15 years ago...

[2952-0-0]

...East Germany finally disbanded and the country was finally reunited. For those of you who did remember this moment, what was it like?x

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Unexpected

[dazzleman]

...East Germany finally disbanded and the country was finally reunited. For those of you who did remember this moment, what was it like?x

The really exciting moment was when the communists were forced to open the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989.  Pressure had been building on them all summer, as a large number of East Germans were escaping to the west through Hungary, which had like Poland effetively overthrown its communist government.  On November 9, the East German government finally announced that it was lifting border restrictions, and allowing travel to the west.

It was incredibly exciting, a feeling that this terrible menace that we had been living with all our lives was suddenly gone.  It all happened very fast, and unexpectedly.  That fall, one by one, every East European communist government was overthrown.

It was not immediately clear that the two Germanys would reunify, and on what terms.  The outcome -- a unified Germany in NATO -- was thought unattainable even then, but a deal was worked out with the Soviets, basically by paying them off to help with their economic problems, which by then were in the late stages of terminal.  There were also some in the west who did not want a reunified Germany because of potential for Germany dominance of Europe and military aggression.

By October 3, 1990, when Germany was actually reunited, it was anticlimactic.  But the whole episode was a very exciting one.

[Gabu]

I don't remember it, but my mom recollected the event to me; how she put it was roughly like this:

"For the longest time we thought the Soviet Union would never go away and that we would have to live in eternal paranoia of nuclear war forever.  Then, one day, out of absolutely nowhere, the news said that the Berlin Wall came down, and we were just left wondering, '...wait a minute, what?'"

[Beet]

When Gorbachev repealed the Brezhnev doctrine, what did he think would happen?

[opebo]

The media coverage was very one-sided.

[Middle-aged Europe]

The really exciting moment was when the communists were forced to open the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989.  Pressure had been building on them all summer, as a large number of East Germans were escaping to the west through Hungary, which had like Poland effetively overthrown its communist government.  On November 9, the East German government finally announced that it was lifting border restrictions, and allowing travel to the west.

Actually, the leaders of East Germany were as much surprised as the rest of the world. The order to open the borders, at least in the form it was given, has been the result of misunderstandings and failed communication within the East German government. But at the time they noticed their mistake it was way too late to do something about. The lifting of the border restrictions as it was originally intended would have been more moderate.

Of course, the Berlin Wall would have come down anyway... only several weeks later (and probably less surprising for the world).

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

What I wish I would've been old enough to remember was the falling of the government in Romania. Now that would be quite unexpected. Also interesting that both the regime in Romania and the Soviet Union came down on Christmas day.

[dazzleman]

What I wish I would've been old enough to remember was the falling of the government in Romania. Now that would be quite unexpected. Also interesting that both the regime in Romania and the Soviet Union came down on Christmas day.

2 years apart.  The collapse of the Romanian regime was more sudden and violent.  In the case of the Soviet Union, the coup against Gorbachev the summer before the collapse (August 1991) was the final blow.  When the coup failed, with Gorbachev basically saved by Yeltsin, the handwriting was on the wall.

It was an exciting time to see the evil of communism largely melt away, like the wicked witch of the west when water was thrown on her.

[J. J.]

For the Berlin Will, it was the end of an era and treated as such.  It was seen as the end of an age.

[afleitch]

I was young at the time but I do remember it. Oddly enough David Hasselhoff visited and then started singing to people on the wall!

[dazzleman]

For the Berlin Will, it was the end of an era and treated as such.  It was seen as the end of an age.

Many times, the end or one era, and the beginning of a new one, is only recognized in retrospect, and not at the time it takes place.  This was one of those cases when everybody instantly knew that one era was ending, and another one beginning.  And it happened a lot sooner and faster than anybody had dared to hope.

[ag]

What I wish I would've been old enough to remember was the falling of the government in Romania. Now that would be quite unexpected. Also interesting that both the regime in Romania and the Soviet Union came down on Christmas day.

Remember that very well. Just a couple of weeks prior there'd been the last Romanian Communist Party Congress, with chants of "Ceausescu and the people" and all. Of course, the other dominoes were already mostly fallen, so the thing looked surreal.  You could see some desperation in the faces of the apparatchiks chanting the slogans.  And just two weeks later, instead of "Ceausescu e popul!" "jos tiranul!" I remember that day I was about to head out when the TV started showing the "Romanian Revolution" - I think I stayed glued to TV until late!

[ag]

...East Germany finally disbanded and the country was finally reunited. For those of you who did remember this moment, what was it like?x

The really exciting moment was when the communists were forced to open the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989.  Pressure had been building on them all summer, as a large number of East Germans were escaping to the west through Hungary, which had like Poland effetively overthrown its communist government.  On November 9, the East German government finally announced that it was lifting border restrictions, and allowing travel to the west.

Yes, the very end was anticlimactic - there wasn't much suspense at that point.  It was the preamble that was exciting.

I remember the 1989 events well. The East German and Czechoslovak governments continued to hold the regimes fairly unchanged until almost the end.  Poland and Hungary were clearly getting away fast, and even within the USSR itself things were increasingly liberalizing, but GDR and CSSR stayed as if frozen.  It was quite remarkable: normally it would be the USSR to maintain strictest regime, but now it had contested elections, oppoistion MPs making fiery speaches in Parliament, lively, though not yet entirely censorship-free, media, independent organizations forming galore. East Germany was still solid.

Actually, one should give some credit to Gorbachev - he, probably, detested the East German Honecker. In any case, he finished him off. When the official delegation of the USSR for the celebrations of the 40th anniversary of the GDR was announced it became clear to most of those with "Kremlinologist" talents that things were going to be interesting. I remember it quite well: "comrade Gorbachev" was "accompanied by comrade Razumovsky".  Now, in the Soviet Communist hierarchy comrade Razumovsky was responsible for the "cadres".  There wasn't much reason for him to go on such a trip, unless a "cadres" question was to be "discussed".  Now, the Soviet leadership wouldn't go into trouble to interfere in whom to appoint the next Mayor of Berlin or Minister for Women's Affairs.  There was only one "cadres" question important enough for this, so Honecker must have known immediately.  They kept it to niceties while they were there, but immediately thereafter Honecker was replaced.

By then the old SOB was an embarassment for Moscow, so this is not very surprising. But I doubt they could have forecast in the Kremlin that once he is gone the replacement Egon Krenz would loose control so fast.  Of course, for the people this was just one more manifestation of a) the authorities are trembling b) Moscow won't interfere - so the Wall had to fall. 

The entire history of this disintegration really started with an observation that "Kremlin doesn't like shedding blood anymore".  I don't think Gorbachev wanted the system to fall - he is trying to rationalize it now, but he was clueless then. The real thing was that he didn't like to give orders to kill, hesitated, procrastinated, pretended the orders weren't his, even yielded sometimes - and the system could only be maintained with rapid reaction to any thought of insubordination.  Really, I think the system was done for back in December 1986, when Gorbachev first replaced a Kazakh strongman with an ethnic Russian and then yielded to protests, by appointing another ethnic Kazakh.  The normal operations was to shoot on site - he waivered, and the rest is history.

[minionofmidas]

...East Germany finally disbanded and the country was finally reunited. For those of you who did remember this moment, what was it like?x

The really exciting moment was when the communists were forced to open the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989.  Pressure had been building on them all summer, as a large number of East Germans were escaping to the west through Hungary, which had like Poland effetively overthrown its communist government.  On November 9, the East German government finally announced that it was lifting border restrictions, and allowing travel to the west.

Notice that they didn't announce unrestricted travel to the West and an opening of the borders - but this is how they were understood by many, and this is what happened later during the night as indivuidual border guards in Berlin lost nerve, and thankfully opened the gates rather than open fire.

Old Europe pretty much said it before me.

Anyways, October 3rd is the official national holiday here but nobody celebrates it. After all, what's to celebrate? It's just the first day to be found where both parliaments had free space in their time schedule.
Now, November 9th, that would be a good day for a public holiday.

[Joe Republic]

Slightly off-topic here, but I strongly recommend everybody watches Goodbye Lenin!  Very interesting and excellent movie on this subject.