Today is the anniversary of "The Fall of the Berlin Wall." The building and demolition of the Berlin Wall is within my lifetime. As a descendant of Germany (and other places) I took interest in this phenomenon of post World War II geopolitical turmoil. For the sake of accuracy, the wall did not all come down on this date. In fact the majority of demolition didn't start until the next year and took a long time to complete. It was begun in 1961 and was symbolically torn down this date in 1989.
It was built to keep East Germans out of West Berlin. Berlin was the divided city, previous capital of unified Germany. It sat smack dab in the middle of partitioned East Germany. The western part of the city was part of West Germany. It was thought of as free Germany, free economy, free movement, free press, free assembly, even though it was occupied by English, French and American forces. It's post war economy picked up steam and grew quite well after the war. Meantime, East Germany was occupied by United Soviet Socialist Republic forces and was politically and economically managed into poverty. East Germans with little hope of economic recovery wanted out. Hence the wall.
The wall was appallingly successful in separating East from West, yet when the wall went down and Germany was reunified, West Germany had to bolster and rebuild eastern Germany's economy. From the hardship of reunification and stabilizing a unified economy, Germany has emerged as the strongest economy in Europe.
Today in the United States we talk about building a wall to keep immigrants from crossing from other countries. What have we learned from other peoples' experience? Can we skip the wall and help build Mexico and Central America's economy instead?
Just a thought.
