So its 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany. Do you Remember it?

The news broke when an East German minister announced that border controls would be relaxed during a press conference.

He was asked "when?". He didn't really have an answer, so he replied "now, I suppose".

East Germans headed for the Wall. The border guards had not received orders. Normally they would shoot, but they just stood down.

One of the quickest regime collapses of all-time.

A glory night!!

Carry wrote: »

....That night all the rules and German reservations went down the drain in Berlin. Everthing stayed open, public transport run all night for free, East Berliners stumbled in amazement and in masses through the streets of West Berlin, being greeted and hugged by everyone. It was the biggest party the world has ever seen, I think.....

and a slightly different version of the story from me

I was doing my (then compulsory) military service in the West-German army (Bundeswehr) at the time...more precisely the basic training part of it in some barracks adjacent to a US/German military airbase not far from the Danube.

We had no party, quite the opposite.

In the run-up to the actual day, tensions in the East had grown massively, so had the number of people in the streets. Looking at what had happened previously in Hungary and Czechoslovakia (and in Eastern Germany in 1957) once people started gathering in the streets in masses, there was a not totally unreasonable expectation that these masses might be stopped by tanks...East German and more importantly, Soviet ones.

The prospect of Soviet tanks leaving their barracks of course makes the Bundeswehr nervous...so we were on alert. All leave for officers and other leaders was cancelled, so they were bored/excited and we poor recruits suffered

Alarm exercises at all hours of the day or night ...which mostly just meant grabbing all your stuff (and your weapon of course) and assembling in the yard, standing to attention while some person up front shouted something about the red forces and the blue forces and taking up defensive position, before letting you go back to whatever you were doing before.

So tensions were a bit raised and we were all pretty tired.

And then, two days before the actual fall of the wall, they alarmed us out of bed at 03:15 in the morning (that time of night when you're so fast asleep that after being forcefully woken you have no idea what's going on) assembled us in the yard with all our rucksacks and guns. At this point, some joker thought it funny, instead of the usual blue on red "situation" to tell us that Soviet forces had indeed mobilised, that there was fighting in the streets of major eastern towns and that there was a significant Soviet tank force en route to the inner-German border.

Again, 03:15 in the morning, everybody is dazed and confused and you're told that ...
We were then marched out of the barracks to our positions around the airfield (a good three hours march) and dug in to our strategic positions. Some poor recruits were so tired, confused and afraid that there was actual distress and crying and it took well into daytime until the last one registered that this was still only an exercise.

Two days later then , when the actual wall fell pretty much without warning, the whole lot of us just sat in front of the TV and didn't know what to make of it.
One or two beers and the odd big grin was had alright...but party there wasn't...we were just dazzled, more or less.

After that normal service resumed (with a slight feeling of being surplus to requirement all round) and in the end my military service was cut short by three months as all of a sudden 500.000 men under arms had become a quite expensive hobby and the money was needed elsewhere.

I wish I had been in Berlin or any other border town instead, somehow I think I missed one of the most momentous events of my lifetime while being tired and confused

A fragment of the wall is at the shrine of Fatima.

peasant wrote: »

...In the run-up to the actual day, tensions in the East had grown massively, so had the number of people in the streets. Looking at what had happened previously in Hungary and Czechoslovakia (and in Eastern Germany in 1957) once people started gathering in the streets in masses, there was a not totally unreasonable expectation that these masses might be stopped by tanks...East German and more importantly, Soviet ones.

(...)

I wish I had been in Berlin or any other border town instead, somehow I think I missed one of the most momentous events of my lifetime while being tired and confused

Thanks for that story. It's an interesting and to me unknown perspective.

But in fairness, there was a real fear in Berlin that all the talk of Gorbachev about glasnost and perestroika would be just talk, or that the East German communist mandarins would fight toes and nails against any decision to give up their cushy little state. We have after all seen, during the Berlin Crisis, American and Russian tanks face each other at Checkpoint Charlie, and the shoot-to-kill order of the Eastern border police wasn't voided yet at that moment. And it takes always only one...

So thanks for trying to protect us against the enemy at 3.15am

And yes, you missed the most momentous moment in post-war Berlin. Actually I still welled up writing my story.

But rest assured I will drink a glass of bubbly at least in spirit with you (that's 2 glasses for me so ) at the 30th anniversary - if that is any consolation

Ipso wrote: »

Has herself cone to have a look?

She might have when people weren't looking

TBH, I've no real-time memories about it: I was a teenager, but on the other side of the Iron Curtain (by comparison with majority of the posters here). So for me the following month is unforgettable.

mrsdewinter wrote: »

We'd never heard of Croatia, say, because Yugoslavia was pretty much terra incognito.

Yugoslavia wasn't that much terra incognito. At that time we would holiday on Croatian island Rab among mostly German and some Italian tourists. I grew up in Slovenia, which was then part of Yugoslavia. Even then (I was 11) I was acutely aware how much more oppressive and closed communism inside Warsaw Pact was.

For us the fall of Berlin wall was exciting event and we realized our lives are going to change significantly. I don't think anyone actually understood how much of basket case communist economy was and how long and how hard it will be to dismantle it. Solidarity in Poland and fall of Berlin Wall started something that ended in war in Yougoslavia and wars in former Soviet Union. Not everything went to plan but it is still hugely positive.

I was 14 at the time and remember watching it on the news but TBH I didn't pay much notice as to what was going on.

There were a few Germans living in our area who were very excited about it, they came here in the early 80s and bought isolated farmhouses to live a kind of hippy lifestyle.

I remember it well. We sent Helmut Kohl a very competive quote to rebuild the wall but the ignorant ****er didnt even acknowledge our letter. We asked Bertie to put in a good word for us but no good