Saturday, November 8, 2014

When the Berlin Wall came down



Tomorrow is the 25th anniversary of Berlin’s 'happy ending’. But, as Anne Applebaum reports, in those early days a dark and uncertain mood had enveloped the city - The Telegraph UK

On the evening of November 9 1989, East Germans began to walk through the Berlin Wall. Now, with hindsight, it seems inevitable that their story would end happily, that East and West Germany would reunite, that Berlin would become one city as it is so triumphantly today. But nothing seemed obvious at the time, and nobody was at all sure of that happy ending. On the contrary, the Berlin I remember was darker and stranger than any of the “vintage” footage you’ll see replayed this weekend. So many things could have gone wrong, and so many nearly did....