I was just old enough in 1961 to realise that something horrible was happening in Berlin. In 1968, I watched the 'Prague Spring' turn prematurely to winter as Soviet tanks rumbled into the city to supress Dubcek's reforms. All through the 1970s and into the 1980s, the boot of the USSR ground into the faces of decent people who just wanted to have their say.
Then in 1989, the people DID have their say. Thanks largely to the concessions made by a Russian who cared more about those people than his predecessors, the repressive puppet regimes of Eastern Europe were exposed as exactly that. The dissidents of East Germany gathered in Leipzig and Honicke's call on Michael Gorbachev for Soviet assistance to deal with them was met with 'niet'. I watched in wonder as the Berlin Wall began to fall to pick-axes wielded by bold Berliners who'd had enough, and I cheered. With every lump of concrete that hit the ground I felt a load I never realised I carried lift from my shoulders. Now, twenty years on, I still regard that day as one of the happiest I've ever experienced.
Power to the people and here's to freedom - again, cheers!
the East German government announced on November 9, 1989, after several weeks of civil unrest, that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin.
i was serving in germany at the time, i felt great accomplishment in the fact that we did this, we stood that fence, we held our ground, we made this happen!
it had nothing to do with, the old germany, it had everything to do with pushing the soviets out!
i also remember the german banks, the lines around the corners, for the east germans to get there free 100 marks that had been promised them if they made it to the other side, and some of the odd remarks about how they would destroy the economy of west germany, it was a funny thing, the change that they all wanted, and yet some were still afraid!
