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Post by Admin on Nov 10, 2019 6:08:10 GMT
Tom Brokaw reported live from the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, as the Cold War symbol came tumbling down. He returns to Germany three decades later to reflect on how the world has changed since and the challenges Europe now faces. The walls of the Bornholmer Huette pub were last painted in 1973, a light beige that has gradually cracked and darkened into a caramel brown from decades of cigarette smoke. The “Huette,” as regulars call it, has been in Matthias Gehrhus’ family since 1954 and he doesn’t plan on changing it any time soon. Its Spartan styling recalls the days when it was a meeting place in communist East Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood, somewhere you’d go to catch up with an old friend over a cheap beer. Gehrhus, 50, was born into that world and doesn’t want it back. But he also understands the feelings of many former East Germans that, 30 years after the Berlin Wall fell and communism collapsed, not everything has improved. A government report this year lauds the state of German reunification as “an impressive success story,” with per capita GDP in the former East Germany growing from 43% of that in West Germany in 1990 to 75% in 2018, and its unemployment rate falling from a crest of 18.7% in 2005 to 6.4% in October, not far above Germany’s 5% national unemployment figure.  About three months after the Nov. 9, 1989, opening of the Berlin Wall, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl spoke of wanting quick German reunification — saying it could come as early as 1995, said historian Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk. Kohl’s prognosis and famous promise of “blooming landscapes” in the East seemed optimistic to many, who found it hard to believe that the Soviet Union — with a half-million troops in East Germany — would let it happen easily, said Kowalczuk, whose book on reunification, “The Takeover,” was published in German this year. |
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Post by Admin on Nov 11, 2019 4:34:44 GMT
A bronze statue of former US President Ronald Reagan was presented in Berlin on Friday, on the eve of the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.  US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo unveiled the 7-foot (2.1-meter) statue, hailing it as a "monumental moment." The statue sits on the embassy's terrace, overlooking the landmark Brandenburg Gate and the site where Reagan gave his famous 1987 speech urging Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to support peace and "tear down this wall."  Pompeo praised Reagan, saying he "courageously denounced the greatest threat to that freedom, the Soviet empire, the evil empire." In a press conference earlier with Pompeo, German Chancellor Angela Merkel thanked the United States for its support in reunification, but she mentioned another US leader in her remarks. "That the USA, along with George Bush, helped and supported us on the path to German reunification is something that we will never forget," she said at the press conference with Pompeo. |
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Post by Admin on Nov 13, 2019 3:18:39 GMT
American schoolchildren were fed a one-sided view of World War II, capped by the conclusion that our superlative industry and unsurpassed genius were the deciding factors in defeating Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. What would the Cold War have been like if, during history class, American kids learned that the world forever owed a debt of gratitude to Soviet forces and Soviet citizens? Their remarkable resilience saved democracy as much as did George Patton and Iwo Jima.  Here are nine reasons why we should’ve thanked the Russians after World War II instead of engaging them in a decades-long Cold War: #1: STUNNING SACRIFICE: On the Eastern front, the Red Army suffered more combat deaths at Stalingrad alone than the U.S. armed forces accumulated during the entirety of World War II. #2: WHAT BOMB: The fight against Japan didn’t conclude only because of America’s atomic attacks. In deciding how soon to surrender, Hirohito and his war cabinet appear to have been more frightened of Stalin’s 11th-hour invasion than of Curtis LeMay’s attempt to bomb the country back to the Stone Age. #3: UPPER VOLTA WITH ROCKETS: Throughout the Cold War, the Soviet Union struggled to meet the basic requirements of food and shelter. For example, the USSR’s desperate housing shortage could have been ameliorated with taller structures, but the country didn’t possess sufficient raw materials to supply elevators for apartments above five stories. #4: CHARMING BETRAYAL: The most effective spy cell the Soviets ever had was made up of aristocratic Englishmen schooled at Cambridge. Additionally, multiple physicists working for Britain on the Manhattan Project were Soviet moles and they provided Stalin’s scientists with the blueprints of the atomic bomb even before it was used on Japan. In short, the greatest threat to U.S. national security during the early part of the Cold War may have been our closest ally. #5: THE REAL MENACE: Joseph McCarthy barely believed a word he said and found zero communists in government roles. |
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