Celebrating the fall of the wall

[The Idler]

Why was the fall of the Berlin wall celebrated by East Berliners? Its the first news story I remember as a child and I remember seeing footage of people ecstatically smashing the wall down. But how prevalent were the celebrations and why.3dUw0TXDCus

[Comrade B]

It meant freedom of mobility, people also had the idea that they would be living in the wealth the western media portrays themselves in. Disillusionment with capitalism is pretty common in the East now.
A lot of people also had family on the other side of the wall they were separated from and hadn't seen for a long time.

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

People were indeed brainwashed by western propaganda images of everyone living in wealth and luxury, having a villa and at least two cars etcetera.
This, plus the fact that anti-communist reactionaries spread these ideas even further, plus more mobility, reunification with famiky, and so on led to the ultimate gigantic error that was the fall of the Wall

[Искра]

People were indeed brainwashed by western propaganda images of everyone living in wealth and luxury, having a villa and at least two cars etcetera.
This, plus the fact that anti-communist reactionaries spread these ideas even further, plus more mobility, reunification with famiky, and so on led to the ultimate gigantic error that was the fall of the Wall
???

So you claim that there was a big mobility in "communist" countries? Have you ever met some one who lived in any of those? High rank Party members excluded.

[Pogue]

Alot of people were happy to see a symbol of oppression and division crumble, I know I would be.

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

???

So you claim that there was a big mobility in "communist" countries? Have you ever met some one who lived in any of those? High rank Party members excluded.
I said that the fall of the Wall meant more mobility for those who tore it down, and that it's one of the reasons why they were so happy while committing one of the worst errors in history.

[Искра]

I said that the fall of the Wall meant more mobility for those who tore it down, and that it's one of the reasons why they were so happy while committing one of the worst errors in history.
Aha, my apologies then.

But, now I have to ask you what's wrong with mobility? You think that The Wall was there to save people from corrupted capitalist system? Do you think that that's the good way?

If you are living in "communist" country why do you need to repress people and take their mobility from them? <sarcasm>They know that they are living in the best system ever.</sarcasm>

To me that's just another great symbol of repression.

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

Aha, my apologies then.

But, now I have to ask you what's wrong with mobility? You think that The Wall was there to save people from corrupted capitalist system? Do you think that that's the good way?

If you are living in "communist" country why do you need to repress people and take their mobility from them? <sarcasm>They know that they are living in the best system ever.</sarcasm>

To me that's just another great symbol of repression.
There's nothing wrong with mobility, the mobility argument is one of the biggest reasons those guys tore the Wall down in '89.
There's nothing wrong with mobility, but it was of secondary importance during the Cold War.

Surely it was a pity that the Wall decreased citizens' mobility. Surely it wasn't "nice" to do or to experience. But that wasn't important when it was built, th important thin was that the BRD and the DDR were on the brink of conflict in 1961, and tha building a Wall wathe most effective way to seperate the nations and to prevent further unrest at the border.
The Berlin Wall was an unfortunate necessity.

As Erich Honecker once said: "The Wall will stay as long as the conditions that led to its costruction remain unchanged." History has shown us that what he wanted to achieve was indeed necessary.

[The Idler]

People were indeed brainwashed by western propaganda images of everyone living in wealth and luxury, having a villa and at least two cars etcetera.
This, plus the fact that anti-communist reactionaries spread these ideas even further, plus more mobility, reunification with famiky, and so on led to the ultimate gigantic error that was the fall of the Wall
I worry that (sometimes) this attitude regards the worker as not intelligent enough to evaluate propaganda. Either that or communist propaganda is inferior to capitalist propaganda. Doesn't German Reunification still enjoy majority support anyway?

[Искра]

Surely it was a pity that the Wall decreased citizens' mobility. Surely it wasn't "nice" to do or to experience. But that wasn't important when it was built, th important thin was that the BRD and the DDR were on the brink of conflict in 1961, and tha building a Wall wathe most effective way to seperate the nations and to prevent further unrest at the border.
The Berlin Wall was an unfortunate necessity.
The Wall was build, because DDR will be soon empty. People would run away from there.

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

The Wall was build, because DDR will be soon empty. People would run away from there.
That's only one side of the story, and only one part of the truth.

[Rjevan]

Well, people constantly got fed with propaganda about how great life in West Germany is, how rich and wealthy people are and what luxurious life we in the west lead. Life in capitalism was seen as paradise by many many DDR citizens.

Apart form many families being seperated and now finally reunited by the fall of the wall this event symbolised the "birth of a reunited, free and democratic Germany" and finally a way to become wealthy... so many people thought.

Today 60%(!) of all people in East Germany think life in the DDR was better and wish the DDR back. They complain about "exploitation, becoming unemployed and having to pach much more for basic goods while people didn't have to worry about their jobs in the DDR, everybody was much more friendly and money was not everything which people had in mind like in the FRG, the houses were cheap, the food was cheap, the books were cheap, medical treatment was for free and the social system was far better and that the DDR was not more opressive than the FRG and the BND (our intelligence service) are" and so on...
Well, now it's a little bit too late to complain but this is very common here, called "Ostalgie" a play on words from "Osten" (east) and "Nostalgie" (nostalgia).

Majority of East Germans think life was better in the DDR (http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,634122,00.html)

[Ismail]

Alot of people were happy to see a symbol of oppression and division crumble, I know I would be.West and East Germany barely had any (read: had hostile) relations when the wall was built, and the West was claiming the 1937 borders (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/Nazi_Germany.png) of Germany while the East was claiming the Oder-Neiße Line (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oder-Neisse_line), which is what is actually in use today. Plus the West and East refused to recognize each other until the 1970's.

http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc207/MrdieII/NeverOder-NeisselinevoteCDU.jpg
Never Oder-Neisse line
Choose: CDU
http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc207/MrdieII/WiththeSPDfromBonnoverBerlinforafre.jpg
With the SPD
from Bonn to Berlin
For a free, social, and united Germany

Totally not a great offense against both East Germany and Poland there.

The wall wasn't a beautiful event, but it was basically forced upon East Germany, especially since there were things like the Berlin Crisis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Crisis_of_1961) that threatened war between the two states.

[Luís Henrique]

It was a bad wall, unlike the wall along the American/Mexican border, or the sacred wall caging Palestinians.

Luís Henrique

[LOLseph Stalin]

It was a bad wall, unlike the wall along the American/Mexican border, or the sacred wall caging Palestinians.

Luís Henrique

So you're saying it's ok to build a wall to keep Mexicans out of the US and to keep Palestinians out of Israel? :confused:

Some internationalist you are... :rolleyes:

[Jimmie Higgins]

Good Riddance! Yeah anytime walls are built to keep workers in or out, that should be the first clue that there's something wrong.

[gorillafuck]

So you're saying it's ok to build a wall to keep Mexicans out of the US and to keep Palestinians out of Israel? :confused:

Some internationalist you are... :rolleyes:
He's satiring traditional right wing sentiment that tries to justify the wall between Israel and Palestine and the wall on the Mexican border, but then get's all excited when it hears clips of "Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

[DDR]

So you're saying it's ok to build a wall to keep Mexicans out of the US and to keep Palestinians out of Israel? :confused:

Some internationalist you are... :rolleyes:


He's being sarcastic man :P

[Kwisatz Haderach]

Either that or communist propaganda is inferior to capitalist propaganda.
Yes it was, actually. Communist propaganda stayed almost the same from 1945 to 1990. So, although it had been pretty good at first, by the 1970s and 80s it was completely outdated and downright ridiculous at times.


Doesn't German Reunification still enjoy majority support anyway?
No, not in the East (http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,634122,00.html).

[Andropov]

There was an exact same thread as this only a few months ago.
Basically what people are ignoring is the full context of the situation and judging the wall in isolation which of course ignores material fact which precludes anyone making a rational judgement on a deeply complex issue.
Not so easily sumarised by "Freedom good, wall bad".
Come now we are all Marxists here, surely material facts must be weighed in any conclusion.