«20 years ago, the Berlin Wall came down» - November, 17th 2009
«20 years ago, the Berlin Wall came down» - November, 17th 2009
A colloquium commemorating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall was held on Tuesday, 17 November 2009, in the UIC Graduate Hall. The event was presided over by Enrique Banús, the Director of the Charlemagne Institute for European Studies (CIES) and the holder of the Jean Monnet Chair in European Culture. The speakers were Lluis Foix, former Editor-in-Chief of Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia, and Dieter Wendland, a graphic designer from Berlin who played an important role during the Wall's fall.
The UIC’s Charlemagne Institute for European Studies (CIES) commemorated the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall with a colloquium featuring speakers Lluís Foix and Dieter Wenland. Foix is a political analyst and former Editor-in-Chief of Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia .Wenland, a Berlin native, was one of the peaceful protesters barricaded in the Gethsemane Protestant Church located in East Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg neighbourhood from September 1989 until the Wall fell two months later.
Foix talked about the historical background of the fall of the Berlin Wall and how the events unfolded. He explained Berlin’s geostrategic importance and said that, “What happened in Berlin was more than just the fall of the Wall; it was the collapse of a failed communist system that could no longer sustain itself”. “It’s admirable how Germany has managed to erase the memory of the catastrophic events of that period,” he added.
Foix’s talk was followed by a speech from Wendland, who personally witnessed the historic event. The Berlin Wall was erected in 1961, when Wendland was 11 years old, and he saw how it divided his family. Two brothers were left on the western side of the wall while three stayed in the eastern side. “Imagine if a 4-metre wall were suddenly built in one of your major thoroughfares and you could only live on the side of the city where you were at the time,” said Wendland. “Imagine if there were dogs, armed guards and barbed wire all along the wall, and you could only communicate with your family and friends on the other side through letters and phone calls.”
“We couldn’t see the world; we had absolutely no vision of the world,” Wendland said. He explained how protests against a divided Berlin started in places such as Gethsemane Church. The church became a meeting place where “there were no confessions,” until the Berlin Wall finally fell.