As the western world looks at the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, I though I’d make my own modest contribution. I had the fortune to study in East Berlin in 1987-88, just before the wall fell. Sure there were tensions (communist darling Rosa Luxemburg’s
Freiheit ist immer die Freiheit des anders Denkenden
was provocatively thrown at the regime) but I don’t think anyone really thought at the time that the wall would fall any time soon.
On a personal level, the experience in East Berlin taught me a lot about critical thinking – such as how to read between the lines and why that is so important. I also learned to speak my first foreign language (full immersion works) and met my future soul-mate – not too bad for a year’s work.
While my position in the GDR was a privileged one (I could walk out at any time), I’m not one to suffer Ostalgie – East Germany could be rather stifling.
For the digital natives, the Berlin Wall and the Cold War probably seem like old tales granddad likes to repeat. Yet it was all very real, not so long ago. Below we see Berlin as depicted on an East German map in the ’80s. Note the lack of detail for West Berlin – in the cold logic of a dictatorship (regardless of the flavor), there’s no point in detailing what people, with few exceptions, can’t visit.
Source: Berlin Stadtplan, VEB Tourist Verlag, Berlin/Leipzig 1977 (18. Auflage 1985). Click to enlarge.
Oh, and of course, Google has commemorated the day by releasing historical imagery of Berlin in 1945 and 1953 (year of a big worker’s revolt in East Berlin).
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