Berlin Wall Building At 50

From Deutsche Welle:

"Germany marks 50 years since building of the Berlin Wall"

Germany on Saturday commemorated the 50th anniversary of the construction of the Berlin Wall with a memorial service and a minute of silence in the capital in memory of those who died trying to flee to the West. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who grew up in the East, President Christian Wulff and Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit attended a commemoration in the capital, followed by a church service at a chapel built where the Wall stood for almost three decades. "I myself, from when I was seven years old, can remember the horror that the building of the Wall created in my family," Merkel said in a statement. "We were torn from our aunts and grandparents. What is even more unforgettable for me is the happiness the fall of this appalling structure made us Germans feel in 1989." Flags flew at half mast on the parliament and church bells tolled at noon as Germans were called to observe a minute of silence in remembrance of the 136 people who are known to have died in Berlin while trying to cross the border. Historians say this number may have been as high at 700.

Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit said the Wall must not be forgotten. "The Wall was part of a dictatorial system, an unjust state," Wowereit said. "It illustrated the bankrupcy of a system people wanted out of. The Wall is now history, but it must not be forgotten. It is our responsibility to keep its memory alive and pass it on to future generations ... so that such injustices never repeat themselves," he added. In 1961, more than 2.5 million of East Germany's 19 million inhabitants had moved to the West. With thousands leaving every day, communist authorities feared the exodus would seriously undermine the state. On August 13, 1961, the East German regime began sealing their border. Soldiers blocked off the streets, cut off rail links and began building what was initially a barbed-wire fence.It became a wall which spread for nearly 160 kilometers (100 miles). In some cases, it cut straight through streets, neighborhoods and public spaces. Known in the East as the "anti-fascist protection wall," it became a symbol for the geographical, ideological and political divide between Europe's democratic West and the communist East controlled by the Soviet Union. The Wall finally fell on November 9, 1989, in a bloodless uprising which saw East Germans allowed to cross freely into the West for the first time in nearly three decades.

^ I have to mention that it seems odd to me that there are so many incidents and periods of modern German history where the first thing the current German Government has to mention is that they lived under a dictatorship and that all the crimes that happened should never be forgotten so they will never be repeated. I don't think there is any other "Western" country in the world that has to constantly say things like that. I guess it is something to stop and think about. As for the Berlin Wall, I do think the Western Allies - the US, the UK and France- gave up on a unified Berlin in 1961 just to appease the Soviet Union (and if history tells us nothing it is that appeasement does not work.) It was the wrong thing to do especially because we were supposed to be the champions of world freedom and individual choice. The fact that thousands of East Germans made their choice known when they left East Germany and went to the West - both before the Wall and after - shows we let them down. If the Western Allies did not want to help Berlin then we should have just left it all to the Soviets. Because we let the Soviets and East German Communists build and keep the Wall for 28 years we not only divided a city, but also are partly to blame for all the deaths that were caused by those who tried to flee. ^

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15314486,00.html