The Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago, but Germany is still divided
washingtonpost.com
The Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago, but Germany is still divided
1–10 of 73 posts
Re: The Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago, but Germany is still divided
#2The light color difference in Berlin is awesome, didn't know that.
Another difference: the Ampelmann West: http://tinyurl.com/krew59f East: http://tinyurl.com/k6nk8dx
Re: The Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago, but Germany is still divided
#3The light color difference in Berlin is awesome, didn't know that. Another difference: the Ampelmann West: http://tinyurl.com/krew59f East: http://tinyurl.com/k6nk8dx
I'm waiting for the Lichtgrenze installation (licht=light, grenze=border) which visualizes the Berlin wall next week. http://vimeo.com/105754237, https://fallofthewall25.com/
Re: The Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago, but Germany is still divided
#4[deleted]
Re: The Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago, but Germany is still divided
#525 years is a very short time to expect some of the longer term economic and cultural changes to take place. Just like the street light bulbs, they'll get replaced as the old ones die off.
On a related note, I've never understood how you could live in West Berlin and yet travel freely to the rest of west Germany, because the city itself was deep in East Germany. I know the city was supplied by airlift during the blockade, but that eventually stopped. So how did someone from West Berlin travel to, say, Frankfurt by car? What was to stop someone from East Germany doing the same thing? The wall only went through the city, right?
I have travelled in East Germany and I found it to be a pleasant place, with very friendly people. Though they tended to have bizarre fashion sense and much more limited English compared to west Germany.
Re: The Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago, but Germany is still divided
#6This led me down a few rabbit holes online. I had never heard the Kennedy or Reagan speeches from Berlin, but they're embedded on the wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall
Those both stood out against the backdrop of dry political speeches. You have a leading statesman, sure, of a country with plenty of its own flaws, but calling out a system that is completely absurd, immoral, and against the course of history. Speaking partly from national interest, no doubt, but still calling something out, calling it like it is.
Leaders seem to get a lot of extra points in their legacy column when they're able to pull this off.
If the sitting President were to make such a speech today, I wonder what and where it would be.
Re: The Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago, but Germany is still divided
#7"Offa's Dyke fell 750 years ago, but, the United Kingdom is still divided"
I am not sure about flu jabs and childcare or even who does their recycling, however I am sure that most of the comparisons can be said about England and Wales. It would be funny if pollsters did surveys and found 50% of English people didn't think the union with Wales had worked out as well as the king had told them it would.
Re: The Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago, but Germany is still divided
#825 years is a very short time to expect some of the longer term economic and cultural changes to take place. Just like the street light bulbs, they'll get replaced as the old ones die off. On a related note, I've never understood how you could live in West Berlin and yet travel freely to the rest of west Germany, because the city itself was deep in East Germany. I know the city was supplied by airlift during the bloc…
The airlift had to happen because the USSR cut off the highway access to West Berlin.
I believe the highway was cordoned off from the rest of East Germany.
Re: The Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago, but Germany is still divided
#925 years is a very short time to expect some of the longer term economic and cultural changes to take place. Just like the street light bulbs, they'll get replaced as the old ones die off. On a related note, I've never understood how you could live in West Berlin and yet travel freely to the rest of west Germany, because the city itself was deep in East Germany. I know the city was supplied by airlift during the bloc…
This puzzled me too.
Wikipedia has a good overview under the Travel section of the article on West Berlin though: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Berlin#Transport_and_trans...
Seems like there were a few ways out, and they all had systems of monitoring in place. Westerners on the highways could interact with Easterners, but their trip was monitored at check points, down to how much time they took for the journey, to make sure they weren't fraternizing too much.
Apparently the GDR, who was bearing the cost of the transit roads and was facing economic difficulties, began levying fees on travel from West Berlin and West Germany. They tried to increase these fees, but eventually the FRG, probably realizing it was over a barrel on the issue, just started paying the GDR a yearly fee to keep the roads toll free.
The flight travel bit is interesting. If you had fled into West Berlin, you can't exactly drive through East Germany like everyone else. The Western government subsidized a flight service between West Berlin and West Germany primarily for such travelers.
Fascinating period.
Re: The Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago, but Germany is still divided
#10This led me down a few rabbit holes online. I had never heard the Kennedy or Reagan speeches from Berlin, but they're embedded on the wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall Those both stood out against the backdrop of dry political speeches. You have a leading statesman, sure, of a country with plenty of its own flaws, but calling out a system that is completely absurd, immoral, and against the course of hist…
Probably in Syria, calling for reform of radical Islam.