On Display: East Germany’s Final Chapter
By Kimberly Bradley
New York Times
http://globespotters.blogs.nytimes.c...pagemode=print
BERLIN | When the Berlin Wall came down on Nov. 9, 1989, scenes of easterners streaming westward and Berliners dancing atop the breached concrete barricade were beamed around the world and burned into the collective memory.
But what led up to that momentous event? Through November 14 on Alexanderplatz, an outdoor exhibition called “Peaceful Revolution 1989/1990″ traces the trajectory of the dissent that helped bring about the wall’s fall and German unification two decades ago.
Arranged chronologically and thematically on 300 meters of vertical metal display walls, the exhibit guides viewers through rows of history in the shadow of Alexanderplatz’s famous TV tower and the Atomic-age Weltuhr (“world clock”) that dates from the ’60s. It’s the very place where a million people demonstrated for a free German Democratic Republic only five days before the boundary that had been so vehemently defended finally crumbled under popular pressure.
With detailed descriptions in both English and German, 700-odd photographs and a selection of film and sound clips depict how easterners began to dare to demand their freedom, beginning with East Berlin’s municipal election on May 7, 1989. That day, “99 percent” of votes went to Erich Honecker’s ruling SED party, the display indicates, but the blatant voter fraud was leaked and sparked the first waves of opposition.
The timeline goes on to cover important events and people through 1990, when even more problems cropped up, like what to do with the thousands of Stasi secret-police files, the tricky transition from Ostmarks to Deutschmarks in East German banks, and how to reallocate the vast amounts of real estate that had been claimed by the Communist state.
The exhibit is great way to spend a long afternoon in what is arguably the German capital’s strangest square (which also seems to be perpetually under construction). It also lends the city’s überhip eastern districts a context and depth that the post-unification period has mostly erased.
Make sure to reserve some time to really absorb the often fascinating, moving information: As Regina Mönch wrote in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, “The visitor is drawn into a time when a dissatisfied, torn society, which had always seemed obedient and conformist, claimed the freedom to decide its own destiny.”
Peaceful Revolution 1989/1990 is open 24 hours a day and free. Guided tours are available on Saturdays, and additional information is available at an on-site pavilion. www.mauerfall09.de
By Kimberly Bradley
New York Times
http://globespotters.blogs.nytimes.c...pagemode=print
BERLIN | When the Berlin Wall came down on Nov. 9, 1989, scenes of easterners streaming westward and Berliners dancing atop the breached concrete barricade were beamed around the world and burned into the collective memory.
But what led up to that momentous event? Through November 14 on Alexanderplatz, an outdoor exhibition called “Peaceful Revolution 1989/1990″ traces the trajectory of the dissent that helped bring about the wall’s fall and German unification two decades ago.
Arranged chronologically and thematically on 300 meters of vertical metal display walls, the exhibit guides viewers through rows of history in the shadow of Alexanderplatz’s famous TV tower and the Atomic-age Weltuhr (“world clock”) that dates from the ’60s. It’s the very place where a million people demonstrated for a free German Democratic Republic only five days before the boundary that had been so vehemently defended finally crumbled under popular pressure.
With detailed descriptions in both English and German, 700-odd photographs and a selection of film and sound clips depict how easterners began to dare to demand their freedom, beginning with East Berlin’s municipal election on May 7, 1989. That day, “99 percent” of votes went to Erich Honecker’s ruling SED party, the display indicates, but the blatant voter fraud was leaked and sparked the first waves of opposition.
The timeline goes on to cover important events and people through 1990, when even more problems cropped up, like what to do with the thousands of Stasi secret-police files, the tricky transition from Ostmarks to Deutschmarks in East German banks, and how to reallocate the vast amounts of real estate that had been claimed by the Communist state.
The exhibit is great way to spend a long afternoon in what is arguably the German capital’s strangest square (which also seems to be perpetually under construction). It also lends the city’s überhip eastern districts a context and depth that the post-unification period has mostly erased.
Make sure to reserve some time to really absorb the often fascinating, moving information: As Regina Mönch wrote in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, “The visitor is drawn into a time when a dissatisfied, torn society, which had always seemed obedient and conformist, claimed the freedom to decide its own destiny.”
Peaceful Revolution 1989/1990 is open 24 hours a day and free. Guided tours are available on Saturdays, and additional information is available at an on-site pavilion. www.mauerfall09.de
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