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stoutfellowToday is the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
That summer.... It's been called an "annus mirabilis", and I still remember it with head-shaking awe. The Velvet Revolution, the opening of the Hungarian and Czech borders, the elections in Poland, the Leipzig demonstrations, the fall of the Wall, Ceausescu's last speech - it was an amazing year. (1991 almost tops it, but not quite.) Behind it all, as we learned later, the hand of Gorbachev - pushing for compromise in Poland, refusing to allow the East German armories to be opened - that surprises me even more. (I'm not dissing Reagan, Bush the elder, or JPII here; they did what they were expected to do. But that the Soviet leader should have intervened, and in the way he did - that's astonishing.)
What's your best memory of that year, assuming you were alive and sentient at the time?
That summer.... It's been called an "annus mirabilis", and I still remember it with head-shaking awe. The Velvet Revolution, the opening of the Hungarian and Czech borders, the elections in Poland, the Leipzig demonstrations, the fall of the Wall, Ceausescu's last speech - it was an amazing year. (1991 almost tops it, but not quite.) Behind it all, as we learned later, the hand of Gorbachev - pushing for compromise in Poland, refusing to allow the East German armories to be opened - that surprises me even more. (I'm not dissing Reagan, Bush the elder, or JPII here; they did what they were expected to do. But that the Soviet leader should have intervened, and in the way he did - that's astonishing.)
What's your best memory of that year, assuming you were alive and sentient at the time?
