25 years ago on november nine 1989 i was
on a plane on a long planned trip to
West Berlin so the wall fell while I was
on the plane and I had no idea I landed
in Frankfurt we changed to pan am flight
to Berlin and everyone was reading
newspapers with headlines the wall is
open and I wondered what is going on and
the pilot came on the microphone and he
said ladies and gentlemen in case you
haven't heard the wall fell in the night
and we are flying into history so I
touched down in Berlin the morning of
November tenth and I was here for 10
wonderful days watching them open
sections of the wall watching East
Germans come through with their true
bonds while the West Germans gave them
flowers and champagne and money and
everyone hugged each other and I'll
never forget it it was just an
extraordinary experience so I at that
time in 1989 and was already working on
my dissertation about the building of
the wall well once the wall fell and the
Cold War ended and the archives in
Moscow in Berlin opened the former top
secret communist archives that meant I
could actually write the real history of
the decision to build the wall and found
to my astonishment that the Soviets
blocked the idea of closing the border
in Berlin for eight years the East
German leadership said to the Soviets we
have to close the border to stop people
from escaping and the Soviet said we
can't do that we'll look terrible no one
will take us seriously we'll look weak
we'll look as if communism isn't
successful no we're not closing the
border and finally in the summer of
nineteen sixty one when one thousand
East Germans were fleeing to the west
every day in Berlin the East German
leader finally got approval from the
Soviets to seal off the border in Berlin
and build the Berlin Wall and so it's
just wonderful for me to be back here
Berlin is my favorite city to be here
for this grand celebration of 25 years
since the fall of the wall
I was in the bundestag this morning for
their commemoration of it I have
sponsored 11 of the balloons that will
be released into the sky Sunday night to
celebrate the anniversary I'll be here
with some of my students from George
Washington University and joining with
Germans and celebrating this wonderful
inspirational moment in German and world
history so I'm also here because the
book I'm writing now looks at how
Germany has dealt with remembering the
wall for the past 25 years so the final
chapter of my book will be about this
25th anniversary and how the Germans
have switched from first a serious focus
on the bad side of the wall the people
that were killed and they have
commemorated those people and found out
and published all the information about
each individual now they are looking at
the happy side of the wall the peaceful
fall of the wall 25 years ago and it's
wonderful to be here to celebrate with
everyone
