The Berlin Wall had a 29-year history when it finally fell in November 1989 to scenes of unprecedented jubilation in the then divided city.
Now, close on 19 years later, it seems not all Berliners are happy about the wall being confined to the dustbin of history.
Every ninth Berliner would prefer the barrier which used to divide and encircle the city was still in place, a survey carried out on behalf of Berlin’s Free University showed.
Oskar Niedermayer, 56, a political scientist at the university, said that of the 2,000 citizens in Berlin and the surrounding state of Brandenburg who participated in the survey this spring, 11 percent in West Berlin and 12 percent in East Berlin considered it would be better if the wall were still in place.
While the outcome might be surprising, Niedermayer said it was hardly a sensation. Only in East Berlin is there a significant change of attitude to be perceived, with 12 percent of those asked wishing the wall were still there, against 7 percent in a 2004 poll.
Nationwide, such sentiment was even more strongly expressed four years ago when surveys by two of Germany’s leading research institutes showed 19 percent to 21 percent in favor of the Wall.
While fewer people today dispute the causes of German unification, some “Wessis,” as West Germans are sometimes called, and “Ossies” (East Germans) still harbor prejudices against people living in the other half of the country, though apparently much less so than in the 1990s.
Then, it was not uncommon for people in the east to feel the former German Democratic Republic had been conquered “colonial style” by West Germany after the communist collapse in 1989 to 1990.
Nowadays, only in fringe areas of Brandenburg are such sentiments occasionally expressed among small minorities, the survey showed. In the west, on the other hand, a cliche often heard is that people in eastern Germany indulge in too much “self-pity.”
The survey, conducted for the university by the Forsa Institute, also pointed to citizens who were fully integrated into the socialist system and who were born in East Germany before 1973 as being among those most likely to want the wall back.
For years after the demise of the Berlin Wall there was discussion in the east and west of Germany about the so-called “winners and losers” of reunification.
In outlying areas of Brandenburg some 19 percent of people surveyed felt they were reunification losers, while 37 percent considered things would be better if the Berlin Wall and the former 1,120km inner-German border, once separating East from West Germany, had remained.
Only 3 percent of people in these parts regarded themselves as reunification “winners.”
The dismantling of the Berlin Wall first began on the historic night of Nov. 9, 1989 — to allow the ebullient masses to pass through to the west. But it was not until later in 1990 that the task of tearing down the barrier began in earnest.
Army units set about demolishing 300 watchtowers, thousands of lamp posts and more than 80km of metal fencing from around the city barrier. Later a private company called Ava was called in to remove 160,000 tonnes of still remaining concrete from around Berlin alone.
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS