morgenstern
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German leaders, including Chancellor Angela Merkel, third from left, observe the 50th anniversary of the construction of the Berlin Wall. (Reuters)
BERLIN (AP) — The Berlin Wall’s construction 50 years ago must be a constant reminder to citizens today to stand up for freedom and democracy, the city’s mayor said Saturday as a united Germany commemorated the bitter anniversary.
Seeing Berlin divided by the wall tore apart the country as well as separating the city’s streets, neighbors and families, mayor Klaus Wowereit said at a televised ceremony.
“It is our shared responsibility to keep the memory alive and to pass it on to the coming generations as a reminder to stand up for freedom and democracy to ensure that such injustice may never happen again,” Wowereit said.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel – who grew up behind the wall in Germany’s communist eastern part – also attended the commemoration in Berlin, where parts of the wall and an attached surveillance tower now form a museum.
The road where the museum is located was divided in two on August 13, 1961, and some 2,000 east German residents were expelled from their houses to allow the communist authorities to secure the new border.
The country was then divided for 28 years. Hundreds of east Germans were arrested while trying to flee to democratic Western Germany and at least 136 were killed trying to cross the wall.
German President Christian Wulff said the “life-asphyxiating wall“ must be a reminder to appreciate and preserve the ”openness of today’s world.”
A man lights a candle at the Berlin Wall Memorial at Bernauer Strasse in Berlin, Saturday, Aug. 13, 2011, to mark the 50th anniversary of the day communist East Germany sealed itself off. (Photo/Markus Schreiber)
Germany had been divided into capitalist western and communist eastern sectors after the end of World War II. At the height of tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, the East German regime started building the wall through the capital.
East Germany’s entire border was soon fortified, making West Berlin an island of democracy and freedom behind the communist bloc’s iron curtain.
“When I was seven years old, I still went with my grandmother – just a few days before the construction of the Wall – from East Berlin’s Pankow (neighborhood) to West Berlin, and for me as a child it was totally inconceivable that Berlin was suddenly divided,” Merkel has said ahead of Saturday’s ceremony.
“From that moment on, I couldn’t go to visit my grandmother in Hamburg anymore (…) I couldn’t see my aunt or my cousins anymore. That of course marked my entire life,” Merkel said in unusually personal remarks.
The division ended on Nov. 9, 1989 – after communist East Germany opened the Berlin Wall amid pressure from massive demonstrations and a softening of the Soviet Union’s political stance championed by then-leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
Today, only a few of the wall’s roughly 12-foot (3 1/2-meter) high concrete slabs remain standing – haunting reminders of the city’s decades of division.
Part of the nearly 25-mile (40-kilometer) path that the wall wound through the heart of the city is marked today by a cobblestone strip, which stretches down streets and across sidewalks to remind passers-by where the wall once stood.
When the wall was first built, nobody knew what was going to happen next. Many people were afraid that it would serve as a provocation and turn to the Cold War into a hot one.
Wowereit emphatically thanked all those who stood up for Berlin‘s freedom throughout the Wall’s existence, singling out former U.S. President John F. Kennedy “who gave us courage” by visiting the divided city.
On his trip in 1963, Kennedy declared “Ich bin ein Berliner (I am a citizen of Berlin)”, expressing his solidarity with West Germany.
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BeckaBrwnEyes
Posted on August 14, 2011 at 10:40amWouldn’t it be more appropriate to commemorate when the wall was torn down instead of when it was built? Seems a bit odd to me. Maybe I am missing the point.
Report Post »Islesfordian
Posted on August 14, 2011 at 11:51amYeah, it’s like remembering the beginning of WWII rather than its end.
Oh wait, we do that. December 7th
Report Post »Booker11
Posted on August 14, 2011 at 10:04amI’ll never forget the look on some of the faces that came through the wall for the first time. Eye’s wide open,but w/ a blake stare. They looked scared to me. They never knew what freedom was. I have witness alot in history in my life time but this was something to behold. Thank you Ronald Regan for being apart of this and giving the East German’s room to breath as free men & women.
Report Post »willnotbackdown
Posted on August 13, 2011 at 9:30pmwait I though i remembered that Kennedy said he was a pastry He screwed up the line. Reagan was the true hero, he had the balls to fight both the commies and oud Democrates, oh sorry I guess they are the same thing.
Report Post »willnotbackdown
Posted on August 13, 2011 at 9:26pmsometimes I wish for the good old days when we just had to worry about the commies. These islamo fasists are crazy they want to die and take use with them, at lest the commies wanted to live.
Report Post »MUDFLAPS
Posted on August 13, 2011 at 6:17pmIts like Jack Nicholson said in A Few Good Men. You dont want to admit that you need guys like us out on the wall. Men who are willing to do the things you dont want to know about so that you can sleep at night.
Report Post »You ***** liberals depend on REAL men and women to protect you while all the time flapping your frigging lips about how much you hate us.
roadhog
Posted on August 13, 2011 at 2:34pmI hope that these Socailists Can Remember Who got the Wall taken DOWN . It wasn’t a weak Assed Liberal.
Report Post »woemcat
Posted on August 13, 2011 at 1:59pmactually, if the dems actually thought about what JFK did, he would not be allowed in their party, as by today’s standards (and by the Kennedy’s standards), he was actually quite conservative.
anyway, yes, ronald reagan was a hero by using his cowboy diplomacy. “mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall!!!!” i’ll remember that speech forever. i’ve seen berlin twice–once w/ and once w/o the wall. it was an amazing experience to see it the 2nd time. i hugged the columns of the brandenburg gate. yes, i am an american. seeing it w/ the wall up really made me appreciate what i have here and makes me mad and weep that it’s being eroded away. and yes, i’m doing my best not to let it happen. i want this present regime OUT OF OFFICE! i wish the people that voted those clowns in understood what they’re doing to our country. i think everyone should have to see a totalitarian country and feel the oppression; i sure did when i visited east berlin. the oppression hung like a thick fog. the differences in the 2 halves of the city were striking!!!! evidence that it DOES NOT WORK!
Report Post »randy
Posted on August 13, 2011 at 1:54pmMaybe 50 years from now we can celebrate the 50 year anniversary of the US building walls around California, Chicago, New York and Washington DC, just to name a few.
Report Post »KickinBack
Posted on August 13, 2011 at 1:38pmI bet Putin was tiffed for not being invited.
Report Post »KickinBack
Posted on August 13, 2011 at 1:36pm“Seeing Berlin divided by the wall tore apart the country as well as separating the city’s streets, neighbors and families..”
That’s what you got for adoring that great charismatic speaker who promised you everything and dragged your country into the pits of despair and world ridicule…sounds eerily like some other leader I know.
Report Post »woemcat
Posted on August 13, 2011 at 2:01pmabsolutely! i wish more people understood what these clowns in office are doing! they have laid out their plans plain as day. it makes me mad and sad. i DON’T want to suffer the same fate berlin did.
Report Post »nysparkie
Posted on August 13, 2011 at 12:25pmWe didn’t put it up, but one of are greatest, Ronald Reagan, made sure it came down. God Bless the Gipper!
Report Post »Hisemiester
Posted on August 13, 2011 at 12:05pmI saw the wall as it was being constructed. I was in the USAF at the time It was amazing how fast it was erected. God, that makes me an old one.
Report Post »Gonzo
Posted on August 13, 2011 at 11:29amThat wall worked pretty well for 28 years. Why does the government keep telling us that a wall on the Southern border won’t work?
Report Post »boxy
Posted on August 13, 2011 at 11:42amDifferent dynamic I think. This wall was built to keep people in.
Report Post »Gonzo
Posted on August 13, 2011 at 12:24pmBaloney. Guarded walls work pretty well from either side.
Report Post »cntrlfrk
Posted on August 13, 2011 at 10:44amWhy is The Blaze’s “The Blog” called that if nobody can actually Blog there?
Just curious.
.
Report Post »snidley-whiplash
Posted on August 13, 2011 at 10:42amWhat a lousy article. Who the hell was it that said to Mikhail Gorbachev?
Report Post »“Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall” ……………Merkel and her EU what a bunch of losers.
Problem here at home in the Late Great U S A is our democratic, liberal, non-Constitutional government headed by the worlds leading Socialist.
Impeach Obama Now Will 2012 arrive on time???????????????
MODEL82A1
Posted on August 13, 2011 at 10:28amWhy is Jack Kennedy a hero to the left? He eacilated the Vietnam conflict, lowered taxes, enabled the Bay of Pigs debacle and championed REAL racial equality.
Report Post »Meybe it’s because he allowed the Berlin Wall to be built.
Gonzo
Posted on August 13, 2011 at 12:41pmWhen a President is assassinated, he is instantly elevated to sainthood. That‘s why I pray for Obama’s safety. If Dallas hadn’t happened, JFK wouldn’t be revered today.
Report Post »BCNU
Posted on August 13, 2011 at 1:37pmJFK also opposed/defeated the left’s motherland hero Nikita Kruschev in the Cuban Missle crisis……1962
I saluted JFK when he visited/toured the new STRIKE command at MacDill AFB 2 days before he went to Dallas…..Nov 1963
Report Post »woemcat
Posted on August 13, 2011 at 2:08pmhe’s also a hero to the left b/c they don’t know their history. if we could put him in a time machine and bring him to the present, he would NOT be allowed in the democratic party because he would be considered too conservative. he’d be considered a moderate republican—-almost.
the allied forces (usa, france, great britian) did fall down when it came to berlin, but they were afraid of re-escalating another armed conflict. the soviets/east german puppets built the wall under the cover of darkness, but of course the allied forces knew about it. the real failure was how europe was divided in the treaty that ended ww2. the soviets got 1/2 of europe and the other 3 allies had to share the other half (and the same went for germany–soviets got 1/2 of germany,1/2 of berlin and the other 3 had to share the other 1/2 of germany and the other 1/2 of berlin). THAT’s where the real failure is. i’ll never understand why the agreement was signed that way and yes, i’ve read about it a lot. i think THAT lead to the berlin and east german walls.
Report Post »Lloyd Drako
Posted on August 13, 2011 at 2:57pmJFK was a living lie.
People thought he was the picture of health and “vigah,” in fact he was constantly ill, in pain and on an assortment of questionable drugs.
People idealized him as a good family man, in fact he was driven by his father, unfaithful to his wife
and reckless in sexual matters to the point of endangering national security;
People thought he was intellectual and cultured, in fact he read spy novels and was not above a taste for country and western music.
People looked up to him as an idealist, in fact he was a pragmatist fascinated with the technique of things, from Keynesian economics as a tool to even out the business cycle, to counterinsurgency warfare to root out Communists in Southeast Asia to community organizing as a means to end.
poverty.
He had a sort of meretricious glamor, but was heavily morally compromised, he left a dubious legacy, made all the more dubious by the way he died.
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