What’s so amazing about the fall of the wall is how bureaucratic the announcement was meant to be (we have agreed to dismantle the wall, but we don’t have a plan to enact yet). But everyone showed up with amateur or actual construction equipment and started tearing it to pieces.
The wall more or less went up overnight, it’s no wonder people wanted it down just as fast.
The story is a bit more complex than that. Günter Schabowski, who announced the "new travel law" as they called it, only got a note right before a press conference and wasn't properly briefed.
He was then asked when that'll happen, and he said something along the lines of "according to my knowledge immediately", which was interpreted as "we can go there right now, tonight", but which wasn't what was planned.
This eventually led to a situation where thousands of people were standing at the border, wanting to cross, and eventually the border guards saw no other option than to let them pass.
Its days were numbered -- but the system could have easily come crashing down very violently, or remained intact but with a massive crackdown (in fact the party leadership was making explicit plans or the latter of these -- "Day X", as they referred that eventuality -- while a "Chinese Solution" was a tacitly acknowledged outcome as well). And then plodded along for another 10 years or so. That's why the events as they unfolded were surprising.
In hindsight, considering the modern rise of the AfD in German politics, and various other oddities now and that will arise in the future, perhaps a gradual wind down transition would have been better.
The lack of a Deng Xiaoping equivalent figure in Germany meant that the old hardline party core, and the favourable to Russia fraction of the population, were never mollified. It was a sharp and abrupt transition for them.
AfD support is definitely stronger in the East, but it is not exclusively an Eastern party, and (unfortunately) has very significant representation in the West as well -- and in fact more supporters in the West than in the East (though percentage-wise the support in the East is much stronger).
It's also not a "nostalgia", or regional grievance party in any meaningful sense.
In other words, observations in the parent message that you are vociferously attacking ... are basically valid.
If you're genuinely unaware of these facts, I would suggest you attempt to inform yourself at a level beyond that of a few casual keyword searches.
To be frank, considering the use of a pseudonym and comment history, I'm going to assume whoever is behind this account is intentionally writing in a provocative manner, perhaps to earn karma quickly or some other reason.
Breaking the HN rules and guidelines is quite detrimental when your already starting off with lower credibility.
Unfortunately, in the message I was responding to, you were (1) accusing another user of gross ignorance, while (2) in regard to the subject matter, demonstrating extremely superficial (basically inadequate) knowledge of you were talking about.
So you were provided with a necessary correction. To be frank, I'm not sure what other kind of response you were expecting.
East Germany has continued being economically weaker than the West, which would make them more prone to more radical ideologies in the absence of the prior far-left one. If anything, a historical gradualist Deng Xiaoping figure would mean acclimation and full development towards a finding a self-sufficient niche in a globalized market economy, not a wind down from hardline pro-Russian party apparatuses (who apparently were responsible for a post-unification far-right party?). Many dissatisfied East German youth would support the Euroscepticism of the AfD because they haven't experienced the full promises of prosperity from the collapse of the DDR and the victory of the West-led order.
It doesn't have to be China. There are far smaller countries in Europe that are perfectly viable, and even countries that aren't viable, like North Korea, can still continue to exist despite that.
In this case, it's good that it happened so fast. It could have gone a lot worse.
Hardly any state in Europe can afford full self-sufficiency in isolation without enormous suffering.
North Korea (with more population than DDR) survived Soviet collapse but just barely, losing hundreds of thousands in a protracted famine, until landing on client relationship with China. Not a realistic scenario for East Germany.
The famous announcement was in regard to permitting unrestricted travel (for a supposedly limited time window). Nothing was said about dismantling the wall (at the time or at any point in the future).
The "dismantling" itself (which at the outset was more like vandalism and souvenir-grabbing) started happening spontaneously after crowds began to overwhelm the border crossing, and the ensuing carnival atmosphere took over.
I am not sure "vandalism" is the right term, when it comes to damaging a prison wall for a whole nation.
It was a symbol of fear and oppression. People were shot at the wall every year, so sure, not everyone (or maybe only a few) who joined, were freedom fighters or deeply philosophical about the meaning of what they were doing. But it still was a liberating act, doing something that likely would have got you shot, just the day before. No matter if you would have tried it from the western or eastern side.
(even though of course, it was more likely from the eastern side, the western side was already full of graffiti, but actually damaging the wall, also from the western side, would have not been very dangerous. People did do this to help people flee the east on purpose. And some of those helpers did get shot.)
The Russians, invaded twice by Germany in the 20th century, sought to withdraw completely from Germany, if it became a neutral country like Switzerland or Austria. The West Germans continually refused this. By 1961 they through in the towel and the west Berlin enclave was sealed off. After the USSR broke up, Russian and German (and western) documents on this were released, which verified what happened at the time.
When Germany sought to reunite, the Prime Minister of the UK, Thatcher, sought behind closed doors to stop German reunification. So it was Gorbachev removing impediments to reunification and Thatcher seeking to create them.
Which becomes clear when you realize that the anti-vehicle / tank ditches and the directional anti-personal mines ("Selbstschussanlagen") were facing the east direction only[1].
West German tanks and military vehicles could have driven over the ditches without major issues. They only worked one way - from east to west.
Fun fact, in the beginning of the revolution, Lenin was send to russia by the german army command, in a special army train to destabilize russia.
History is ironic.
“ The Russians, invaded twice by Germany in the 20th century” - technically in WW1 Russia mobilized her armies ahead of Germany and was the first to cross over state lines on august 17th 1914 - so in ww1 it’s more like Russia invades Germany.
Also, WW2 started with Germany and Russia invading Poland together.
Because Hitler later betrayed Stalin, and Russia did by far the most work in defeating Nazi Germany, we have since learned to see Russia as one of the good guys in WW2, but they didn't start out that way; they were initially one of the aggressors, invading Poland, the Baltic states, and Finland.
>> In 1938, the Soviet Union was allied with France and Czechoslovakia. By September 1939, the Soviets were to all intents and purposes a co-belligerent with Nazi Germany, due to Stalin's fears of a second Munich Agreement with the Soviet Union replacing Czechoslovakia. Thus, the agreement indirectly contributed to the outbreak of war in 1939.[87]
I'm not ignoring that at all, but it's quite a leap from misguided appeasement to arguing that that justified the invasions of Poland, the Baltic States and Finland.
But the whole run up to WW2 definitely shows the folly of appeasing aggressors by rewarding their aggression. A lesson that's definitely relevant today.
> but it's quite a leap from misguided appeasement
There were quite a lot of actions which guided the Soviets up to 1939 and I can't say these were 'misguided appeasement'. It takes a lot to convince someone to work with people whose anthem contains 'Kam'raden, die Rotfront und Reaktion erschossen / Marschier'n im Geist in unser'n Reihen mit.'
"It takes a lot to convince someone to work with people whose anthem contains 'Kam'raden, die Rotfront und Reaktion erschossen / Marschier'n im Geist in unser'n Reihen mit.' "
Not much, if there is something to gain. Because diplomats did the talking and they are usually disconnected from the goons on the ground doing that singing. And the sovjets had their songs and goons and gulags and NKVD too, as you well know.
And I am not sure if you actually understand that song, because it just says the Nazis think about the spirits of their comrades who were killed by the Rotfront, (german communist) and by the Reaktion, conservative (monarchistic) forces opposing the Nazis. (not the other way around, like you seemed to have understood)
And they were. But of course by that time, way more Rotfront people were murdered by the Nazis and they probably also sang about that, so you likely could have choosen a better song. This song lets one rather question, why the nazis could bring themself to work with the sovjets at all and the answer is the same: because there was something to gain.
Otherwise this discussion sounds to me like a discussion about what is better, plague or cholera?
It was 2 confronting totalitarian empires, with total disregard for human life, unless it happened to be an important party member. And in the use of terror against anyone opposing, they were pretty similar.
Or there was something to lose if remain in the current status quo.
> diplomats did the talking and they are usually disconnected from the goons on the ground doing that singing
Sorry?
>> [...] Goebbels' propaganda created what became one of the Nazi Party's central martyr-figures of their movement. He officially declared Wessel's march, renamed as the "Horst-Wessel-Lied" ("Horst Wessel Song"), to be the Nazi Party anthem [...] The "Horst Wessel Song" was sung by the SA at the funeral, and was thereafter extensively used at party functions, as well as sung by the SA during street parades.
Were the Soviet diplomats deaf?
> because it just says the Nazis think about the spirits of their comrades who were killed by the Rotfront
:rolleyes: Some people pertain the idea what the Soviets were totally clueless about how evil Nazis were[0] or what the Soviets were totally on board with Nazis in their evilness[1]. Sometimes both at the same time.
This song is a clear evidence what both the nazis and the communists were a 'natural enemies', what there is no fucking way the Soviets didn't knew that (see [1] again) and what if you find them working together then for the reasons you should look not at them but for their environment.
[0] rare, but I've seen those folks
[1] this is the default, especially if the history knowledge ends with a parroted response about Molotov-Ribbentrop
So you were aware, that the lyrics you cited were no direct threat to the sowjets?
Apart from that, of course they were natural enemies. Mein Kampf and many other sources spoke about the concept of conquering land in the east.
And the sowjets wanted the world revolution. Also documented.
So why pick that example then?
Because with that, you could also "proof" that the Nazis were mortal enemies to the conservative forces in germany. Were they? As far as I know, not really and surely not as long as the nazis were successfull.
So I really do suspect, that you were not aware, but cannot admit a misstake now, like you cannot admit any wrongdoing by the sowjets. Sorry, but this is not a base for me for serious debate.
None of this changes the fact that Poland was invaded by both the Nazis and the Soviets. They may have hated each other ideologically, but politically, they were aligned at that moment. And even if they weren't sufficiently aligned by your standards, the Soviet Union still invaded 5 countries that didn't do anything to threaten the USSR, making the Soviets one of the aggressors of the war.
To be fair, Czechoslovakia was part of the Warsaw Pact. The USSR withdrew from Austria in return for Austria becoming a neutral country. I presume the commenter is suggesting that the same approach would have worked for Germany.
well, as the parent comment said: "everyone showed up with amateur or actual construction equipment and started tearing it to pieces", my friends took hammers, chisels and maybe pickaxes, drove to berlin and started chipping away at the wall.
It should probably be said that tearing down the wall was mainly a souvenir thing. People did this so they could get their "piece of the Berlin wall", not to practically tear down the wall to cross it. At the point these images were taken you were already legally able to go to the other side at normal border crossings.
actually, i don't think so. there were not that many official border crossings. remember the wall went right through the city, and by right you should be able to cross on every street corner. so i believe that people were motivated to remove the wall to be able to cross more easily. but also to remove the wall as a symbol of the separation of the two parts of the city. at the time i certainly felt the sentiment was to get rid of the wall. i didn't see any boasting of souvenirs by my friends later.
You're forgetting that the "Berlin Wall" was actually two walls separated by a strip of "no-man's land" which was mined and patrolled by armed guards and dogs. Anyone who managed to breach one of the walls would not get far.
While the guards tolerated souvenir hunters, you would definitely not want to make a break for the other side. Although crossing may have been technically legal, it was still under the jurisdiction of the border authorities; just as it's legal to travel from Mexico to the US, but you can't just waltz across anywhere you want. Remember, East and West Germany were still two different countries, each with their own laws about customs and immigration.
The majority of the "wallpeckers" just wanted a souvenir and had no intention (or means) to actually break through steel-reinforced concrete using a hand held pick-axe and hammer. In fact, it took a concentrated effort to breach the wall sufficiently to create an opening you could actually pass through. The initial attempts at grabbing souvenirs (followed by actually removing large sections of the wall with construction equipment) happened at heavily populated areas like Checkpoint Charlie, where the large numbers of people made it harder for the authorities to object to.
Full disclosure: I was there and used a friend's hammer and pick-axe to break off a few pieces of the wall.
I gave away most to friends but kept one or two. They're about the size of your thumb. The best part is the visible graffiti on the exposed side. I remember reading that the concrete was impregnated with asbestos (not sure why) so I'd be leery about handling it. Currently it sits in a small plastic bag.
the concrete was impregnated with asbestos (not sure why)
up to the 80s asbestos was used almost everywhere in construction because it has many beneficial properties. for example it is fire resistant and strengthens the material it is mixed into.
I was on Usenet at this time. It's hard, even though I lived through it, to really explain how different it was since the total "population" of Usenet was a very tiny fraction of the world (some sources say <1m people around this time). Now 5+ billion people have smartphones.
Many individual newsgroups would only have hundreds of active users. The reach was very wide geographically, but the demographics were very narrow and numbers of people were very small. Typically they were in big tech companies, and at academic institutions.
One related but vivid memory: in 1991 I was playing some text based MUD (multi-user dungeon) which I barely remember, but at certain moment, someone broke out of character and mentioned that the US had just invaded Iraq (during the Persian Gulf War). It seemed so bizarre yet foreshadowing of the changes to come, of the ways that our news would be shared on social media.
My favorite Berlin Wall story was a friend of mine wrote an opinion piece for the college newspaper in the fall of 1989 talking about the moves towards democracy in the Warsaw Pact nations which concluded with the line, “but don’t expect the Berlin Wall to come down any time soon.”
He submitted the piece at the beginning of November. The paper came out on November 13th.
I recently rediscovered a paper I wrote in 1987-88, my senior year in high school, about a united Europe. My timing wasn’t quite as exquisite as your friend’s, but unsurprisingly I too failed to see what would happen so soon.
Tiananmen Square felt like reality crushing what briefly seemed like an end to a dark period of history.
"My favorite Berlin Wall story was a friend of mine wrote an opinion piece for the college newspaper in the fall of 1989 talking about the moves towards democracy in the Warsaw Pact nations which concluded with the line, “but don’t expect the Berlin Wall to come down any time soon.”
He submitted the piece at the beginning of November. The paper came out on November 13th. "
Nobody really suspected that the wall would totally come down the way it did, as far as I know. (And I know a bit, because I was there when the demonstrations started, even though I could barely talk at that time)
Tiananmen square massacre in china just happened before and even though russia itself was opening up - east germany was still under tight control of Stalinists, who would have rather shot everyone, than giving up. This was the general sentiment.
So there were lots of demonstrations before and slight optimism that some opening up could be achieved and some democratic reforms could be done, but till the very end, the fear was very real (and warranted) that it all could turn into a bloodbath any moment.
Luckily, it didn't.
For many reasons obviously, but mainly it was that the people in power were way weaker, than everyone believed. You cannot just have people shot, you need soldiers or police doing it. And when enough of those soldiers or police have relatives who joined the demonstrations - then they will eventually refuse. And the usual fall back plan, to use russian troops in this case, was no option anymore as Gorbatschow made clear internally.
One anecdote I know, is that a friend of my family, a fireman, was ordered to use his fire truck against demonstrators. And he refused, saying a fire truck is only for real fire. A brave move, as he also had family and dissent was dangerous (and he would have suffered, if it would have all turned out different). I suspect many such small or bigger insubordinations happened, making the power base of the party finally crumble and then the wall crumbled down as a very visible signal of their weakness and then history happened.
> the people in power were way weaker, than everyone believed. You cannot just have people shot, you need soldiers or police doing it
I've heard a similar story about the collapse of Ceaucescu in Romania. The regime didn't just rely on police but on bussing in "counter protestors" (loyalist miners armed with pickaxe handles) to deal with demos. But things turned so quickly once the big speech was booed that everything fell apart - and internal security factions began to turn on one another ..
Predicting things is hard. I was standing on West Street in lower Manhattan looking up at the World Trade Center on fire, on a cell phone with my mother, and said “well it doesn’t look like it’s going to fall down or anything.”
Similar funny story. There was a Dutch historian who announced that Putin would never attack Ukraine full scale and he did this the night before the invasion.
(Apart from that, I still respect the historian. He might not be the best, but he is a good storyteller.)
Wasn’t that an opinion that was shared by many back then - that a full invasion would be way too costly with little to gain and Russia is just sabre-rattling?
Most people in Europe could not imagine a full out war and considered the warnings from the US as merge fear mongering.
> I think you are lacking some imagination here. There can be no doubt that after the events of the last couple of months (starting with the Hungarians opening their borders) there is no way back the the previous post-war state. With East and West loosing more and more reasons to be scared of each other, the military blocks will loose importance - they may be gone soon.
> Sure, all the politicians in east and west keep telling the opposite, but that's just because they would rather keep things the way they were. For those in power, the status quo was much more comfortable as it is now, where no one
really knows what's going to happen. How do they want to motivate further spending on arms when all those bad guys aren't bad any more? Sooner or later (and I believe sooner) the peoples of Europe will be fed up with this (if they aren't already), and what good are those military blocks then?????
> The East bloc obviously start disintegrating, politically and militarily. The West bloc won't survive that; if there is no East bloc, NATO will fall apart quickly. So, what's the problem? I certainly will feel more at ease with _less_ weapons. So will most people, I think. And besides, I think it's time Europe is being run by Europeans, not by Americans and Russians.
The western european armies all massively downsized. The West-German Bundeswehr had around 500K soldiers and almost 3000 tanks until the end of the cold war. Currently, the - notably united - German Bundeswehr employs around 180k soldiers and owns a measly 225 tanks.
Yeah, during the 1990s, it finally became acceptable for NATO countries to cut military spending, and they did. NATO expanded by accepting a lot of former Warsaw Pact countries that wanted to join, and there was even talk of Russia joining at some point (then Putin came to power and he only wanted to join if he got special treatment). Despite its growth, NATO had become increasingly irrelevant until the invasion of Ukraine.
The only reason NATO has remained and still is relevant, is because Russia remained aggressive, so there remained a demand for security from Russian neighbours. But if you look at military spending, former Warsaw Pact members spend a much larger percentage of their GDP than western European countries, which, up to Russia's invasion, still believed in peace with Russia.
What’s nice about Usenet (and maybe a reason to being something similar back, is that Mastadon?) is the replicated public archives of this snapshot of history. The thread earlier this week highlighted that DJB and Werner Vogels were on early sockets conversations debating the merits over STREAMS or Sun RPC. There’s a durability that doesn’t exist with so many independent BBS that are constantly shutting down, taking decades of conversations and information with them.
I've seen too many game mod and open source projects choose to centre their community upon Discord. Whilst convenient, it does not bode well for posterity.
To a first approximation no one cares about bugs in some ancient SunOS version lost to history on Usenet. They care about the societal discussions that took place at the time. But a lot of people thought the former was documentation and the latter ephemera.
I really wish I’d been around at this time of the net finding its feet.
The 90’s kind of feel like the glory days in retrospect to me, but I get how I was one of the Eternal September arrivals for a whole bunch of people that felt that was the end of the heyday.
Reading through the thread it’s a real shame to see the decline in our ability (willingness?) to have civil and thoughtful discourse. I honestly might just spend the evening crawling through 30+ year old usenet threads just to see what conversations people were having casually back then.
> Reading through the thread it’s a real shame to see the decline in our ability (willingness?) to have civil and thoughtful discourse.
If you can read German, I recommend reading the usenet threads of Kim Dotcom (Megaupload founder). They will show you the opposite of thoughtful discourse. :D
I remember seeing his website in the olden times, where he put up pics of cars and parties from Monaco/Cote d'Azur. And when the NZ police raided him on behest of the FBI, it seems he got actual hero status. It makes me wonder if crime does pay after all...
Schmitz got arrested first in 1994, but he wasn’t the only one. I can share some info from back then.
In the early 90’s an employee at AT&T downloaded millions of calling card numbers at work and started distributing them through a worldwide network of invite only bulletin boards (lots of warez trading and other black hat related stuff). The fraud cost AT&T around $18 million and stretched across around 300 conspirators.
As backstory, the US had started cracking down on hackers based in the US in the early 90’s and they were getting long prison sentences. As a result, there was still contract hacking work available, but fewer and fewer people in the US that weren’t serving long sentences who were up for it. As a result much of that work started being offered abroad outside the US. Naively (it was assumed) out of reach of the US authorities.
Around the same time, many telephone networks in Europe started switching their PSTN networks from analogue to digital, rendering system 4 blue boxing dead, and international dialing went back to being prohibitively expensive. Hacking PABX’s with toll free numbers was the only (laborious) option (which Schmitz also sold). Therefore these calling cards quickly became immensely valuable in the scene, for making free calls wherever you wanted to and replacing that lost access.
When the fraud was discovered the US Secret Service got involved. The conspirators were tracked down and rounded up within a coordinated series of worldwide arrests. The US tried to extradite as many as possible. Many however were barely out of their teens, and many countries didn’t want the negative publicity of sending 20 year olds to serve life sentences in the US. The raids included the local serious crimes division, US Secret Service and field office based FBI liaisons. They were pretty annoyed about it and there were a fair few bulletin board owners and card traders that were also hacking US domestic networks, including government agencies, on contract, so they were really enjoying themselves rounding everyone up.
I believe that Schmitz came under BND’s radar at that point and they applied the pressure to turn him. I don’t think it would have been particularly hard to do so. The guy would have sold his grandmother for a couple of Deutschmarks and he fancied himself as some kind of James Bond. I think part of his 2 year suspended sentence deal was the condition that he had to turn agent provocateur within the CCC. That’s why his subsequent actions and self publicity always had an air of being untouchable. So he just grifted whilst setting people in the scene up to keep BND happy and working for the CCC hated lawyer Gravenreuth. Until people in the CCC figured it out and they cut him loose.
The pertinent part of that page translated is as follows:
The Net was small back then. You couldn't easily get access without some connection to the government, the military, major companies, or a university, and it was small enough that your statements could and would be remembered (if only in a multitude of killfiles). So of course the level of discourse was higher than you see when twelve-year-olds can post on [website-of-the-day] and have a new account and name tomorrow.
I've been on Usenet since the 1990s. All those terminally online who claim that Trump (and Dubya before him) "ruined America's reputation abroad" are, of course, idiots. The online left back then hated the just as much as today.
William Scheier, the guy who wrote “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” wrote and article warning against the rise of a united Germany.
It seems quaint in retrospect.
Germany is currently making noises about maybe, possibly, rearming. Other countries (France!) seemed ticked they aren’t doing it faster.
I wonder if Korea could ever be unified like that by even 2089 or if the absolute horror, suffering and abuse in North Korea will be perpetuated for all time, fortified by China and now their nuclear arms doomsday.
East Germany never had nuclear right? Now that might be insurmountable.
The United States tried uniting two of its territories: Guam and North Marianas Islands. Guam had been occupied by the Japanese during WWII, while N Marianas had not.
I wasted too much time (not that much, but any time on this topic with a "true believer" like Magnus was completely wasted) arguing objectivism with him as an undergrad...
Ever heard of chunking? The old keyboards used to make a "chunk" sound when you'd type a key, hence going on a BBS and typing something = chunking. I'm curious where and when people used this word - googling these days brings up totally unrelated results.
>But why non-Germans. Don't they have
their own problems? Who on earth does REALLY STILL fear Germany?
People who are used to your shenanigans since the foundation of Prussia, Hans. And I don't know about fear, more like fed up. Germany should have never been allowed to remain a state after helping start two world wars. Dismantle into HRE-like micronations or give it to their neighboring nations.
The bits debating territories East of the Oder are interesting, especially in light of current events.
At one point someone even asks if “Russia” [sic] get to keep the “bits” it stole while collaborating with Hitler.
Of course, those bits now belong to Ukraine.
At one point someone says “Look, Matt, that is the kind of debate we don't need at all in this situation”.
I strongly disagree. Vigorous debates are important. Unified Germany eventually agreed to “cede” the land east of the Oder in 1991.
That’s fine, but if Poland or Germany exit the EU there could be some hard feelings if German residents were deported from Poland.
For its part, Poland is still filled with hard feelings regarding Germany’s WWII conduct. If agreeing to give Poland the land east of the Oder was meant to smooth things over, it failed.
Germany is much better at remembering what needs to be remembered, and forgetting what needs to be forgotten. Maybe a bit too good.
Not particularly. The masses were neither on nor aware of Usenet and thus it never had the cultural real-time impact on society that modern popular services do. It was mostly “early” tech folks and academics chatting with each other.
The wall more or less went up overnight, it’s no wonder people wanted it down just as fast.