Despite overcast skies and bracing temperatures, three men, once on top of the world, all of them more or less taken by surprise by the events that unfolded at breakneck speed ten years ago, accompanied Berlin Mayor Eberhard Diepgen out onto the balcony of the Red City Hall near Alexanderplatz in Berlin on Monday afternoon to wave at the crowds below.
For two days, the trio will move from ceremony to ceremony commemorating the 10th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989. The first of these sees former US President Bush become an honorary citizen of Berlin. Former Chancellor Kohl and former Soviet President Gorbachev, already honorary citizens, will look on, and afterwards, the three will reminisce out loud together at a discussion hosted by the newspaper "Welt am Sonntag" entitled "10 Years After the Fall of the Wall: The Way it Really Was".
All three were of course privy to backstage diplomatic maneuvers, but many former East German citizens who risked imprisonment and worse by organizing resistance to the communist government and marching on the streets for months before that ecstatic night in November might well argue that they would be in a better position to describe "The Way it Really Was".
As if to highlight the risks they faced, however unintentionally, a federal court in Leipzig on Monday reconfirmed a 1997 verdict against the last leader of East Germany. Despite his appeal, Egon Krenz faces six and a half years in prison for his role in the deaths of four refugees trying to escape East Germany. Krenz and fellow members of the Politburo, Günter Schabowski and Günther Kleiber, each of whom face three years, have argued that they never issued the order to shoot; lawyers for Schabowski and Kleiber, in fact, further argue that they had no say at all regarding the German-German border.
Krenz's lawyers claim that the successor to Erich Honecker ensured that there would be no bloodshed in November 1989 as the Wall began tumbling around him. While prosecutors were aiming for more severe sentences, all three defendants were hoping for a complete acquittal and have already announced that they will take their cases to the European Court in Strasbourg if necessary.
It would be tempting to read too much symbolism into the contrasting fates of these two trios of former government leaders, but the timing of the Krenz verdict makes the coincidence at the very least impossible to ignore.
Germany and Europe on the Web today:
Add to Friday's list of Web specials on the 10th anniversary of the fall of the Wall "Time Online's" The Wall that Defined Us and CNN's The Wall comes down: 1989.
Andrew Gimson's story in the "Daily Telegraph", "East feels left out of Wall celebrations", is laced with yet more links to Wall sites such as Heiko Burkhardt's comprehensive overview and Burkhard Kirste's historical synopsis, both featuring, of course, more links.
Coverage of the anniversary in the international press, now reaching a frenzied crescendo, generally falls into two categories: What has the fall meant over the last ten years for Germany? And, What has it meant for Europe?
"New York Times" Berlin bureau chief Roger Cohen tackles both stories with an approach that served him well in his book on Sarajevo, Hearts Grown Brutal. Cohen seeks out individuals whose personal tales act as a lens through which the larger issues can be examined. In Sunday's edition of the paper, he finds a brother and sister separated on either side of the Wall in 1960 and traces life in both worlds since. For the "NYT Magazine", Cohen's lens focuses through Adam Michnik, "enfant terrible of the revolution that brought democracy to central Europe." That piece is accompanied by Francis Harris's short interviews with five former dissidents. Free registration required
Peter Finn in the "Washington Post" on what the fall has done to central European culture: "Under communism, a whisper of defiance echoed like a gunshot; under capitalism, a whisper is just a whisper."
A "Financial Times" editorial argues that despite the continent-wide anxiety ten years on, "there are reasons for being optimistic about the European outlook." But that doesn't keep Haig Simonian and Ralph Atkins from examining "the divisions between eastern and western Germany a decade after unification." Free registration required
John Hooper sends email to the "Guardian" from Berlin. German unification, he reports, is attracting two waves of "outsiders" to the new capital. Hooper also sketches the life of Sebast ian Förster, born in East Berlin on November 9, 1989, and his family; it's not all pleasant. Also in the "Guardian": Peter Capella's update on Raoul, the 11-year-old Swiss-American boy charged in the US with incest and sexual assault, a case which is aggrevating US-Swiss relations (see also the October 22 "Digest "). And Mark Milner reports that NASDA Q "has thrown down the gauntlet to Europe's established national exchanges." Free registration required
Roger Boyes reminds readers of Monday's "Times" of London that "it is naturally difficult for Germans to find the right celebratory tone this week"; November 9 is also the anniversary of the Kaiser's abdication in 1918, Hitler's declaration of a German revolution in 1923 and the Kristallnacht in 1938. Also in the "Times": Charles Bremner on the clash between modernizers and traditionalists at the Socialist International summit in Paris, a clash that pits British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Chancellor Gerhard Schröder against French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin.
Missing from all the current pomp and ceremony is former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Michael Woodhead and Hannah Cleaver suggest in the "Sunday Times" that this may be because she has always opposed German unification.
CNN Berlin bureau chief Chris Burns on the Stasi files the CIA is soon expected to hand back to Germany.
"The decision to postpone the United States debut of 'The German Army and Genocide' exhibition puts a spotlight not just on the difficulty of using archival photographs as historical evidence but a keen sensitivity within Germany about questions of national honor as well." Michael Z. Wise explores the issues in the "NYT". Free registration required
Anna Picard in the "Telegraph" on the battle between classic recording labels EMI and Deutsche Grammophon.
This week's DER SPIEGEL naturally features a package of articles on the state of the country ten years after the fall of the Wall. Economics, culture, international politics, the works. Read summaries of these and other selected articles from this week's edition.
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