SHARE
COPY LINK

HISTORY

‘Spirit of optimism is gone’: Sombre mood as Germany marks 30 years of Berlin Wall fall

Germany marks three decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall this week, but a hint of a return of the Cold War and the rise of nationalism is dampening the mood.

'Spirit of optimism is gone': Sombre mood as Germany marks 30 years of Berlin Wall fall
Berliners at Brandenburg Gate on November 10th, 1989, a day after the Wall came down. Photo: DPA

Leaders of former Cold War powers will be absent from anniversary festivities, as Donald Trump's America First, Britain's Brexit and Russia's resurgence put a strain on ties.

Gone, too, is the euphoric optimism for liberal democracy and freedom that characterized the momentous event on November 9th, 1989, as Germany grapples with a surge in far-right support in its former communist states.

“The spirit of optimism” that we saw 30 years ago, or even five or 10 years ago, “is not perceivable” today, said Berlin's culture senator Klaus Lederer, whose office took the lead in putting together the capital's festivities for the week.

The mood is therefore “reflective, but we are celebrating”, he said. “We are looking back at history together, and we are also talking about the future.”

As a sign of the tense times, Germany will put on a sober political programme to mark the epochal event that led to reunification and brought down the Iron Curtain dividing a communist East from a capitalist West.

Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said the anniversary was a chance to remind Europe why it needs to stay united in the face of rising geopolitical tensions around the world.

“Exhortations from individual European capitals fall on deaf ears in Moscow, Beijing and, unfortunately, to an increasing extent also in Washington, DC,” he wrote in an op-ed carried in newspapers across the EU on Saturday.

“It is only Europe's voice that carries decisive weight. This is why unilateral action at the national level must finally be taboo in Europe.”

READ ALSO:

Serious tone

While the spotlight five years ago was on world leaders from Barack Obama to Mikhail Gorbachev, this time round, the central focus is on Europe itself.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen will set the tone with a speech on the eve of the anniversary at an event attended also by Chancellor Angela Merkel.

A gardener next to the wall in October. Photo: DPA

On November 9th itself, only central European presidents will headline the official ceremonies.

Merkel and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will be joined by his Polish, Czech, Slovak and Hungarian counterparts, in town to mark “the contribution of the central European countries to the peaceful revolution” that led to the collapse of the communist regime.

Merkel will speak at the Chapel of Reconciliation, which stands on the former Berlin Wall border strip.

Steinmeier, the moral arbiter of the country, will also make a speech at the Brandenburg Gate on the anniversary evening, before a series of concerts including by the prestigious Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

And US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who was stationed in Germany as a young soldier in 1989, will be in visiting from Wednesday but leave on the eve of the anniversary.

He meets Merkel and members of her cabinet on Friday, in meetings set to underline the growing divisions across the globe.

In a statement announcing his visit, Pompeo's office said talks with his counterpart Maas will “discuss the importance of our Transatlantic partnership and the need for strengthened engagement in the face of growing threats from Russia, China, and Iran.”

READ ALSO: November 9th: The day German history keeps being made

'Cold war is back'

While the fall of the Iron Curtain that divided post-war Europe had led to hopes of a liberal democratic era and arms dismantlement three decades ago, the mood has soured today.

Within the EU, cracks have appeared as former eastern bloc countries like Hungary or Poland are accused by Brussels of challenging the rule of law.

On a broader arena, Trump's go-it-alone stance on rejecting world treaties including on climate change and a nuclear disarmament deal with Iran has deeply shaken long-time allies in Europe.

Russia, meanwhile, is consolidating its foothold in the Middle East, while the US is also increasingly at odds with China.

For UN chief Antonio Guterres, “the Cold War is back — with a vengeance, but with a difference. The mechanisms and the safeguards to manage the risks of escalation that existed in the past no longer seem to be present.”

Gorbachev, who chose to stand aside instead of stopping the Wall from falling 30 years back, was also more pessimistic today.

Writing in his latest book, Gorbachev warned: “International politics is on an extremely dangerous trajectory… military operations currently have the characteristics of a real war.

By Yacine Le Forestier

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

TODAY IN FRANCE

France to compensate relatives of Algerian Harki fighters

France has paved the way towards paying reparations to more relatives of Algerians who sided with France in their country's independence war but were then interned in French camps.

France to compensate relatives of Algerian Harki fighters

More than 200,000 Algerians fought with the French army in the war that pitted Algerian independence fighters against their French colonial masters from 1954 to 1962.

At the end of the war, the French government left the loyalist fighters known as Harkis to fend for themselves, despite earlier promises it would look after them.

Trapped in Algeria, many were massacred as the new authorities took revenge.

Thousands of others who fled to France were held in camps, often with their families, in deplorable conditions that an AFP investigation recently found led to the deaths of dozens of children, most of them babies.

READ ALSO Who are the Harkis and why are they still a sore subject in France?

French President Emmanuel Macron in 2021 asked for “forgiveness” on behalf of his country for abandoning the Harkis and their families after independence.

The following year, a law was passed to recognise the state’s responsibility for the “indignity of the hosting and living conditions on its territory”, which caused “exclusion, suffering and lasting trauma”, and recognised the right to reparations for those who had lived in 89 of the internment camps.

But following a new report, 45 new sites – including military camps, slums and shacks – were added on Monday to that list of places the Harkis and their relatives were forced to live, the government said.

Now “up to 14,000 (more) people could receive compensation after transiting through one of these structures,” it said, signalling possible reparations for both the Harkis and their descendants.

Secretary of state Patricia Miralles said the decision hoped to “make amends for a new injustice, including in regions where until now the prejudices suffered by the Harkis living there were not recognised”.

Macron has spoken out on a number of France’s unresolved colonial legacies, including nuclear testing in Polynesia, its role in the Rwandan genocide and war crimes in Algeria.

SHOW COMMENTS