35 years later: How fall of the Berlin Wall shaped, divided, and united a generation

An example of the harsh repression faced by East Germans is the story of Erika Riemann, a teenage girl who suffered terribly at the hands of the state. Riemann was arrested by the Stasi after drawing a bow on the moustache of a portrait of Joseph Stalin — a prank that the government did not find amusing. She was tried in a military court and sentenced to 10 years of hard labour in Siberia. After her arrest, she was taken to the dungeon of an East German castle, where she was subjected to severe interrogation. “Her captors made her sit up straight in a chair for hours on end. If she moved at all, she was slapped. She received nothing to eat and nothing to drink,” writes veteran news reporter and editor Jim Willis in his book Daily Life Behind the Iron Curtain. Exhausted, she confessed to the charges against her, despite not fully understanding many of them.

Willis recounts stories of people digging tunnels and flying hot air balloons over the Wall. “Escape attempts were carried out by young idealistic college students and graduates… Those involved in creative endeavors such as artists, musicians, and writers were at the forefront of protesting Communism,” he writes.

In the GDR, access to consumer goods was limited, and the government tightly controlled border movement. Coffee, a national obsession, was especially scarce. From post-war rationing to the 1977 crisis and widespread protests, East Germans demanded real coffee beans but often had to make do with ersatz substitutes. Black markets flourished, and smuggling between East and West became rampant, with East Germans constantly comparing their shortages to the West’s easy access to coffee on the global market.

In addition to the material deprivations, East Germans suffered from a psychological strain known as ‘Wall sickness’, deep emotional distress caused by the division of their country and the constant surveillance by the state.

Amid strict travel restrictions, the people of East Germany longed to travel the world. Rosy Singh, Associate Professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University’s Centre for German Studies, says, “The author Friedrich Christian Delius tells the story of an East German’s escape plan before the Wall’s fall. The protagonist builds a sailing boat and navigates across the Baltic Sea to Denmark, with the ultimate goal of reaching Italy. This journey reflects the intense longing for freedom and the desire to experience the world which was inaccessible to East Germans due to travel restrictions.”

The cultural landscape was equally stifling, creative work was censored and everything had to align with the party’s vision. This control over personal and professional expression was a core part of the regime’s effort to suppress free thought and dissent.

Breaking through the wall

As the 1980s wore on, East Germany’s tightly controlled society began to buckle. Economic troubles, combined with the wave of reform spreading through Eastern Europe, catalysed massive protests across the country. By the autumn of 1989, the East German government was on thin ice, its citizens demanding rights that were long withheld. Just days before the wall came down, half a million people had gathered in East Berlin for mass protests, demanding greater freedoms and the right to travel. East German leaders, facing unprecedented unrest, had reluctantly agreed to loosen the border restrictions. However, a bureaucratic error triggered one of the most significant political events of the 20th century — the fall of the Berlin Wall.

On the evening of November 9, 1989, after weeks of public pressure and mass demonstrations, East German authorities announced new travel policies. When a government spokesperson, Günter Schabowski, hastily said that the changes were “effective immediately,” it triggered an exodus to the border. Bewildered guards, facing the relentless crowd, opened the checkpoints. In the ensuing hours, Berliners flooded across the barrier that had, until moments before, seemed insurmountable. The scenes that followed were filled with emotion and disbelief as families reunited, people climbed over the Wall, and sledgehammers chipped away at the concrete barrier.

For those who lived it, the Wall’s fall marked a moment of transformation. Kiddy Citny, who famously painted his heart-and-love-themed artwork on the Wall in 1984, saw his act as one of protest. “I wanted to show that East and West Germany can be united, that they belong together,” he told deutschland.de. Similarly, Claudia Ulbrich, a choir singer performing during the December 1989 Berlin Celebration Concerts, recalls that time vividly: “It was joy, joy, joy. We celebrated the kind of freedom we could never have imagined,” she told the German platform.

A symbol that reshaped the world

The world watched as the Berlin Wall fell, recognising the moment as one of hope not just for Germans but for everyone striving against repression. In the years following, countries that had been under Soviet influence found inspiration in the Wall’s fall, seeing that change could indeed come. The impact echoed across other nations too — from activists at Tiananmen Square to freedom movements in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and beyond — galvanising a new push for human rights and freedom.

Till today, the sale of pieces of the Berlin Wall remains a big business, with souvenirs ranging from small fragments to large segments, attracting buyers worldwide due to their symbolic connection to freedom.

A piece of the Berlin Wall on the west side of the Ronald Reagan Library (Wikimedia Commons/Ronald Reagan Presidential Library)

The long road to reunification

Former German Chancellor Willy Brandt coined one of the most memorable phrases after the fall of the Berlin Wall: “Jedes Teil gehört jetzt zusammen” (That which belongs together now). However, the fall of the Berlin Wall marked the beginning, not the end, of Germany’s reunification journey. While the collapse of the Wall was euphoric, blending two societies with vastly different economies, political systems and daily experiences was no easy feat. West Germany brought the strength of its established economy, while East Germany contributed a citizenry eager for freedom but wary of the changes ahead. While the Berlin Wall’s fall marked a historic shift, the process of reunification brought its own set of challenges, especially for East Germans.

“Reunification came as a complete surprise for most economists and politicians,” says Singh. She notes that perspectives vary: “Liberals call it a peaceful revolution, but leftists argue that the West imposed its system on East Germany.” The generally accepted view, though, is that reunification, despite its challenges, was largely peaceful.

In the aftermath, East Germany faced a decade of intense upheaval. “After the initial euphoria came the hard realities,” Singh said. “The structures of East Germany — economic, political, educational, healthcare — collapsed.” As West German institutions and structures gradually replaced these, East Germans had to adjust. “This transitional decade was tough for East Germany. So many people lost their jobs, their pensions got stuck, and a whole generation suffered. The transformation to a new economic and political system came at a price.”

One of the most significant shifts was cultural. The East, accustomed to different social structures and ideologies, struggled to adapt. “These changes cannot be imposed from above,” Singh says, noting that while West Germany financially supported the rebuilding through taxes, “it was the East Germans who had to adjust to the Western system.”

“Another significant literary work, Eugen Ruge: In Zeiten des abnehmenden Lichts (2012), captures the changing perspectives of three generations in East Germany. The first generation, having lived through World War II, remains rooted in leftist ideology; the second generation struggles under totalitarianism and the suppression of freedoms; while the third generation takes to rebellion and protest,” says Singh, adding that many novels delve into life after reunification, highlighting issues such as high unemployment, rising drug addiction, and the peculiar obsession of East Germans with luxury cars — rarely seen during the socialist era — leading them to spend all their savings on secondhand models.

Over time, while East and West have drawn closer, subtle divisions persist. Recent elections in Thuringia, Saxony, and Brandenburg, former East German states, saw strong support for right-wing parties, a trend not echoed in West Germany.

Reunification became official on October 3, 1990, but in some ways, the physical and mental remnants of division endured for years.

East and West Germany today

Decades after the Wall’s fall, Germany’s East and West still grapple with differences, though the gap has been shrinking. Dr Teiborlang T. Kharsyntiew, Assistant Professor at JNU’s Centre for European Studies, sees this divide as both striking and evolving. “Germany is split into two,” he says, pointing to the European Election of June 2024. “The far-right AfD (Alternative für Deutschland) party came first in the former East Germany (29.7%) but only fourth (13%) in the former West Germany.” This pattern isn’t new; even in the 2021 Federal election, he says, “the AfD, while declining nationally, performed well in the East.”

Economically, he notes, the East is still catching up. “Despite substantial improvements, former East Germany is still behind the former West Germany in economic indicators,” he says, with disparities evident in GDP, income, and unemployment rates. “In 2023, the average annual unemployment rate in Eastern Germany was higher at 7.2 percent than in the West at 5.3 percent.”

Socially, the divide runs deep. East Germany’s older, more sceptical population is “more likely to be anti-EU, anti-immigrants compared to West Germany.” That “feeling of being left behind” is particularly strong in the East, he says.

Yet Kharsyntiew doesn’t see this as a lasting schism. “This doesn’t mean the gap will widen and create a rift in Germany. On the contrary, these gaps are getting narrower.” In the past decade, he observes, the East has made strides to close the economic and social gap with the West. And Germany’s reunification, he argues, has strengthened Europe. “The success of reunification made the EU’s expansion to Central and Eastern Europe possible, bringing new opportunities that have helped the East grow and catch up.”

References

“35 Years Since the Fall of the Berlin Wall.” Deutschland.de, 6 Oct. 2024, https://www.deutschland.de/en/35-years-since-the-fall-of-the-berlin-wall

Ault, Julia E. “What Happened in East Germany?” Perspectives, College of Humanities, The University of Utah, 2020-2021, https://humanities.utah.edu/perspectives/2020-2021/what-happened-in-east-germany.php

Pence, Katherine. “8 Grounds for Discontent? Coffee from the Black Market to the Kaffeeklatsch in the GDR.” The Consumer on the Home Front: Second World War Civilian Consumption in Comparative Perspective, edited by Hartmut Berghoff et al., Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 197–225. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199827657.003.0008.

Wagner, Bethany. “Revisiting Life Behind the Berlin Wall.” APU Articles, Azusa Pacific University, 22 Apr. 2013, http://www.apu.edu/articles/revisiting-life-behind-the-berlin-wall/.

Willis, Jim. Daily Life behind the Iron Curtain. Greenwood, 2013.