Es gibt keine Mauer!

It's 9/11. (If you use the European date convention, of course.)

Thus it is the anniversary of two important nighttime events in 20th Century German history. One bad, one good.

In 1938, on Kristallnacht, "The Night of Broken Glass" gangs of Germans took to the streets, smashing the windows of Jewish owned stores and burning synogogues. However, this is not what I wanted to talked about.

Also on 9 November, this time in 1989, East German Politboro member Günter Schabowski erred in a press conference when he said shortly before 7:00 pm that the recently past regulations regarding easing restriction on leaving East Germany would take effect “immediately, without delay.” Berliners flocked to Die Mauer and knocked her down. By the next day, 2 million East Germans had gone to West Germany.

I just realized this morning that I have actually lived more of my life with the Berlin Wall down (15 years) than with it up (14 years, 6 days). This seems strange to me. It still seems recent. I remember very clearly watching those guys with their sledge hammers turning a symbol of oppression into souvenirs on TV. It's been over five years since I went to Checkpoint Charlie and the museum there. (Possibly my favorite musuem.) That still seems recent.