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Germany.info Home: Information Services: Publications: InFocus: Anniversary: Fall of the Berlin Wall
Voice from the wall

Where were you when the wall came down?

 

Wall Stories imageOn a memorable day celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall, I was working as a consultant with the World Bank, having retired several years. German colleagues at the bank mentioned special services to be held that evening at the National Cathedral in Washington, so attendance became a priority.

As the cathedral was completely filled with no pews empty, I stood propped against a pillar throughout the inspirational multi-faith service.

I recalled my own grandparents from Niederbayern, single young persons in search of opportunity in a new land, who with millions of other Germans traveled in circa 1885 to America’s heartland. My grandfather, born in the same year as the Kaiser, established citizenship, met and married my courageous young grandmother, who had left the Heimatland in order to work and send money back to her parents. Neither of them ever returned.

Luckily for me, after establishing a family of eight children, they enjoyed rewarding and successful lives.

Listening to the hymns that evening to mark Germany’s reunification reminded me of my heritage!

From Annemarie Bryan
Potomac, Maryland

Photo © Press and Information Office of the Federal Government

 

 

The opinions expressed in the wall stories are those of the authors and do not neccessarily reflect the views of the German Embassy.

 

 

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Anniversary: Fall of the Berlin Wall

Wall Stories

LinkAnniversary: Fall of the Berlin Wall

LinkVoices from the Wall

LinkTimeline 1961 - 1990

LinkVideo: Fall of the Berlin Wall

LinkEvents in DC and New York Mark 18th Anniversary of Fall of the Wall

LinkDeciding on a Monument to Peaceful Revolution of 1989

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  LinkWall Stories Winners

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Read More Wall Stories
(Click link in scoll bar below)
   
  Link“I remember my parents had the windows rolled down in our car, and the people threw chocolate in our car, and the first western chocolate I tasted was "Hanuta," and I will never forget those pictures for as long as I live. ”
Peggy Morrison
Vienna, VA
  Link“I wouldn’t have had the Cold War be extended one more day. We are so lucky it never went hot. ”
Peter W. Liander
Staten Island, NY
  Link“Great, I thought, another one of those dumb films showing the Wall coming down, or the East invading, or the West taking over, or something. ”
Ulrich Hacker
Camino, CA
  Link“It seemed a horrible inconvenience that I would have to make the best of. Instead, it was a wonderful coincidence for me (the grown-up German major) to be in Germany when the Wall came down! ”
Leslie Friedrich
Houston, TX
  Link“When we re-grouped to attack again we were given the news of the Wall coming down. There were a lot of hesitant looks between the soldiers and a lot of ‘can we go home now’ questions. ”
Brian Brown
Palatine, IL
  Link“On the other end I heard the voice of my supervisor, totally out of breath, almost shouting. “Aren't you from Berlin, Germany?" I responded, yes, indeed I was, and he told me to turn on the old TV. ”
Doris Eck
Manville, NJ
  Link“After a short walk through Eschwege and ogling over kiwis, we returned to the border. We actually asked the humble and ridiculous question to an officer of the East German customs office if we may please return again. Our stomachs turned at those words, but we had to, needed to, must return for my dad’s sake. ”
Janet Ullrich-Theriot
Lafayette, LA
  Link“The next day, November 10, a Friday, was dress-down day in our office, meaning we could wear blue jeans and casual shirts…. I pointed out that I was wearing black, red, gold in honor of the event of the previous day ”
Waltraut Lehmann
Shoreline, WA
  Link“On the evening of the 9th of November, I was at work and we had a television turned to the American channel, AFN. An announcer came on and announced that East Berliner's were happily rushing through the gates into the West! ”
Michael Laverty
Manassas, VA
  Link“We had no idea were we were. West Berlin was whited out on our maps. A taxi took us free of charge to the heart of the city, Kurfürstendamm. All pubs were open; it was one huge party ”
Jens Pfefferkorn
Fair Oaks, CA
  Link“Once I walked past the Checkpoint Charlie military post, I took a cab back to my hotel in West Berlin. On the way, the cab driver—and Berlin cab drivers are great conversationalists—asked me if I had heard that the Wall was going to open at midnight”
Juan Walte
Alexandria, VA
  Link“After we drove to our host family for the night, we were greeted graciously and talked until late in the night, exchanging ideas, memories of the last few days and hopes for the future”
Kai-Uwe Adebahr
Lakewood, WA
  Link“The fall of the Wall was not about tearing down one border but a fundamental crack in the mental walls that divided the East from the West. And while I was very happy about this, I was sad because I was 9,000 kilometers away and could not share the happiness with my German friends.”
Steven Schneider
Hugo, MN
  Link“Following the first weekend after the fall of Berlin Wall, I drove to Dallas, Texas, to celebrate its demise with my family and our German-American friends. Like those East Germans, we were having the best time of our lives, too.”
Oliver Markwirth
San Francisco, CA
  Link“Many, many cars in Chicago were honking horns and the drivers giving V for victory signs all over. Believe me, Chicago, which has many residents of German descent, celebrated too.”
Erich Krausser
Palatine, IL
  Link“[W]e were shocked, we just couldn’t believe and digest what we were hearing and seeing. And then we started laughing, crying and dancing at the same time.”
Gabriele Beaudin
Arlington Heights, IL
  Link“I felt both sad and happy for the many years of not being able to be part of the other Germany and yet being young enough to take advantage of all the opportunities that were just about to offer themselves to me.”
Monika Hohbein-Deegen
Berlin, WI
  Link“Unlike the violent and deadly earthquake I had experienced in Berkeley just a few weeks before November 9, the political quake at the Berlin Wall was peaceful, hopeful and daring in a beautiful way.”
Katja May
Sammamish, WA
  Link“My brother and my friends (...) went to the Brandenburg Gate in the middle of the night because they realized something historic was going to happen. I could only watch the news coverage from Oklahoma, speechless about what I saw.”
Fabiola Janiak-Spens
Norman, OK
  Link“When I left my house the next morning I was stunned. Thousands of East German visitors had “arrived” and were hustling through the western part of the city.”
Marco Mielcarek
Seattle, WA
  Link“The emotions, joy and happiness we saw citizens and, in some cases, families express in being able to meet and greet one another without political and physical barriers was overwhelming.”
Steven Steininger
Gelnhausen, Germany
  Link“I don’t remember whether we hugged or shared the champagne; I only remember floating up and down the Kurfürstendamm that night in a wave of people overjoyed”
Tanja Beshear
Lafayette, CO
  Link“What I barely realized myself, is that my relief stemmed from the feeling that much guilt was lifted from my shoulders at that moment as well.”
Rolf Schulze
San Diego, CA
  Link“Then the Wall came down. I realized the cold and wet nights I had spent in Germany were all worth it.”
Frank Liebmann
American Fork, UT
  Link“All day the phone kept ringing. My many West German relatives checked in with concern and advice. "You are NOT going back there, are you?!"
Helga Ehudin
Washington, DC
  Link“Well, we had been driving quite a distance and could not possibly have seen the news that night. It hit us like a brick!”
Maximiliane Brenner
Goose Creek, SC
  Link“While our German relatives complain a lot about the cost of this whole thing, in reality the German Government (West German) bit the bullet and did the right thing.”
Ralph Riemensperger
Franklin Square, NY
  Link“I had been stationed in the American Berlin Brigade from 1966 to 1969 and had been back and forth quite a few times between East and West Berlin.”
James Bullard
Alhambra, CA
  Link“Cities, landscapes, and cultural milestones I had known only through pictures and my imagination have come to life with a vividness that I can only hope has communicated itself to my students.”
Donald H. Crosby
Springfield, VA
  Link“At the Brandenburg Gate, at 10 a.m. it was bitter cold, but there was the party.”
Richard Fischer
Foxboro, MA
  Link“And then something happened I had never envisioned in my wildest imaginations: an East Berliner taxi rolled across the border into West Berlin.”
Udo Gorsch-Nies
Ashland, OR
  Link“I noted a hole already chiseled entirely through the Wall and stuck my arm through, reaching around to feel the DDR-side
Richard Schade
Cincinnati, OH
  Link“It was almost impossible to believe that this momentous event had occurred without Soviet and/or Warsaw Pact military counter action and bloodshed.”
Richard F. Pendleton
Huntsville, AL
  Link“The hammering, singing, climbing, and celebrating thereafter were wonderful, but for me no match for that broadcast.”
Richard King
Madisonville, KY
  Link “My initial idea was that there was a soccer game somewhere I didn't know about…. it would explain why everybody was waving a German flag in one hand and champagne in the other.”
Heymo Vehse
Bowling Green, OH
  Link “At one o’clock in the morning I connected with them (it was hard to get through to Germany that night), and we talked and talked and cried together.”
Brigitte Krummel
Lawrence, MI
  Link “They let the people pass’ was all I needed to hear to find the next phone to call my then boyfriend to find out what the scoop was.”
Julia McLaughlin
Boynton Beach, FL
  Link “I promised myself that I would not go back until the Wall came down.”
Frauke Simon
Ann Arbor, MI
  Link “My American friends were so in awe with these few small pieces of grey concrete with some yellow and purple graffiti stains on it.”
Christiane Frasca
Port St. Lucie, FL
  Link “I can say that seeing a wall torn down was the greatest honor I could ever receive.”
John Richardson
Newnan, Georgia
  Link “We were amazed to see people lifted up upon the Wall where they would have been shot just two months earlier.”
Claudia Bell
Glens Falls, NY
  Link “I may say the bonds of friendship between us were created by the wall through Europe, as contradictory as that sounds.”
Chalmers Hardenbergh
Yarmouth, ME
  Link "I told all my friends and colleagues that this was the beginning of the end of the American military presence in Germany."
Pete Williams
Louisville, KY
  Link I spent the next three days at the wall experiencing history—even attacking the wall with an iron crowbar, breaking out pounds of rock as historical mementos.
Sheldon Curtis
New York, NY
  Link I was working in my office here in Lancaster on that great day. One of my people came in and said to me: “The people of Berlin are breaching the wall at this minute!”
Herwig Schutzler
Lancaster, PA
  Link “Listening to the hymns that evening to mark Germany’s reunification reminded me of my heritage!”
Annemarie Bryan
Potomac, MD
  LinkAnd then, one of us came out with a word which none of us had dared using so far: “REUNIFICATION!” We stood there, frozen with our mouths open.
Christian Seebode
San Francisco, CA
   



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