The 25th anniversary of one of the most significant movements of the Twentieth Century is upon us. During the summer of 1989, a series of uprisings among the people living in the countries of the Soviet Bloc came to a culmination that November when one of the most visible symbols of the repression of freedom – the Berlin Wall – was torn down.

In the aftermath of WWII, the countries that had been overrun by Hitler’s Germany were redefined and new governments were elected. As the war was coming to an end in 1945, the Allied leaders of the USA, Great Britain and the USSR met at the Yalta Conference to give direction to post-war Europe. The idea was to allow the war-ravaged countries to vote on their own style of government. However, the eastern countries under the control of the Soviet military were coerced into puppet communist regimes that became satellites of the Warsaw Pact countries of the USSR. Germany had been invaded in the west by British and American troops. Eastern Germany had been taken by the Soviets. With the new lines defining east and west, Germany was split into two countries. It became a dividing line between new enemies in the Cold War. In the capital city of Berlin, well within the borders of East Germany, there was also a division between East and West Berlin. The wall, constructed by the East Germans in 1961, was in response to 3.5 million East Germans who had left the Soviet controlled section of the city for West Berlin. It began with coiled barbed wire. People still tried to make the crossing. It then led to a brick and concrete wall with guard towers and search lights. That led to machine guns posted in the towers. Over 5,000 people still made the crossing. Over 100 were killed attempting to make the journey to freedom.

In the mid 1980s, the Soviet Bloc began to fall apart from within. Many of the people in the satellite states began to challenge the oppression of the communists and overthrow their regimes. In the summer of 1989, former communist Hungary opened its borders with democratic Austria. This led to masses of East Germans crossing into West Germany via the Hungarian-Austrian borders. The Soviets were helpless to stop the mass exodus. Germans on both sides of the Berlin Wall were beginning to believe that Germany could become one again. But until the wall came down people were unable to move about freely. In September, demonstrations broke out all over Germany. On November 4, over 500,000 East Germans gathered at the public square known as the Alexanderplatz in East Berlin to protest the repression. Under tremendous pressure, at 10:45 p.m. on November 9, 1989, the Soviets opened the gates to allow persons to move through the wall freely. That night, both East and West Germans met at the wall to celebrate. Throughout the night, people began to chip away at the wall with sledgehammers, breaking out chunks of concrete. This led to wave after wave of people demolishing the wall piece by piece. Within days, bulldozers showed up. In a few weeks, the wall that was a symbol of repression was gone. The following October, East and West Germany were officially reunited with a democratic government.

The anniversary of the demolition of the Berlin Wall is a reminder that the will of people to throw off the shackles of oppression runs very deep. History teaches us that the struggle to live in freedom has long roots. However, we have turned a corner in our collective thinking in America. The land of the free is also being challenged from within, but it is not from the repression of an invading military bent on setting up a puppet government that is at the beck and call of the regime. It is from the muddled thinking that someone else can and should take care of all of us. I believe we have become bored with freedom. We are gladly laying our freedoms aside in exchange for governmental assistance. We have become a nation of slugs. As long as we don’t have to work to achieve anything great, we are happy with someone else paying our way. I grew up admiring great achievers in our society. It seems now that the great achievers are being blamed for the misery of those who remain unmotivated to do anything. We have grown so accustomed to expecting whatever we want, we have forgotten that there is a struggle to remain free. And this is what I truly fear – there is a price to pay for becoming subject to this way of thinking. Lying down and quitting has its consequences.

I believe the course we are on has to change. There is a line that, when crossed, I hope will bring us back to our senses. With many, that line is the sluggish economy that is the result of this wrong-headed thinking. With others, it is the political correctness that has pre-empted free speech rights. For others, it is the intrusion of governmental mandates into the most intimate areas of our lives and the lack of leadership to stand up and stop it. I don’t know exactly where that line will be crossed, but I hope when it does, people will wake up to the freedoms they have given away and turn the tide against it. I believe it must happen if we are to remain free. If not, we have simply put the shackles on ourselves. God help us if we do.

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Photo by Frank-Andree