Germany remembers fall of the Wall

TWENTY years ago today, they danced atop the Berlin Wall, feet thudding on the cold concrete, arms raised in victory, hands clasped in friendship and giddy hope.

On that cold night, years of separation and anxiety melted into the unbelievable reality of freedom and a future without border guards, secret police, informers and rigid communist control.

Germans are celebrating with concerts boasting Beethoven and Bon Jovi; a memorial service for the 136 people killed trying to cross over from 1961 to 1989; candle lightings and 1,000 towering plastic foam dominoes to be placed along the wall’s route and tipped over.

On November 9, 1989, East Germans came in droves, riding their sputtering Trabants, motorcycles and rickety bicycles. Hundreds, then thousands, then hundreds of thousands.

Stores in West Berlin stayed open late and banks gave out 100 Deutschemarks in “welcome money,” then worth about $50, to each East German visitor.

The party lasted four days and by November 12 more than 3 million of East Germany’s 16.6 million people had visited, nearly a third of them to West Berlin.

Sections of the nearly 155km of wall were pulled down. Tourists chiselled off chunks to keep as souvenirs. Tearful families reunited. Bars gave out free drinks. Strangers kissed and toasted each other with champagne.

Angela Merkel, Germany’s first chancellor from the former communist East, recalled the euphoria last week to the US congress: “Where there was once only a dark wall, a door suddenly opened and we all walked through it: onto the streets, into the churches, across the borders.”

At a remote crossing in Berlin’s south, Annemarie Reffert and her 15-year-old daughter made history by becoming the first East Germans to cross the border.

Reffert, now 66, remembers the East German soldiers being at a loss when she tried to cross the border. “I argued that Schabowski said we were allowed to go over,” she said. The border soldiers relented.

Years later, Schabowski said he had gotten mixed up. It was not a decision but a draft law that the Politburo was set to discuss.

That night, around midnight, border guards swung open the gates. Through Checkpoint Charlie, down the Invalidenstrasse, across the Glienicke Bridge, scores of people streamed into West Berlin, unabated, unfettered, eyes agog.