Freedom Watch
The Spirit of 1989
It was the spirit of human liberty.
(Page 2 of 3)
Some stand out. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the Soviet novelist who chronicled the horrors of the gulag and stripped the Soviet regime of any claim to legitimacy. Dissidents like Andrei Sakharov, who was banished internally after protesting Soviet man's inhumanity to man.
Lech Walesa, the electrician who nearly a decade before the Wall's collapse famously hopped over a shipyard fence in Gdansk, Poland, to declare that the time of repression was over. The forces of reaction reasserted themselves martial law in late 1981, but nine years later Walesa was elected president of Poland.
In Czechoslovakia there was Alexander Dubcek, who attempted to give communism a human face. The playwright, and first president, Vaclav Havel, called the regime to account for its crimes. Current President Vaclav Klaus engineered his nation's adoption of market economics as well as peaceful split between the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
More than four decades ago Imre Nagy, Pal Maleter, and thousands of Hungarian revolutionaries demanded freedom and were murdered by the Soviets and their Hungarian stooges. In 1989 Imre Pozsgay broke with his Poliburo colleagues, calling the earlier uprising a "popular revolt." He also pushed to tear down Hungary's wall with Austria.
Even more important was Mikhail Gorbachev. He was, of course, a reform communist, not a Western-style democrat. His crackdown in the Baltic states left blood on his hands.
Nevertheless, he was the necessary transition from communist totalitarianism to everything else. His decision to loosen the repressive bonds in the Soviet Union was heroic: events spun out of his control, but he was willing to pay that price in order to humanize the most murderous political regime in human history.
Equally important was his decision to keep the Soviet troops in their barracks throughout Eastern Europe. Moscow had ruthlessly crushed all previous attempts by subject peoples to lessen, let alone eliminate, communist repression. In 1989, however, Gorbachev let Eastern European communist leaders stand alone. They could not count on the loyalty of their own militaries. Nor could they depend on Soviet aid. In every country but Romania the ruling elites blinked. In the latter they lost anyway.
Finally, there was Ronald Reagan. He understood what communism was about, that it truly was an "Evil Empire." But he also believed that communism could be defeated, that the most ruthless totalitarian system ever created could be tossed into the dustbin of history.
On June 12, 1987 he stood in front of the Brandenburg Gate and said: "General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
Another 29 months would pass, and Ronald Reagan would leave office, but the Brandenburg Gate did open.
Today it is almost as if the Wall never existed. Only a few small sections remain of the massive concrete structure that ran roughly 100 miles around West Berlin, a free island deep within the Evil Empire. Yet it is a testament to man's inhumanity to man which we can ill afford to forget.
The "wall" started out as barbed wire along streets, followed by brick walls. The structure grew more fearsome over time, mixing concrete walls, wire mesh fencing, watch towers, and anti-vehicle trenches. Yet several thousand people made it over, under, or around the Wall and border fortifications lining the rest of the border between the two Germanys. Human ingenuity knows few bounds when people are seeking freedom.
Alas, far more people failed in their attempt to be free. Tens of thousands of East Germans were imprisoned for "Republikflucht," or attempting to flee the East German paradise. Worse, roughly 1,000 people were murdered attempting to escape East Germany, some 200 from Berlin.
The first person to die while attempting to escape was 58-year-old Ida Siekmann, who jumped from her building to the bordering road in West Berlin on August 22, 1961 (the structure was later demolished to create a "death strip"). Two days later a 24-year-old tailor, Guenter Litfin, was shot and killed while attempting to swim the River Spree.
A year later an 18-year-old bricklayer, Peter Fechter, was shot and left to bleed to death in the death strip near Checkpoint Charlie within full view of residents in West Berlin -- who could do nothing for him. On February 6, 1989, 20-year-old Chris Gueffroy became the last East German to be murdered while seeking to escape his national prison. He and a friend thought the order to shoot had been lifted; he was hit ten times and died on the spot. His friend was injured but survived -- to spend time in prison. On March 8, 32-year-old Winfried Freudenberg, an electrical engineer, became the last person to die in an escape attempt, when his home-made balloon crashed.
About the Author
Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and the Senior Fellow in International Religious Persecution at the Institute on Religion and Public Policy. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is author of Beyond Good Intentions: A Biblical View of Politics (Crossway).
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Appleby| 11.6.09 @ 6:49AM
Nevertheless, the children of the West long for communism in their own countries; since they no longer study history (or much of anything else) and will not listen to anything people say who were there and saw for themselves, because what do The Wrinklies know anyway -- they bend their dreams toward turning America into Cuba and Canada into Lebanon as their heads fill with dreams of The Big Rock Candy Mountain where they will have everything they want the nanosecond they want it and somebody else will pay....
I saw the Berlin Wall go up, and to my amazement I lived to see it come down. Sadly I may live long enough to see Berlin Walls built by ignorant children rise again....
Richard Baker| 11.6.09 @ 7:03AM
Of course, the Kenyan won't be attending the celebrations. He's for the guys who built the Berlin Wall. When it came down I was much surprised. Never thought in my lifetime that I'd see such a thing. The idea to remember from that day is that the human spirit craves Liberty and Freedom. Freedom uber alles!
Northern Rebel| 11.6.09 @ 9:37AM
President Anti-Christ's real reason for being a no-show, is because they wouldn't let him speak at the Brandenburg Gates, a place reserved for people of accomplishment.
Obviously, they didn't realize he is an accomplishment unto himself, just by being.
Of course you are right, R. Baker, he is a devout communist, and he's hoping to be one of the great ones in history.
He's just refining his particular method of killing off hundreds of millions of freedom loving human beings.
In his infinite wisdom, he has decided that the most effecient way to do it in the 21st century, is to destroy the last bastion of personal liberty, the United States of America.
Unlike Cubans, or Asians, Americans have no place to run to, if they must flee tyranny. So destroy the US economy, install a health care system to moniter dissidents, probably with a microchip that contains medical records, (as well as party affiliation), and control is possible.
With the microchip, (He is even floating a bar code chip to keep track of purchases), he won't even have to mark your skin with the number 666!
Wow, I sound like a nut!
Keep dozing, and seeking comfort in that mesmorizing tone of voice, and see what kind of place you wake up to!
Al Adab| 11.6.09 @ 10:22AM
How sad when the nation, which above all others, stands for human liberty and freedom fails to remember the mosdt significant liberation of the second half of the 20th century. An event BTW in which this nation played a major role.
For the American President (Al Naqis) to ignore the event is abhorant and reveals more about his world view and his perception of his own nation, than about the importance of the celebration. Simply put, he cares little about human freedom as he is solely focused on creating entitlement slaves of the population.
Margie| 11.6.09 @ 11:07PM
Hey, what ever happened to Marc Jeric? Reading this made me think of him. He always speaks to truthfully.
Ken (Old Texican| 11.6.09 @ 12:26PM
Doug
Thank you for that.
I read an essay here today about "Reaganism is dead".
Wow! I rmember the Democrat slogans about Mr. Reagan during the campaign. I remember the firestorm when he announced implementation of "StarWars Defense".
I shall always remember his simple sentence "We win, they lose."
I wonder when Toddard will chime in and tell us how horrible we are to have supported the hopes of those millions of slaves....and having a leader who made it stick!
Pingback| 11.6.09 @ 1:42PM
Twitter Trackbacks for The American Spectator : The Spirit of 1989 [spectator.org] o links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Lullaby's, Legends and Lies| 11.6.09 @ 2:55PM
Do you think we can find another "Reagan" out there now, when we need it the most? But then again, Reagan did follow Carter, so maybe history is repeating itself, again (I hope).
Ken (Old Texican)| 11.6.09 @ 4:25PM
Lullabye's
If absolutely no one will step forward. Darn it, I will quit sipping a scotch now and then, and try to earn your votes.
I'm too darned old, and my back is a mess. I would rather us all gather around a DEMINT.
Heck, I would gather around a Culberson or a Cornyn...or even
Rick Perry (Texas governor...small letters).
I cannot wait for Sarah's book to get here. That lady has courage. If she chooses not to run...and win...she might point us the right direction.
If no one else will serve, I will.
You guys have read my deepest thoughts here. You have also watched me be silly and/or fun.
Money is no object.....but darn it I like being silly from time to time.
OKOK I will quit. (wrong)...being silly...(fib).
A year from now...ya'll might realize my jokes were deadly serious.
The most important thing I would like to tell you is who I would gather around me as "chief advisors"
#1 Dick (Darth Vader) Cheny. He is the single most brilliant person I have ever sat a table and negotiated with.
#2 A couple of the editors of this site.
#3 Sarah Palin if she will serve.
#4 General Pretraus (sic) and I will learn to spell his name correctly.
#5 General McChrystal.
#6 Ed Young...Baptist minister.
#7 Al Adab off this site
#8 Adam Smith off this site
#9 Big J off this site who has joined us for dinner.
#10 Secretary of State...my clone. (smile)
#11 (Gulp) Rush Limbaugh....dollar a year man.
#12 Dr. Richard Bean, my best friend and the most brilliant five president 'dollar per man' for five Presidents for economics.
#13 Joe "Plumber" to kick my hiney when neccessary.
#14 Secretary of the Treasury: Mark Santos.
#15 Mr. Ronald Reagan (ghost) who I shall listen to every single night.
#16 My lovely wife of course...to whom I shall listen to every single night.
#17 Mark "h" OUR WEB GUY.
#18 Mr. Barack Obama... as our 180 degree compass.
#19 Al Gore as our court jester...
OK, you folks get the drift...
Best regards all.
Ken
Al Adab| 11.6.09 @ 5:14PM
Ken:
Thanks for the great compliment. I look forward to serving in the cabinet of the Republic of Texas.
Margie| 11.6.09 @ 11:16PM
That sounds excellent, Ken!
Here am I! I'm good on the phones. I'd help in your campaign. :^)
Margie| 11.6.09 @ 11:19PM
I truly believe Sarah Palin is a female Ronald Reagan. Though I have to admit I prefer a man for the job, if she did run I would surely campaign and vote for her!
Lullaby's, Legends andLies| 11.7.09 @ 1:07AM
Ken: You got my vote for President (but can we vote tomorrow instead of waiting?)!!
I love your advisors, especially Darth Vader (Can we build a real Death Star now that he's on board?), and as your moral compass advisor, The former President, MR Obama. Whatever his "great" idea might be, you just do the exact opposite, and get it right. That's brilliant!!
DaveS| 11.7.09 @ 10:53PM
Palin is not the female Reagan. Please stop with the unearned superlatives. Reagan may be imitated, but never duplicated.
Margie| 11.8.09 @ 2:04PM
LOL. Point taken. But you cannot deny she has those same qualities and quite the same spirit, can you?
Mark Pettifor| 11.6.09 @ 3:01PM
Mr. Bandow,
Something that everyone seems to be missing in all the nostalgia and reflecting back on that historic time is that human nature doesn't change much.
When I see statements like "Communist Party boss Erich Honecker wanted to shoot them; rather than commit mass murder, the Politburo dumped Honecker" and "Within a year the ugly, brutish regime, which had distinguished itself by shooting desperate people seeking to escape to freedom, disappeared", the question that comes to mind is this: Are you saying that the Kremlin killers at some point just changed their minds, and decided that well, heck, we're gonna lose this ideological war (not to mention the guns and bullets war with weapons and all that other stuff that we made to back up our ideology and give it teeth) so we might as well cut our losses and become happy little capitalists?
If we really won not only the Cold War, but the ideological struggle between freedom and the totalitarian ideologies in the East, then why hasn't anyone who was part of the group of strategists who plotted for a generation the destruction of the West come forward to admit that they were wrong, the West was right, freedom is their new god, and, oh, regarding those hundreds of millions of people we killed, well, sorry 'bout that, can we be friends now?
Nope. I'm not buying it. Russia (and China) are just as much a threat now as they were then, only it's different kind of threat. When your enemy fakes death, and you believe it, you're in twice the danger as you were before.
Soviet defector Golitsyn told us all of this in his book "New Lies For Old." If only people had paid attention to what he wrote.
By the way, he predicted that the Communists would tear down the Berlin Wall 5 years before it happened. Makes one want to go read what else he had to say, doesn't it?
Ken (Old Texican)| 11.6.09 @ 4:52PM
Please see my commkent above. Thank you.
Northern Rebel| 11.6.09 @ 7:10PM
Old Tex didn't nominate me, but I'd be proud to serve as national alarmist!
L,L,&L,:
Congratulations on your, (GAG) Yankees.
Lullaby's, Legends and Lies| 11.7.09 @ 10:56AM
Northern Rebel: I look forward to the rivalry between our Great States starting anew next spring. Without the Red Sox, it would be a very boring year in the Bronx.
But I still hate them, so don't get me wrong!!
Let's Go Ken for President!! (Baseball's over now)
Ken (Old "Texican)| 11.6.09 @ 7:46PM
Northern Rebel,
Where would you be best to serve...joking aside?
contact me at kbjudgeroybean06@gmail.com
Nick| 11.7.09 @ 12:33AM
I was stationed in West Germany from Aug. '88 to July '90. About an hour from the East German border, near the Fulda Gap. Even with all the Pils and Hefe's I consumed while there, I remember the Fall of the Wall very well.
Although the video shown is usually from Thursday, November 9th (I guess because that's when Brokaw and Rather finally showed up), the first big protest at the Wall was 5 days earlier, on Saturday, Nov. 5th. There was almost a riot near Check Point Charlie.
I know this, not because I was there, but because I was supposed to be there. Man, was I ticked. I wasn't a very good soldier. I was in trouble that weekend.
But a buddy of mine was there. In fact, his face was on the front page of Stars and Stripes the next day in the middle of huge crowd of protesters that had just gotten chased off the Wall.
Also, it cannot be stressed enough the role Czechoslovakia played. When they refused to force East Germans to return, and kept the border open into Hungary so the Germans could escape, the end was on it's way. When you're in the middle of events, it's hard to see what's coming.
I remember when I was being driven to the airport to go on leave for Christmas a month after the Wall came down, we passed a weird rusty car with strange plates I had never seen before. It was white, filled to the brim with household goods, a young couple with an infant, and an elderly lady.
My buddy told me it was an East German car. He said he had seen more and more ever since the summer. I remember thinking, "Where are they going" and "How strange the West was going to be for them."
And now, I wonder where they are now and how much their lives changed after they escaped to freedom.
Margie| 11.7.09 @ 1:40PM
Nick,
Thank you for your service to our country. I really liked reading about your personal experience, and appreciate you telling us about it!
God bless you~M.
Nick| 11.7.09 @ 11:50PM
Thanks Margie.
God Bless.
Pingback| 11.7.09 @ 5:32AM
Doug Bandow » Blog Archive » The Fall of the Wall: 20 Years On links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Jim O'Brien| 11.7.09 @ 11:38AM
But now Obama and his Socialists in Congress are trying to resurrect the USSR here in the USA, with government-run health care, price controls, punitive taxation, war on private enterprise, war on journalists who dare to report the truth, and a secretive Shadow Government of Czars to carry Obama's edicts. The ACORN Administration is working hard to tear down the Constitution and freedom. It detests dissent.
Northern Rebel| 11.7.09 @ 3:18PM
BTW, L,L,&L,
I don't live in Taxachussetts. I lived most of my life in socialist Connecticut, and spent the last 10 years in the 23rd district of northern NY, where I'm preparing to return , as soon as I quell a family crisis in Ct.
I love the hills and mountains up here, if not the politics!
Lullaby's, Legends and Lies| 11.7.09 @ 3:55PM
Northern Rebel: So you're one of those "Tug of War" New England fans, stuck between NY and MASS, but the Red Sox won out with you in the end? Oh well too bad!! Myself?, I was born in the Bronx, but grew up in lower Upstate NY, and only about 10 miles away from the Connecticut border, so I know the State pretty well, or at least the Danbury area pretty well.
At the moment, I'm still stuck over here in Iraq, for a few more weeks before I finish up my most recent tour. And I don't care if the New England area if full of a bunch of unrepentant Liberals like I know it to be, I can't wait to see them all again. Even Liberal Massachusetts would be a sight for sore eyes to me right now. I miss the damn snow!!
And when I get the chance to take some leave after I get back, I'm driving all over our Great Country, from Florida to Maine and back again. Spewing CO2 from my old Lincoln Town Car while driving on I-95, to help promote that Global Warming I've been hearing about (I like it when it's warm). But if there's one good thing I can say about being in Iraq, and this is the only thing I can think of that's good about Iraq, it makes you really come to LOVE your Country more than you can imagine. And that's why, we've got to do everything in our power, to save America, and the American way, and our collective future's too. Damn I can't wait to get home! (GBA!! & LGY's!!)
Margie| 11.8.09 @ 2:08PM
God bless you, LL&L, and thank you for your great service to our country. I wish you success and good health and hope you get home safe.
Lullaby's, Legends and Lies| 11.9.09 @ 11:05AM
Thanks Margie. I'm planning (hoping) on making it down to the folks house in Florida for Thanksgiving Dinner,.. finger's crossed!!
Roy| 11.8.09 @ 12:17AM
In 1989 I was 13. I remember the whole time younger than that, thinking I was probably going to end up fighting the Russians when I grew up. I couldn't believe how fast it all happened. In fact I'm probably one of the last people to have been taught the wondrous joys of Soviet Socialism in 6th grade.
It is a bit funny, like somebody that was born in, say, 1932 and knows that anybody much younger than them is going to have no clue what The War was. This is already true about my own younger siblings.
It's worth remembering that the reason they had to build The Wall in the first place was the existence of a free alternative. Whatever else we do wrong, as long as we keep ourselves free tyrants will never be able to rest easy.
Roy| 11.8.09 @ 12:19AM
Oh, and one more thing:
Tomorrow in West Bengal(India) another mopup of old Cold War business may well happen, as the Communist Party of India loses their grip on a state they have ruled over for the last 32 years.
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