Keynote speaker, Nicholas Burns, addresses the room of SCSU students, professors and high school students. (Photo Credit Derek Torrellas)
Aaron Berkowitz – General Assignment Reporter
NEW HAVEN– It’s been 25 years since the Berlin Wall, which geographically separated West and East Berlin, was destroyed and marked the fall of communism in Germany along with the unification of the country through the birth of democracy. On November 9, SCSU held a panel discussion to commemorate the wall being torn down both physically and figuratively.
Nicholas Burns was the keynote speaker for the event and played a key role in discussions about Berlin and Germany as a member of the U.S State Department in 1989. During his speech he said explained why he feels November 9, 1989 marks such a significant day in history.
“On that day we began to see that it was possible the Cold War might end,” said Burns. “And the division of Europe between East and West that lasted over 40 years, between a war zone packed with communist governments in the East and NATO democratic governments in the West would finally and mercifully come to an end.”
Burns said the falling of the Berlin Wall ultimately signified the rebuilding of Germany as a democratic country. He also said the falling of the wall holds a lot of symbolism because it served as a gathering of powers between “average men” to see “When the wall fell, what were the forces that came together to bring it down?” said Burns.
“Certainly the solidarity movement in Poland led by Lech Wałęsa, a really courageous group maybe that came out of the blue collar workers. These were not professors; these were not politicians, doctors or lawyers. These were people who were the heart of polar society and who began a struggle against communism in Poland in the 1980’s. They produced real change.”
Burns also said the fall was the climatic ending to weeks of other forms of protests that had taken place. According to Burns, the passing of those thousands of East Berliners through “The Iron Curtain” actually came to pass through a misinterpretation of the East German government’s decision on how to deal with Germans wanting to travel.
“The opening of the wall on November 9 was a mistake,” said Burns. “The spokesperson who gave a press conference that evening, interpreted the committee’s decision as, I’m not going to quote it verbatim because I cant but something along the lines of, ‘People are free to move’. That actually wasn’t the decision, but he said it was and people listened to that decision and moved.”
According to berliner-mauer-gedenkstaette.de, 138 people actually died connection with the East German border regime between 1961 and 1989. Kevin Buterbaugh, political science professor and member of the panel at the event, said when the individual border guards had the responsibility to shoot anyone who tried to cross the border.
“The ambassador commented that the speech was given and was gargled,” said Buterbaugh. “The press picked up the message that the borders were open and that was never communicated to the border guards. They could have either shot or let the first individual walk thru and at the end they decided to open the gate. To some extent, the fact that we had a peaceful reunification shows the power of humanity.”
The panel discussion allowed students or anyone with questions to get involved in the discussion. It also allowed the panel to share their experience with the fall of Dean of Arts and Sciences and member of the panel, Steven Breese, said although he is not a historian lived in West Berlin when the wall fell.
“The announcement was everywhere and it caught everyone by surprise,” said Breese. “Immediately there was this sense of euphoria that broke out.”
