#fallofberlinwall

The year was 1989, and the world was on the brink of a momentous change. On November 8, a date forever etched in history, the Berlin Wall came down, ushering in a new era and marking the beginning of the end of the Cold War. This event would not only transform Germany but would have far-reaching implications for the entire world. In this article, we delve into the significance of the Berlin…

चैतन्य भारत न्यूज 09 नवंबर 1989 के दिन बर्लिन की दीवार गिरा दी गई थी। ये जर्मनी ही नहीं दुनियाभर के लिए एक ऐतिहासिक दिन था। गूगल ने इसकी याद में आज एक खास गूगल डूडल बनाया है। इस दीवार ने 28 सालों तक बर्लिन शहर को पश्चिम और पूर्व में बांटा था। इसे गिरे अब तीस साल बीत चुके हैं। बर्लिन शहर को दो हिस्सों में बांटने वाली दीवार 13 अगस्त 1961 को खड़ी की गई थी। (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || ).push({});

दरअसल दूसरे विश्व युद्ध के बाद जर्मनी दो देशों में बंट गया था, तो सैंकड़ों कारीगर और व्यवसायी प्रतिदिन पूर्वी बर्लिन को छोड़कर पश्चिमी बर्लिन जाने लगे। बहुत से लोग राजनीतिक कारणों से भी समाजवादी पूर्वी जर्मनी को छोड़कर पूंजीवादी पश्चिमी जर्मनी जाने लगे। इससे पूर्वी जर्मनी को आर्थिक और राजनीतिक रूप से बहुत हानि होने लगी।

बर्लिन दीवार का उद्देश्य इसी प्रवासन को रोकना था। इस दीवार के विचार की कल्पना वाल्टर उल्ब्रिख्त के प्रशासन ने की और सोवियत नेता निकिता ख्रुश्चेव ने इसे मंजूरी दी। हालांकि इस दीवार का बनना समाजवादी गुट के प्रचार तंत्र के लिए बहुत बुरा साबित हुआ। पश्चिम के लोगों के लिए यह समाजवादी अत्याचार का प्रतीक बन गई, खास तौर पर जब बहुत से लोगों को सीमा पार करते हुए गोली मार दी गई। बहुत से लोगों ने सीमा पार करने के अनोखे तरीके खोजे। इसमें सुरंग, गरम हवा के गुब्बारे, दीवार के ऊपर गुजरती तारों पर खिसकना शामिल था।

जब लोगों ने इस दीवार को तोड़ा तो इसके टुकड़े याद के तौर पर ले आए। बर्लिन दीवार के गिरने से पूरे जर्मनी में नए राष्ट्रवाद का उदय हुआ। इसके परिणामस्वरूप पूर्वी जर्मनी के लोगों ने जर्मनी के साथ एकीकरण पर मंजूरी दी और 3 अक्टूबर 1990 को जर्मनी फिर एक देश बन गया।

Could you describe examples of how the Wall, and what it represented, influenced German cultural and aesthetic works created during its existence?

JS: East Germany had a vibrant literary culture and produced a great many novels that reflect the experience of the Wall. I especially admire Christa Wolf's Divided Heaven. Her career illustrates both the accomplishments and the limitations of culture in a society like the GDR. Since 1989, there has been a great deal of work reflecting on the meaning of the Wall. I just read Uwe Tellkamp's novel, Der Turm, which is set in and around Dresden in the late 1980s. It is a remarkable book in many ways, a sprawling family saga as well as a sharp political portrait of the regime's last days.

AE: The Wall played a crucial role in the writing of such significant writers as Christa Wolf (of the former GDR) and Peter Schneider (of the Federal Republic of Germany). In novels such as Divided Heaven (1963), Wolf gave us a lasting image of life in the shadow of the Wall. In The Wall Jumper, Schneider made the absurdity of an edifice such as the Wall painfully tangible. Yet, a novel like Ian McEwan’s The Innocent makes it clear that the Wall and the division of Germany also left a significant mark on European literature as such. In recent years, films like "The Lives of Others" began exploring the meaning of the East-West divide and the lasting impact of European totalitarian regimes on the lives of individuals and societies.

During the course of your work what kind of evidence have you encountered that illustrates how the Wall impacted the legacy of European Jews?

JS: East and West Germany dealt with the legacy of Nazism--and the meaning of the Holocaust--in quite different ways. In the GDR, Nazism was seen as a particularly toxic form of fascism, that is, an expression of capitalism's structural crisis. From this perspective, the racial dimensions of Nazism did not seem central: there was, for instance, very little about the Holocaust in the exhibitions on Nazism in the old East German museum of German History. Like the museum itself, this view of Nazism is now largely gone.

AE: The Jewish community of both the GDR and the Federal Republic was rather small when the Wall was built. While the Federal Republic accepted early on the German responsibility for Nazism, the GDR regarded itself as representing the legacy of the ‘better Germany’ that is of the German left. This has been as many scholars have since claimed, the foundational myth of the GDR. In the decades following the building of the Wall, the issue for German-Jewish relations was less the East-West divide and more finding ways to commemorate the dead of the Holocaust, acknowledging the crimes of the Nazis and developing a German-Jewish dialogue based on mutual respect and different memories. However, one of the most significant contemporary German-Jewish authors is Barbara Honigmann, who in her writing also reflects on what it meant for her and others like her to grow up and come to age as a Jew in the GDR.

From the perspective of your research, what do you feel are the most lasting implications of the Berlin Wall today?

JS: In the euphoric days after the fall of the Wall, many people underestimated the material and spiritual difficulties of unification. It is not surprising that, after 40 years apart, the two Germanies have only slowly grown together. Like parts of the American south after the Civil War, parts of the old GDR have a nostalgic view of the "good old days" before 1989. This has an impact on German culture, especially in Berlin. A more lasting implication is the Left Party, a somewhat improbable alliance of Western German leftwing Social Democrats and the former East German Party of Democratic Socialism.

AE: The Wall will always remain a symbol of tyranny. It will also continue to remind us what fantasies about a ‘perfect’ human society such as those that guided the Soviet Union and the GDR may end up producing: endless human misery and the creation of enclosed, repressive political systems.

Do you believe there’s still more to learn from this transformative period of history?

JS: Historians always believe there is more to learn. In the case of 1989, I think one lesson is how often history surprises us. No one expected the Wall to fall so suddenly and so peacefully, just as no one expected the Soviet Union to collapse with such speed. Nor has the post-Cold War world turned out quite the way many people expected.

“East German’s Great Awakening,” The New York Times, November 10, 1989, 36.

“Physically the Berlin wall still stands. But its capacity to divide a country and a Continent seems at an end. East Germany’s hastily reshaped politburo now promises its people what even two weeks ago was still unthinkable: unrestricted travel to the West; free elections; market-oriented economic reforms. Deathbed conversions are always suspect. But what Marxists call objective realities suggest this great awakening will endure.”

“Cheers as Brandenburg Gate Reopens,” The New York Times, December 23, 1989, 7.

“Leaders of the two Germanys reopened the Brandenburg Gate today, breaching a barrier that more than any other had come to symbolize the division of the nation. Tens of thousands of Germans, oblivious to a steady drizzle, packed both sides of Berlin’s most famous gate to celebrate the formal inauguration of two new pedestrian crossings. . . . Although it has been six weeks since the Berlin wall fell open and at least half the East Germans have visited the West, the reopening of the two-century-old landmark offered symbolic confirmation that the German nation was again seeking to become whole.”

“Final Month of Berlin Wall,” The New York Times, June 16, 1990, 4.

 “East Germany has set a deadline of December for total demolition of the Berlin wall, which sealed citizens off from the West for 28 years. The state press agency quoted Maj. Gen. Dieter Teichmann, chief of the border troops, as saying that the concrete barrier would be gone by December. On Wednesday, East Germans began knocking out wall slabs all over the city to reopen blocked streets.”