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News & ArtsMonday, November 9, 2009
History "I Want My Wall Back"
Posted by Dan Savage on Mon, Nov 9, 2009 at 9:07 AM
I was living in Berlin—in West Berlin—on November 9, 1989. I moved to the city earlier that year with my boyfriend, Peter, and we quickly fell in with the expats and artists and queers that filled the city and made it their own. But the city was by no means "full." It was actually underpopulated and food was expensive, as everything had to be shipped in, so there were massive public subsidies for residents and a West German males could avoid military service by moving to West Berlin. There was a huge U.S. military presence and the city stank of the dirty brown coal East Germans burned to heat their homes. Most of the West Germans who lived in West Berlin moved there from other parts of West Germany because they didn't want to be at the center of German life—politically or socially—and they were attracted to the existential quality of living on this island in the middle of East Germany. By choosing to live in West Berlin they were somehow rejecting West Germany. Most cities and states in West Germany were conservative and constipated. West Berlin was easy and liberal and vibrant and teamed with Turks and faggots and artists.
And then the wall came down and West Berlin was suddenly the center of Germany—it felt like the center of the universe—and soon West Berlin was filling up with Russians and Poles and East Germans selling off military paraphernalia and nesting dolls and busts of Lenin (I still have one on a shelf at home). The Russians and Poles and East Germans would buy up bananas and water heaters and used clothes to take back home and sell. Soon other West Germans arrived, conservative and constipated, and they started buying up apartments and speculating on land in corners of the city that had been isolated by the wall but were now at the heart of what was going to be a reunified Berlin and a united Germany's new/old new capitol. The character of the city changed so quickly and so radically that the people who had moved to West Berlin to escape Germany and the Germans—and most of the people who moved to Berlin to do that were themselves German—started wearing "I WANT MY WALL BACK" t-shirts in protest and loudly telling anyone who would listen that they were moving to Prague.
My favorite memory from the days after the wall came down: There were gaping holes all along the wall and you could peer into the no-man's land, the death zone, which had been guarded by East German soldiers with shoot-to-kill orders just days before. No one knew if there were still soldiers in the guard towers or if the shoot-to-kill orders were still in effect or if Soviet tanks were coming or what. One night my boyfriend and I slipped through a hole in the wall and stood still, waiting to see what would happen. Nothing happened. We started to walk along one of the marked trails in the no-man's land and eventually wound up near a guard tower right behind the Reichstag. There was a door at the back and it was open. We went inside and climbed up the ladder to the top and peered out over the wall and into West Berlin through the guard tower's mirrored glass. From the outside the glass was this weird shimmery burnt orange/brown color that you saw all over East Berlin. We looked down at the crowds gathered along the wall, chipping away with sledgehammers, and some people were looking up at the tower, no doubt wondering if there were still East German soldiers up there, if they were still being watched from those towers, and what their orders were.
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That's a fascinating personal account. Glad you acknowledge the anniversary of the fall of the Wall. I have a piece of the Wall. A friend was in Berlin when it fell and got a few pieces. He gave me an extra chip.
I was in the Peace Coprs in Maroura, Far North Province, Cameroon, Africa. I recall being in a grocery owned by a German expat named Peter. I rememeber him beaming and uttering it is "historic!".
Indeed, I agree. Whatever one thinks of Reagan, this is his greatest legacy. Ending the Cold War peaceably.
BTW, 1989 is being called the greatest year since 1945.
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Boggles the mind.
@2, he was 25 at the time. I know you SLOG spring chickens can hardly believe it, but Dan the eternal hipster is more than twice your age.
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Reagan did not end the Cold War peaceably, no matter what kind of historical revisions Republicans try to attempt.
Ever hear of Afghanistan, El Salvador, Nicaragua? Reagan also refused to stop testing the "Star Wars" program and nuclear weapons, even after the Soviets had.
Nor did Reagan shorten the Cold War or cause the Soviet Union to fall apart.
People and ideas such as Polish trade unionism, Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel all had much more to do with it. And don't forget Gorbachev.
The Soviet Union fell apart because it was a government that was corrupt and had fatal flaws. It was unworkable. It would have eventually fallen apart, regardless of who was in the White House.
Gorbachev was a moderate reformer. He wanted to reform Soviet style Communism, not get rid of it. But once he allowed Soviet states like Poland, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany to have freedoms there was no stopping the push for additional freedoms and the Soviet system unraveled amazingly fast.
Reagan had little to do with the Soviet system falling apart. In fact, it can be argued that his stubbornness pro-longed the Cold War, not shortened it.
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GTFO. GET THEEE FUCK OUT.
CAT TERRITORY. WHAT BITCH? YOU GOT SUMTHIN TO TEACH ME.
CHANGE YOUR SHIT TO A CAT, THROW AWAY YOUR DOG.
CAT TERRITORY. WHAT. WHAT. ROWR.
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A few months ago, safely ensconced in 2009ery, driving up and back from Boston to Montreal, I drove some young East Germans who said that their parents/grandparents cried tears of joy when the wall fell, but now wish it hadn't fallen. While Dan enjoyed life on the West Berlin side, the East Germans had no idea how to deal with consumerism, capitalism, contracts, all that stuff that accompanies non-dictator states. I couldn't get the East Germans to be more specific, but it sounded as if a huge Madoff-style scheme for housing appeared as soon as the wall fell, and confused East Germans into signing their rights to their lives away. Lots of scams. When the wall fell no one gave the newcomers a Guide to Living Under Capitalism.
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I don't have a Lenin bust, but I do have military patches and a Soviet flag.
Thanks for sharing, Dan.
I was thinking that they looked Southeast and saw a place called Wilhelmsburg one the other side of a bridge...
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