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It’s scary, but I think I agree with George W. on something. Apparently on a 2002 visit to Berlin he said the following:

“The history of our time is written in the life of Berlin.”

Somewhat frightening that I don’t think I could have said it better myself.

Today in class we had a discussion on what we’d done for the weekend and a discussion popped up on the relevance of The Wall and whether it will matter or not in 200 years. This class is actually an interesting group in that we range in age from 19-37. We have very different perspectives on world history, and two of the younger ones had no real memory of the Wall. I feel strongly that it will matter because the value in a united Europe via the EU (whether we’re talking about those currently in the Schengen area, the 27 current members or how the EU continues to evolve doesn’t matter) is lost if one doesn’t know/remember the fact that less than 20 years ago, freedom to travel was severely restricted.

While I know that history and time change people’s memories, I can’t imagine the legacy of communism fading. It already is though, one example being people’s reactions to Goodbye Lenin! I think you really have to remember a divided Berlin in order to ‘get’ the movie. I’m a history geek, I ‘get’ it (or suppose I would if I’d seen the movie), but I know not everyone sees things the same way. As a part of the class discussion we were talking about preservation v. moving on in the context of The Wall, 9/11 and even the Oklahoma City Bombing. That’s a subject for another post or five though.

Daniel Coats, the U.S. Ambassador to Germany hit on a lot of what I’ve been thinking since I first saw the Wall from the bus on Saturday afternoon:

That is why the lessons of the past are still so vitally important for our future and the future of our children. The Wall, the most prominent symbol of the Cold War and the division of Germany and Europe, has been torn down but it cannot be relegated to the past.

As a newcomer to Berlin, I myself often wonder where the Wall was exactly. Today it is hard to imagine the course of that gray concrete barrier and strip of barren no man’s land that once snaked its way 23 miles through the streets of one of Europe’s proudest cities.

When I was first at Brandenburg Gate, I completely missed the cobblestone path that marks the former path of the wall. It’s more visible on the steps to the Spree, but I wouldn’t say it’s hard to miss. As you draw closer to the Spree, it’s even marked with something I see as similar to a tombstone:

Here lies The Wall? But is it buried? Should it be?

It’s impossible to judge, as an outsider, what people should do with their own city. This is true especially since the people of Berlin had no say in it in the first place: their fate was controlled by the governing powers who ruled the city. In a sense, Berlin and Germany had lost their sovereignty following the defeat in WW II.

Pieces of the wall are still being removed, even officially. Yet the government felt that it had to be done as a “secretly engineered operation”, certainly that wouldn’t be the case if it were done with everyone’s best interests in mind. Even if it was something that was a governmental decision with no input from the public, it needn’t be done in secret. I don’t think anyone is claiming that the Wall needs to remain in its entirety, but I think the sections that have remained for 17 years should continue to serve as an education for locals and visitors.

Another area where this rears its head is in the context of ostalgia, which is a very real feeling among some people in Germany. Ampelmannchen are probably the most visible sign of Ostalgia, right down to a shop dedicated to them in Hackeschen Hofe. The author goes into much further detail about Ostalgia and its role in Berlin today but what struck me was the correlation to the author’s thoughts in Cafe Europa. In Cafe Europa she was speaking of the election of communist leaders in Romania and Serbia following the fall of Communism and the fact that it was what people knew, what they felt safe with. While traffic signals aren’t the same as a political leader, I think the roots are similar. People in East Germany grew up with the traffic signals. They lost so much in the political turmoil of the 80s and 90s that they wanted to cling to something familiar. At least that was how I understood it.

At the same time, I don’t think I can ever understand it. This was something else that Ute and I touched on. As someone born in America, I have no direct experience with communism. I read about it, I studied it, but it was always something that existed ‘over there’. It wasn’t a part of my world. While we were walking, Ute mentioned a discussion at university where she mentioned the falling of the Wall didn’t change her world drastically – the next day, for her in West Germany, nothing had changed in her day to day life. That struck me because learning about it, I’d always imagined the fall of the Wall was huge for Germans. I think I got a lot more out of Berlin visiting it with a German than I would have doing it alone, so thank you for that, Ute. Plus it was just great to see you again

On a lighter note, there was someone with the t-shirt that read “US Leaders on Berlin” – it included Reagan’s “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”, Bush Sr.’s “Hundreds of Berliners from East and West, standing atop the Wall, with chisels and hammers” and of course JFK’s “Ich bin ein Berliner” whether or not he actually called himself a doughnut. I so wish I’d gotten a photo.