Berlin without walls
BERLIN Ñ Checkpoint Charlie, the border crossing where the sharp divisions of the Cold War literally came face to face along a forbidding stretch of the Fredrichstrasse, now has that almost giddy ambiance of a theme park. Camera toting tourists stroll in the shadow of the sign ÒYou are now Leaving the American sector!Ó Get your picture with a faux American MP alongside the Stars and Stripes or a Brit with the Union Jack. Buy chips of the Wall or Soviet militaria. Jaywalk across a no-manÕs land!
Now nearly fifteen years after the Joshua Trumpet sounded and the Berlin Wall dividing the city into the West and East, tumbled into the ash heap of history, a free and reunited Berlin has been reborn, regaining not only its role as the proud capital of a united Germany but as importantly, a sense of normalcy.
The Wall dating from 13 August 1961, lasted with hideous and treacherous ÒimprovementsÓ until 1989, when the popular uprising against the so-called PeopleÕs Republic hiding behind it brought it crashing down. Today few intact stretches of the Wall surrounding and isolating the entire city of West Berlin remain, but the historical and psychological shadows of Die Mauer still lurk.
Echoes of President John F KennedyÕs 1963 visit with its memorable ÒIch bin ein BerlinerÓ speech or President Ronald ReaganÕs memorable 1987 exhortation ÒMr. Gorbachev, tear down this Wall!Ó are now etched into BerlinÕs memorable and tumultuous history.
Fast forward to 2004. Berlin today resembles a vast work in progress with ubiquitous construction cranes and building sites. ItÕs readily apparent that since German re-unification in October 1990, that huge sums of government money has literally flooded into the former communist East Germany Ñ so far $1.4 trillion and still about $100 billion annually!
The results have been decidedly mixed; while there are impressive infrastructural improvements, most revenues support a vast pension and social welfare system for the former communist East. Still the unemployment rate in the East remains nearly 18 percent. Given GermanyÕs overall anemic economic growth (very optimistically 2 percent this year); the current and unpopular Socialist government continues to tread water.
The Brandenburg Gate, the fashionable Unter dem Linden Avenue, and the numerous museums and monuments situated in former East Berlin have emerged as a draw for tourists. The Mitte district, on the eastern side of the Checkpoint Charlie, once a dour part of the divided capital, is now one of BerlinÕs trendiest parts. The bleak no manÕs land rubble of the Potsdamer Platz, has risen like the phoenix with an array of superlative architectural projects, corporate offices and a Sony Center Cineplex rivaling New YorkÕs.
But prosperity breeds a smugness which overlooks past sacrifice. While few Berliners would doubt the singularly positive role of the United States in the reconstruction and rehabilitation after the horrors of the Hitler regime, thereÕs a moralistic hauteur towards current American foreign policy and especially the Bush Administration.
Though such sentiments have been encouraged by the Chancellor Gerhard SchroederÕs ruling Social Democrats and counter-culture Greens, the mentality is particularly fueled by a spate of American Michael Moore books which have become German bestsellers, and by MooreÕs latest piece of political agit-prop, the movie Fahrenheit 911. American pop culture is still eagerly accepted, including the relentless wave of Bush-bashing.
Having visited divided Berlin, just-freed Berlin, and now normal Berlin, I must confess to still feeling a sense of awkward surrealism in so many places. Returning from the Bernauer Strasse, where one of the last long stretches of the Wall remains preserved, the taxi driver, not too enamored with current American policies, readily admitted that the U.S. helped bring about BerlinÕs freedom. He exclaimed ÒThank you Ronald Reagan!Ó
John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense
issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.  |
