04 September 2009

“Let’s go find a pocket calculator!”

 

NATO alliance soldiers display their nations’ colors.

NATO alliance soldiers display their nations’ colors.

This article is excerpted from The Berlin Wall: 20 Years Later, published by the Bureau of International Information Programs. View the entire book (PDF, 2.5 MB).

By: Andreas Rude

In the summer of 1989, a few months before the Berlin Wall came down, I worked at a small think tank in Copenhagen devoted to security policy. Every day the staff would convene for an informal luncheon discussion of current affairs, and in August of that year something astonishing was happening. The East German government was allowing its citizens to cross the border from the German Democratic Republic into Czechoslovakia and Hungary en route to Austria, and we all watched as the crowds leaving grew bigger every day. The situation was fluid to say the least, and one particularly excited colleague wanted to estimate the point at which a much-feared neighbor would be completely empty of its 16 million inhabitants. Hence the urgent request for a calculator.

 

A former U.S. army lieutenant at left and a former East German state security officer at right read about the once-divided city.

A former U.S. army lieutenant at left and a former East German state security officer at right read about the once-divided city.

The flippancy showed the mood. It was unbelievable — a fairy tale in the cynical world of international politics. When the Wall fell in November, the excitement swept everywhere, and as one peaceful revolution after another caught on in Eastern and Central Europe, somber predictions of anarchy and violent reprisals gave way to real optimism. The catalysts seemed all of a distinct moral nature: human rights, concern for the environment, and authoritarian regimes collapsing under the weight of their own lies and worthless slogans. History was being put right.

Perhaps the greatest consequence of the fall of that strange monument was the birth of a different mindset. No longer suspended by the logic of superpower confrontation, the main currents of European culture and politics were set free, and Europeans began to think about themselves in ways they had not for half a century. The dark side of that feat was the violent breakup of Yugoslavia and the specter of “ethnic cleansing.” The reunification of Germany, on the other hand, was a logical follow-up to the fall of the Wall, and Berlin has since regained its former standing as a celebrated center for politics, media, and the arts. Significantly, it has also preserved and added to its richness its American post-World War II legacy. For Berlin was an American success story before it became a European one.

The Cold War ended when the Wall was knocked over and long lines of modest Trabant cars made their way from East to West. Tremendous energies soaked up by that conflict were released, with Europe becoming more prosperous and bolder, as the European Union expanded across the continent and NATO welcomed former adversaries as new members. Think tanks too have grown, as challenges nobody thought of a few decades ago now bear down on us. In all this, the conversation about Europe reopened in 1989 is a true asset, critical on both sides of the Atlantic and producing impressive results. But even as this conversation deepens, it is nowhere near any conclusion.

Nobody should be surprised about that. The rules of the game changed as if by magic in 1989. Twenty years later we are still catching up, making history as we go along.

[Andreas Rude is a public affairs specialist at the U.S. Embassy in Copenhagen with special focus on security policy. He is also a freelance writer and columnist whose work has appeared in most major Danish newspapers.]