Where were you when the Berlin Wall came down? You probably
remember, because the Wall was such a powerful symbol and its fall one of
the most important events of this century. We present these accounts in
the hope they will enhance your understanding of some of the social,
political, and personal issues created by the Wall, before and after its
fall.
Douglas Coupland
Reunification. East meets West. The 1940s meet the 1990s. As Germans begin to stitch their country back together, there’s a 50-year gap of shared experience in the fabric. Author Douglas Coupland visited the former East Berlin in 1994 and wrote this account, an excerpt from his 1996 book, Polaroids From the Dead.
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Ilse Nethercutt
Ilse Heidi Nethercutt is a Microsoft employee and native of
Hann. Münden, in the former West Germany. Her story about the effect of
the Wall and the Iron Curtain is one of both joy and sorrow, deeply felt
and personal, with a note of tragic irony.
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Leland Rice
In the afterword of his 1991 book, Up Against It: Photographs of the Berlin Wall, Leland Rice discusses the
role that the Berlin Wall played as a forum for visual communications. The
Wall held such a compelling fascination for him that he made five visits
to photograph it. Deutsch
Norbert Sorg
A Microsoft employee, Norbert Sorg grew up in the Southwestern
part of Germany and lived in Berlin from 1984-1993, during the time that
the Berlin Wall came down and the reunification of Germany took place.
While indicating that life without the Wall is "a thousand times better"
than life with the Wall, he nevertheless contends that Germany missed a
golden opportunity to truly redefine itself.
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Jens Wazel
Also a Microsoft employee, Jens
Wazel is a native of Leipzig, in the former East Germany. His is an
important perspective, not often heard or understood in the West. At the
time the Wall opened, he was involved in an intense grass-roots reform
movement whose goal was to weave some democratic processes into the taut
fabric of East German Socialism. The movement had made significant gains,
and there was reason to be optimistic about further gains, but when the
Wall fell it changed everything.
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