some division still
BERLIN from page 1
Three months later, Mischek visited
Berlin. For the first time, she passed
through the Brandenburg Gate to the
west and saw the Victory Column, a tall
column with a gold angel of victory on
top. Previously, she had seat the monu
ment, built to commemorate victory in
the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War, only
from a distance.
“ft chilled me,” she said. “My dream
came true.”
Tear down this wall
The fall of the wall 10 years ago
symbolized the end of communism in
Eastern Europe. It foreshadowed the
collapse and dissolution of the Soviet
Union, which ended the 45-year stand
off between Ae United States and the
Soviet Union known as the Cold War.
But the opening of the wall caught
most by surprise, said Edward Homze, a
former UNL history professor who spe
cialized in German history.
Homze, who retired last summer,
gave two reasons for die surprise. First,
most analysts believed that the wall’s
fall would mean the collapse of the bloc
of communist states in Eastern Europe,
a development the Soviet Union proba
bly wtfuld use force to prevent.
Secondly, Soviet policy had tradi
tionally opposed the reunification of
Germany, which had been divided after
World War II. A unified Germany could
again pose a threat to the stability of
Europe. “We have our half,” Soviet
Premier Nikita Khrushchev had said,
“and you have your half.”
The one person, more than any
other, who allowed a peaceful transition
from communist rule in East Germany
was Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev,
Homze said.
“Gorbachev was very reluctant to
exercise force as his predecessors had,”
he said “He no longer had a real good
possibility of keeping the wall and get
ting the kind of deal he needed with the
West”
For several months, East Germans
r .... 1 1
had been fleeing through Hungary
which had opened its borders.
Disaffection with the repressive East
German system had come to a head,
with more people taking part in protests.
As the Soviet Union’s economy
crumbled, Gorbachev knew he needed
money from the United States and its
Western allies. Resisting pressure from
other Soviet officials, Gorbachev
refused to use force to put down protests
in Dresden and Leipzig.
“After that, it was only a matter of
time before the wall came down,”
Homze said
On Oct. 18, East German Premier
Erich Honecker was forced to resign. A
new set of Communist Party leaders
took power, but its reform efforts were
short-lived. Nov. 9, the wall was opened.
Repression in the regime
The fall of the wall and its aftermath
are fresh memories for two German stu
dents and a lecturer at UNL.
Mischek, from the old East
Germany; Sabine Koelbl-Mannaielli, a
Spanish- and German-language lecturer
from the old West Berlin; and Sandra
Noetzel, a senior advertising major
from Hannover, in the old West
Germany, all discussed the wall’s fall.
Mischek said the fall of commu
nism in East Germany has had a tremen
dous impact on her life.
The communist regime not only
restricted travel but stifled expression
and prevented East Germans from
achieving their full potential, she said.
Under the old system, she said, she
would have been channeled into a trade
school before knowing what she really
wanted to do. In a unified Germany, she
was able to attend high school in prepa
ration for college.
She bitterly resented the propagan
da fed to East German citizens and the
discouragement of free expression.
Once, in third or fourth grade,
Mischek was told by her teacher that the
Americans wanted to bomb East
Germany and that “you’ll either have a
bad Christmas because you’ll want to
die or you’ll already be dead.”
“I was so upset. How in the world
could they tell us ibis?” she said “They
made us believe America was so bad.
Now my best friends are in America.”
Had the wall not come down,
Mischek said she would have rebelled
against the dullness of East German life.
“(The fall of the wall) changed my
life dramatically,” she said. “I don’t
know where I would be if it hadn’t hap
pened. I don’t think I want to know. I
would probably be in trouble.”
An island in the east
In 1989, Koelbl-Mannarelli was 21
years old and living in West Berlin, the
free sector of the divided city deep in
East German territory.
She had access to information and
the ability to travel throughout the
Western world. For 25 marks, she could
buy a one-day visa to visit East Berlin.
But mostly, East Germany was foreign.
“It was much more spectacular to
have a friend in East Germany than in
Egypt,” she said.
Although change was apparent, the
opening of the wall took her by surprise.
“Things were changing, but it was
not real,” she said. “Why would the sys
tem collapse all of a sudden?”
But she first heard the news Nov. 9
when a friend called to ask about it.
She soon went to the east side of the
city to claim a chunk of the wall and see
the opening of die Brandenburg Gate,
the recognizable landmark that had
been blocked by the wall.
“For me, the biggest thing is, my
personal life didn’t change too much,”
she said. “But finally living in a normal
city, not an island, was exciting.”
The opening of the wall did bring
one important change to her life. She
met her husband, an American architect,
when the city’s construction boom
brought him to Berlin.
A vie^from the west
Noetzel was , 13 and living in
Hannover, a city in northwestern
Getm2qy, when the wall came down.
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Although she had never been to East
Germany, family members from the
east occasionally visited Hannover.
“They would dress differently” she
said. “Everything was so totally differ
ent. I couldn’t relate to them.”
She remembers watching the grow
ing protests in East Germany on TV
“It kind of built up beforehand, and
it was just a matter of time before the
wall came down,” she said.
Soon after it fell, foe visited Berlin
for the first time, and family trips to
Prague and other cities soon followed.
Noetzel said she soon noticed an
influx of foreigners taking advantage of
the new freedom of travel from Eastern
Europe.
She noticed the cultural differences
between East and West Germany that
“Everyone wafUrl(liie fafitsfr^Bi
munism) so bad, but now some people
from East Germany think they would be
better off under the old system,” she
said. “Now they’re forced to keep up
with the Western world, with the fast
pace and work ethic.
“The gap between rich and poor
gets bigger, and that’s probably why
some right-wing movements are devel
oping in eastern Germany. People are
miserable with their situation.”
. Wall in people’s heads’
Overall, Homze said, German
reunification has been “a smashing suc
cess.” Assimilation has gone smoothly,
financial problems have been handled
adequately and the development of foe
European Union has dispelled fears
about a resurgent Germany.
Nevertheless, he said that some
§ Graphics by Matt Haney/DN
east-west animosity lingers and may
take a generation or more to dissipate.
Mischek, Koelbl-Mannarelli and
Noetzel all agreed that German reunifi
cation, completed in October 1990, has
not cooled all of the east-west tensions.
Mischek agreed with Noetzel that
40 years of communism in the east left
many East Germans unsuited to the
modem capitalist economy.
Under the old system, the govern
ment would decide which products
stores should stock. Shopkeepers gave
the government their revenues then
received a set salary at the month’s end.
“The idea of getting ahead, achiev
ing something and getting rewarded for
it was redly something people had to
learn in East Germany,” she said. “But
even if they would have one day back in
the old times, they would be freaked
out”
The three agreed that Germany still
suffers from what Koelbl-Mannarelli
called “a wall in people’s heads.”
Mischek said she was not treated
warmly while studying in West
Germany from 1996-99. Likewise,
Noetzel said her brother freed resent
ment when he studied in Dresden. |
While all three are optimistic about
Germany^ future, they said the country
needs to commit to understanding.
“The problem is, nobody really
bothers to understand each other,”
Koelbl-Mannarelli said. “That’s still the
case, and it’s going to take quite some
time.”
Mischek agreed.
“We should try to come closer,” she
said. “If we decided we want to be unit
ed, we need to do our best to work
together. What else can we do?”