The International Perspective of the Collapse of the Berlin Wall

The Berlin Wall was a barrier surrounding West Berlin and East Berlin. The wall was a 96 mile barbed wire barricade and concrete wall with a height of 11.8 feet. The Berlin Wall was a symbol of the Cold War and was built on August 13, 1961. On November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall was opened by East Germans and was torn down by the end of 1990. Many countries that surrounded Germany had different reactions on the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

The reaction of the Netherland’s on the collapse of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989 can be considered representative for the overall reaction in Western Europe at that time. Initially, there was general euphory that might be compared with a feeling that an innocent convict was at last and luckily be released from prison; only in this case it was a whole nation being set free. Also, more of political importance, the fall of the wall was considered direct proof of the bankruptcy of the communist social and economic system as dictated by the Soviet Union. No longer would the Soviet regime be capable and willing to intermingle and interfere with GDR (and other East European countries) internal affairs.

Almost immediately after this positive reaction, however, there was one of doubt about the social and economic future of the former German Democratic Republic: would it, at reasonably short term, be possible to successfully put together a rigid state-controlled social system into the free-market machinery of Western Europe and what would be the cost of such conversion for the West-German, and indirectly for the European taxpayer? Would it be thinkable that at the same short term and in a reunited Germany, the former East German individual who, in the past since WW II, had never learned to look after himself would be able to convert in this respect to the new situation? It is fair to believe that this sort of questions cannot be answered.

“In between, at the time the wall went down, I was stationed at NATO’s military headquarters (SHAPE) and I remember the first visit of a Russian military party (all impressive top-ranking high brass). We had only known them as potential hostile from pictures, and here they were… as friends and sort of allies.” – John Verzijl. John Verzijl was living in Holland during the fall of the Berlin Wall. He experienced the relief of the Germany becoming one whole nation again.

Most of the countries that border Germany like Poland, Austria, Belgium, France, and Czechoslovakia feel the same way as the Netherlands do. They all thought it was a positive way with dealing with the government and setting the whole nation free. Like the questions above, most of them could not be answered because either people were too fearful to ask the government or to even here the answer. The Berlin Wall was "a symbol of peace, return to freedom and communion of the German people".