The Berlin Wall

Germany has today been remembering the 50th anniversary of the building of the Berlin Wall. To me, as a teenager in the 1980’s, I remember phrases like the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, the Soviet Union, the Cold War, Star Wars, East and West Germany, Perestroika and Glasnost, and the famous speech by then US President Reagan when, speaking in front of the Brandenburg Gate at the Berlin Wall, he told Soviet Leader Gorbachev, “Tear down this wall!”

I remembering watching the news in 1989 as one the most potent and infamous symbols of communism was dramatically and suddenly pulled down.

When tourists look at what remains of the Berlin Wall, at the lines that mark where it stood, hopefully they will realise that this 100 mile (160 km) stretch of wall, with its 300 watch turrets was not just the division of a society, but a place where hundreds died trying to climb to freedom. Hopefully people too young to recall either the building or the fall of the Berlin Wall will not forget.