Today marked the twentieth anniversary of the fall of Berlin Wall. On November 9, 1989 throngs of West and East Germans gathered on both sides of a wall that had divided the capital city for 28 years. They came to travel across a concrete border that had divided them from friends and family. They came to reunite a nation. They came to reclaim their country’s identity.
Memories of that day remain imprinted in the minds of all Germans. Any German can tell you exactly where they were the day the wall fell. Some watched in amazement on TV, others flocked to the streets and others hopped in their cars and headed to Berlin to see it for themselves.
And though that day lives on, it was only a starting point. Germany has struggled to rebuild itself as one nation but today has become a world power.
It is still a country that struggles with its own identity and the shadows of its former division. To this day, East Germany is poorer and less developed than the West. It’s unemployment rate continues to skyrocket. In Berlin itself, the east part of the city has a distinctively different character, with its unique stores and crumbling buildings than the modernized western half of the city.
The country held an all out bash for its most important date in history. 1,ooo specially decorated Dominos, symbolic of the falling of the wall and other East German regimes after, were knocked down in front of the Brandenburg Gate. The Festival of Freedom continued as Chancellor Angela Merkel, along with world leaders Prime Minister of England Gordon Brown, presidents Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Dmitry Medvedev of Russia and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, symbolically walked through the Brandenburg Gate.
Though most people of our generation were only a few years old or not born at all when the wall fell. It is an important reminder of the changes we can create.
As Merkel told the New York Times:
“One thing I did underestimate: The phase of creating inner unity took much longer than initially thought. But the generation of those who are now in their twenties stands as an example of the success of German unity.”
And even if the fall of the wall was followed by years of imperfection and trial and error, success can be achieved. Never completely, but like the Berlin Wall, there is always somewhere to start.