Twenty-five years ago today (November 9th, 1989), the Berlin Wall fell. For most of the Cold War, the Berlin Wall encircled West Berlin, thus separating the democratic section of the city from communist East Berlin. The Marxist dictatorship of East Germany built the wall to prevent East Germans -- dissatisfied with their Communist overlords -- from defecting to West Berlin. For nearly five decades, the wall, along with the shoot-on-sight orders given to East German guards, imprisoned East Germans in a failed socialist state and caused the deaths of more than a thousand people attempting to escape the Marxist regime. Therefore, the Berlin Wall became the focal point of the Cold War. However, decades of economic decline in Eastern Europe, eight years of aggressive Reagan-era foreign policy, and the anti-communist revolutions of 1989 goaded East German leaders to allow secret elections and allow East Germans access to West Berlin. On November 9th, 1989, when news of the liberal boarder regulations broke, East Berliners crowded the checkpoints, demanding access to the West. On orders from the head of the communist party in East Berlin, Günter Schabowski, East Germans were allowed to cross freely into West Berlin. This momentous event became the apex of the Revolutions of 1989 that launched the end of communism in Eastern Europe. The Berlin Wall was far more than an instrument of violent border control; the wall was symbolic of the failures of communism. The oppressive barrier evinced that communism can only be maintained with violence and the infringement of rights. If people have a choice between continuing to live under communism or freedom, then they will choose freedom. Furthermore, the Soviet Union dissolved a few years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Thus, as the Berlin Wall fell so did communism in Eastern Europe.
Posted on: Sun, 09 Nov 2014 18:28:42 +0000