World

Ten Years After The Wall

November 8, 1999 / 12:47 PM EST / CBS

On Tuesday, Berliners, Germans and the world at large were marking the tenth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the symbolic end to a half-century of Cold War between Western-democracies and Soviet-dominated communist regimes.

Over the weekend, only days before the anniversary, another piece of the Cold War — a potent symbol of how permanent the Cold War appeared even in its waning moments — was consigned to history when U.S. Ambassador John Kornblum handed over a section of the Berlin Wall to the Allied Powers Museum in Berlin.

The graffiti on the section echoed the words of Ronald Reagan two years before the Wall came down: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."

Kornblum was widely credited with the line.

"I was criticized in the German press fairly directly for being stupid and naive, if I may be diplomatic about it ... They said, 'what a dumb idea, the Wall is never going to come down.'"

In fact, the speech was carefully planned by the diplomat, whose career has touched nearly every chapter of Germany's post war history.

"I seem to have just somehow bought a ticket just as things were going to happen," Kornblum said.

Detente, Russia's invasion of Afghanistan, martial law in neighboring Poland and the rise of Solidarity had all preceded the fall of the Wall. Each step was potentially dangerous.

"I spent literally hundreds of hours with Soviet counterparts trying to make sure we didn't have an explosion here. They didn't want it to spill over."

The Unexpected Wall
Berlin was divided into sectors after the Second World War but the Wall's construction came as a terrible surprise. In reaction to a massive exodus of East Bloc population to the West, Soviet leader Nikita Krushev in 1961 ordered border crossings closed and East Germany sealed off.

First, authorities constructed a fence and barbed wire, and then a Wall. Some escaped, but many died trying. It lasted almost 30 years and became a lasting symbol of the Cold War.

People behind it in the East lived in a gray limbo, only creeping out of the shadows to wave furtively to friends and family in the West.

Gorbachev Ushers Hope
But on the 40th anniversary of East Germany — still years before the Wall came down — there came a message in Berlin from Mikhail Gorbachev, the man who had already begun to loosen the bonds in the Soviet Union. Gorbachev warned that those who fail to change with the times will be engulfed by them

"That was an electric statement for the people inside East Germany and it was basically Gorby's sanction of change," said Kornblum.

Th people heard, and the demands for change swept across East Germany. Demonstrators flooded city streets and there were nightly clashes with the police.

But for George Mascolo, a West German television producer in Berlin, the next stage was hard to predict.

"What we had was a feeling that something was going on in this city, but nothing more."

On the night of November 9th, Mascolo came with a cameraman to the Borneholmestrasse border crossing and the two were astounded by what they saw.

The Wall Comes Down
Hundreds, then thousands of people began to congregate and scream, "No violence, let us out. We will come back," said Mascolo. "There was a real pressure on the border guards and at a certain point, because the guards simply couldn't stand the pressure, they decided to open the barrier."

The sudden rush of freedom was made so much sweeter by the surprise of it all. Gone was the fear of East Bloc authority that had kept the people captive for so long. But many in the East who had fought the system could not believe it was happening.

Mike Hamburger was an East German activist in those days, giving interviews to Western journalists in a bid to bring reform to the system.

He was as shocked as anyone when told the system had collapsed and the wall was opened.

"The fall of the wall came as a surprise to everybody, no one thought it was going to come," he said.

Hamburger nervously took his family to see.

"I drove into a side lane and went to the border and again there were huge queues and masses of people. Some of the guards were saying, 'well, if you go across you won't be allowed to come back.'"

So his wife and daughter went over without him.

"And when they came back about 5:00 in the morning they got me out of bed and they talked and talked and talked," he said. "They were exhilarated at the things they'd seen; they'd drunk champagne with quite unknown people and they'd danced on the streets and visited an aunt whom they hadn't seen for years, so it was really a great moment for them."

After The Wall
For Germans, the Wall was one of the scars from Hitler's war that never healed. But for the allies juggling a dangerous Cold War, the 400,000 Soviet troops based within 100 miles of Berlin were of greater concern

"The entire change from the summer of '89 through the end of the Soviet Union is remarkable and amazing for the fact that it was basically non-violent — that this immense communist apparatus, hundreds of thousands of soldiers and security agents, basically just went away peacefully, said Kornblum.

Ten years later, many Germans have mixed feelings about life without the Wall.

There are still plenty of East Germans with doubts about the future, who are easily offended by westerners who dismiss the years under communism as being just about dictatorship, secret police and repression. They insist their lives behind the wall were much more than that.

"This is where people spent forty years of their lives where they grew up where they went to school, where they had their first kiss, their first love affairs, children," said Hamburger. "This is all part of life."

Remnants Of East And West
In the elegance and wealth of the new Germany, many East Berliners like Mike Hamburger do not feel at home and resent their second class status.

"West Germany is running everything ... It is a bit like the masters and the servants; the West Germans are deciding everything," he says. "They're taking all the important positions in politics in universities. For instance all the professors of departments are West German. They're stronger, they have the connections, they have the money."

They may have the money, but they also share the crippling burden of history. Once the overpowering capital of Hitler's Third Reich, Berlin became the shattered end of the war in Europe.

Its divided ruins then became the symbol of the Cold War standoff with Communism.

Today, the dividing walls of Germany's past are being ground up into the building materials for Berlin's future.

Germans of George Mascolo's generation have both studied and lived its history, which makes them both suspicious and hopeful for the future.

People in the east and the west have developed totally differently during forty years, so it will take at least another one or two generations," to bring the country together, Mascolo says.