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Moment that turned world history

Source: The Guardian

Nov 09, 2009

Summary

"Twenty eight years and 91 days!" said the elated east Berliner I met walking up the Friedrichstrasse soon after the wall was breached. On the day the Berlin Wall went up, 13 August 1961, his parents had wanted to go to the cinema in west Berlin, but he, then aged 11, had been too tired. Next morning, they awoke to the sound of tanks. In all his adult life, he had never been to the western half of his own city. He told me how moved he was by an improvised poster that read "only today is the war really over".

Remember, remember, the 9th of November: the night that ended the short 20th century. If I say "the fall of the wall", what image do you see in your mind's eye? An exultant crowd dancing atop a wall covered in colourful graffiti? But those were almost all westerners dancing on the wall, and they'd climbed up from the western side, which was the one covered in graffiti.

This night, in its essence, was not about them. It was about the men and women who for more than 28 years would have been mowed down before they got within graffiti-aerosol distance of the w

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