Berlin Wall collapse anniversary: A defining moment for our world
At a moment when the prospect of a renewed border on this island stirs old ghosts, Germany — and all of Europe — will, in the coming days, mark the 30th anniversary of the collapse of one of the continent’s most toxic icons, the Berlin Wall.
That 1989 clearing away was far more than the destruction of a wall dividing one of Europe’s oldest cities. It was, and remains, symbolic of the end of Soviet communism and the unhidden autocracy it used to control the millions trapped in Warsaw Pact countries but longing for a very different life.
