30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall

[readingtype]

On 12/07/2022 at 11:23, Bernard Lamb said:

Our very own souvenir

Remembering the excitement and optimism in that time, just a kid in front of the telly as I was, sends a shiver down my spine. If we'd known back then...

[peterfgf]

I was in Kiel that night, doing some work for a local shipyard and having a quiet meal in a bar.  An huge uproar of excitement came from the other end of the restaurant which baffled me.  I'm greatly pleased that I was there to witness their enthusiastic initial reaction  to the news - the beers flowed freely that evening. It was a brave step then to re-unify Germany.  Europe is all the better for it.

Peterfgf

[SimonBoulton]

On 17/05/2020 at 10:15, Andy Kirkham said:

Compared to some of the fascinating accounts above, my experience of the DDR is rather superficial - a fortnight in May 1989 when the Wall still seemed a permanent fixture. My first week was spent in Wernigerode when there was still freight traffic on the Hartzquerbahn (I presume there is no longer any).

The morning  Wernigerode freight trip, May 1989 by Andy Kirkham, on Flickr

 

Wernigerode-Hasserode station. by Andy Kirkham, on Flickr

 

The morning freight trip leaving Wernigerode-Hasserode for the Hauptbahnhof by Andy Kirkham, on Flickr

 

Harz042 by Andy Kirkham, on Flickr

 

Harz055 by Andy Kirkham, on Flickr

 

Harz061 by Andy Kirkham, on Flickr

 

The Hartz line ran directly along the border at one point - actually along the Death Strip, and there were signs which I think informed passengers that they risked being shot if they got of the train. A couple of times in the vicinity of the railway I encountered an armed guard and was asked to show my documents, which was scary the first time but was actually just routine and conducted with courtesy.

 

There was nothing much to do in Wernigerode in the evenings; the only places to eat were in the hotels and I think only one place - a beer garden - to get a drink.

 

I noticed a large number of young men of East Asian appearence there - I supposed these could have been Vietnamese students, but I never found out for sure.

 

Every village seemed to have the same set of shops - including a bookshop, which would seldom have been found in settlements of that size in the UK - and they all offered the same selection of books.

Placards at historical sites seemed to be trying to give the impression that Eastern Germany had been a victim of the Second World War; indeed, if you hadn't known otherwise, you might have gained the impression that the DDR had been founded in 1919 by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg and then been invaded by these evil foreigners known as The Fascists (never the Nazis because that was a contraction of National Socialists)

 

In Berlin on my final day I was standing by the Wall in the vicinity of the Brandenburg Gate and an English family was standing next to me. One of them commented loud and clear: "Doesn't he look just like Bamber Gascoigne?"

 

Great pictures, looks like that goods van might be from the Hungarian MAV judging by the symbol on the side 

[jmh67]

On 18/07/2022 at 13:51, SimonBoulton said:

Great pictures, looks like that goods van might be from the Hungarian MAV judging by the symbol on the side 

It not only looks like it. What with the RIV and OPW agreements, goods vans circulated quite freely all over the continent. They still do, perhaps even more so now.

[Ian Morgan]

This interesting video has just appeared on Youtube: