Twenty years ago, like scores of millions of others, I watched in delight as the Berlin Wall came down. A huge crowd stood in front of the Brandenburg Gate, waving the flag of the Federal Republic and singing the current words of the country’s stirring national anthem, composed by Haydn. This piece is still better known outside Germany as Deutschland uber alles, but now extols peace, unity, and freedom.
It was one of those rare, seismic events that produced a kaleidoscopic variety of perspectives on Germany, Europe, and the whole world. For Germany, it was clear that the imposture of the Democratic Republic (East Germany), an artificial creation of Stalin’s Red Army in 1945, was over. It was like watching a fly after a blast of insecticide, buzzing furiously about, in denial that it was about to drop down dead.
I remembered the aftermath of the popular unrest in 1948 and 1953, of East German dictator Walther Ulbricht’s assertion that the “State had lost confidence in the people,” prompting disillusioned communist writer Bertolt Brecht to ask if the regime intended to choose another population to misrule.
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