The Fall of the Berlin Wall

25 years ago today, the Berlin Wall was breached by the people of east and west Berlin. On this day, the reunification of Germany and the collapse of the Soviet Empire began.

It’s hard to believe that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is gone. I grew up during the Cold War and remember worrying about an all out nuclear war between the USA and the USSR. Now, we have a generation of people who really never knew what it was like to stare at that wall and the minefields running the length of the border between East and West Germany.

The Wall was constructed in 1961 as a means to keep the people living under communism from fleeing “The Workers Paradise” to the West. When the Soviets started building the Wall, it caught most of the world by surprise. People asked “If communism is so good, why do you need to build a wall to keep people in?” The Communists claimed that it was an “Anti-Fascist Barrier” designed to stop an invasion of the East by NATO.

No one with any sense believed that for a moment. The minefields and the actual wall could be easily breached by NATO military forces if we ever did decide to invade the Warsaw Pact countries. However, it was very good at stopping people from fleeing. An estimated 118 people died trying to cross over.

The Berlin Wall became a symbol of the differences between the West and the East. On one side, you had freedom and prosperity. On the other side, a giant gulag. Several Presidents went to the Wall to demand it be removed. It was just after Ronald Reagan, probably the greatest president of the 20^th century, when the Wall finally came down. Below are videos of the first President and the last President to visit the Wall.

[youtuber youtube=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GKd50lrROc’]

John F. Kennedy began the fight in 1963 to tear down the wall. Ronald Reagan completed the task.

[youtuber youtube=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjWDrTXMgF8′]

The results of our determination finally appeared on November 9^th, 1989.

[youtuber youtube=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmRPP2WXX0U’]

Now pieces of the Wall is considered a collectors item. People in Germany remember where they were when the Wall was dismantled. There is a segment of the Wall at the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia. These segments, and others placed around the World are a memorial to those who died trying to escape to freedom.

Thatisall

~The Angry Webmaster~

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