November 9, 1989
berlin-wall
November 9th 1989- The Fall of the Berlin Wall
Lichtgrenze, 8,000 illuminated balloons to recreate the Berlin Wall.
November 8 2014 - Palestinian activists affiliated with local popular resistance committees in the villages northwest of Jerusalem on Saturday broke open a hole in the separation wall to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
“No matter how high walls are built, they will fall. Just as the Berlin Wall fell, the wall in Palestine will fall, along with the occupation,” the popular committees said in a statement. [video]
Berliner Mauer 1961-1989
West Berliners climbing the Berlin Wall
Having heard about the opening of the border control points on the West German news, more and more West Berliners arrived at the Brandenburg Gate. At some point they started climbing the Wall, which was about 3 m broad in this place. They couldn’t be sure how the East German border guards would react, but nothing happened. More and more people climbed the Wall, started dancing and celebrating. After a while people started jumping down on the Eastern side of the Wall, thus entering another country without any passport or permission. Still, the East German officers didn’t do anything to stop them. After 40 years, people were strolling through the Brandenburg Gate again. (x)
Christoph 1990 & 2011||Berlin Wall
by Irina Werning
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the City has installed a series of lights that mark the old path of the partition. Would love a pint size version as a floor lamp in my office, but this isn’t about me.
Photos: Ina Gat
Lichtgrenze
8.000 glowing balloons were installed by the former course of the the wall and released into the sky to remember the 25th anniversary of the Fall of Berlin Wall . The temporary installation based on idea by Christopher Bauder and Marc Bauder.
The footage shot in Mauer Park. Special thanks to Seda Tunca…
So we come up to the end of 2014...
… and many people will say, ‘2014 went so fast’, ‘what, it’s 2015 already?, it was like 2008 yesterday’
But so many important things happened this year
So many important things
(Hong Kong Umbrella Riots, September 2014)
in which people united
to stand up for justice
(Malala wins the Nobel Peace Prize, December 2014)
to stand up for what they believe in
(Beyonce’s Feminist performance at the VMAs, August 2014)
a year when millions of us took to twitter to campaign against inequality
(YesAllWomen tweeted 1.2 million times in 2014 in response to NotAllMen)
(Eric Garner’s last words have been named ‘most notable quote of the year’, December 2014)
a year when we remembered those who fell in years past
(Poppies at the Tower of London mark 100 years since WWI, November 2014)
and paused to remember what once divided us
(25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall)
we also mourned many more recent loses
(Flight MH17 is shot down over Ukraine, 298 people die, June 2014)
(Michael’s Browns family at his Funeral, August 2014)
(Flowers are laid in Sydney after two hostages die at hands of gunman, December 2014)
(Ebola kills 7,373 and counting in Western Africa, 2014)
and prayed for those who are still missing
(Flight MH370 went missing, with 239 people on board, March 2014)
(219 school girls taken by Islamist extremist group Boko Haram remain missing, Nigeria, April 2014)
(43 students missing in Mexico are feared dead, November 2014)
But we cannot give up hope
(Gay marriage is legalised in Finland, one of many places to legalise it this year, December 2014)
(Protester in Thailand adopt Hunger Games Salute, October 2014)
(Laverne Cox is Glamour Woman of the Year in a groundbreaking first for Trans women)
nor the courage to say what we need to say
(Emma Watson’s He for She speech at the UN, September 2014)
(Ellen Page admits she is gay in a tearful speech, February 2014)
So when people say, ‘Nothing happened this year’
(The Scottish people vote ‘No’ for independence from Great Britain)
Remind them what happened this year
(We landed a probe on a comet! Philae lands, November 2014)
(A Baby with HIV is cured after a breakthrough drug treatment, June 2014)
Because 2014 was a year that happened
(Ellen’s Oscar Selfie breaks twitter, March 2014)
We all lived through it
(Protests continue throughout New York against racist police brutality, December 2014)
and now we have to remember it
(Germany wins the world cup in Rio)
because forgetting would mean it meant nothing
when 2014 was important
remember that
Remember it for those who cannot remember it for themselves
(Robin Williams, 1951-2014)
(Michael Brown, 1996-2014)
(The 288 people, mostly students, who died in a ferry accident in South Korea, May 2014)
So we can look ahead to 2015, knowing we have made mistakes, but also growing as people and continuing to do what is right
I hope you all have a great holiday season and a happy new year in peace, but please remember all those on this list that didn’t make it through this year. Thank you.
I miss Berlin
1989 - East German soldier passing a flower through the Berlin Wall before it was torn down
🔨 It’s 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall
As world marks 25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, Israel’s Wall has become a new global icon for oppression
Symbolically, the wall in Palestine is this century’s Berlin Wall, albeit four times as long as that hated Cold War icon and more than twice as high. Under construction since 2002, it is expected to eventually extend for 709 kilometers through the West Bank. A series of concrete slabs, barbed-wire “buffer zones”, trenches, electrified fences, watchtowers, thermal-imaging video cameras, sniper towers, military checkpoints and roads for patrol vehicles have dismembered the cities of the West Bank and segregated them from occupied East Jerusalem.
The wall defies international law as well as United Nations Security Council resolutions, and deviates considerably from the original boundaries demarcating land captured by Israel during the 1967 War. It is more than twice the length of the Green Line, Israel’s recognized border with the West Bank. Israel maintains that it is intended as a defense against terrorist attacks; Palestinians view it as a cynical, long-term maneuver aimed at annexing more land to Israel and inhibiting Palestinian movement within the Occupied Territories.
“A country is not only what it does, it is also what it tolerates"
LICHTGRENZE
25th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Palestinian activists make a hole in the Israeli West Bank wall, separating Israel and the West Bank, one day before the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, near the Bi'r Nabala neighborhood of Ramallah on November 8 2014. (Issam Rimawi/Getty Images)
October 3rd 1990: German reunification
On this day in 1990, Germany was officially reunited when the German Democratic Republic was abolished and incorporated into the Federal Republic of Germany. The country had been split into East and West Germany following its defeat in World War Two, and subsequent occupation by the victorious Allied powers. The United States, Britain and France controlled the Western Federal Republic of Germany, and the Soviet Union the Eastern German Democratic Republic. The Cold War era ‘iron curtain’ marking the Communist bloc began to falter in 1989, when East Germans used the removal of the Hungarian border fence to flee the oppression of Soviet rule for the safety of West Germany. Following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, which had divided the Western and Eastern sections of the German capital, calls for total reunification rose. Conservative pro-reunification parties won in the first free elections in Soviet-controlled East Germany, and worked to secure closer ties with the West. Economic union occurred in July 1990, followed by total political reunification in October under the government of West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. While rightly celebrated as a momentous event in German history, reunification came at the price of the economic collapse of the former East Germany, which plunged Germany into recession. The reunification of Germany was one the major events leading up to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Today, October 3rd, is celebrated in Germany as German Unity Day.
Traffic Jam near the Brandenburg Gate as thousands of East Germans move into West Berlin on the first Saturday after the fall of the Berlin Wall. November 1989
West / EastGermany, 25 Years Ago.