Three Berlins by David G. Marwell, Ph.D.
The following is an excerpt from a commencement address delivered by the author in 2009 to the graduates of Truro College, Berlin. Its title is borrowed from the example provided by Professor Fritz Stern’s memoir, The Five Germanies I Have Known, and it attempted to provide the new graduates with an example of how witnessing and remembering are important responsibilities and opportunities.
Fall of the Wall
In early November, my wife and children had returned to the States for a visit, where I was to join them for the Thanksgiving holiday. With no family obligations, I worked late at the Document Center on the evening of November 9th and happened to catch Guenther Schabowski’s now-famous news conference on the radio as I drove home from work. I will confess to you that I had no idea of its far-reaching significance as I made my way through the streets of Zehlendorf. Of course, neither did Schabowski or anyone else for that matter. When I arrived home, I turned on CNN and watched as the incredible scenes unfolded. Although my home in Grunewald was too far away for me to actually watch the streams of Trabis that poured into West Berlin, the atmosphere was electric.
The next day, I took Bus 29 all the way down the Kudamm and witnessed the throngs of people. There were huge lines surrounding all of West Berlin’s banks, which extended their hours to disburse the 100 DMark--Begrüssungsgeld--that each East German citizen was eligible to receive. Food markets were selling bananas at an alarming rate, and along the Wall itself, there were surreal scenes that are now familiar as they are represented in iconic pictures.
That weekend, as the world watched the historic events on television, I was present as the section of the Wall near Potsdamer Platz was removed by a crane, and Mayor Walther Momper, with his red scarf, marched across. The air was filled with the irregular cadence of chisels striking concrete around the city as the Wall began to fall victim to individual demolition efforts and souvenir collecting. Without exaggeration, this was the most dramatic event I could imagine ever witnessing.
German Reunification
On October 3, 1990, we entertained friends on our terrace in Grunewald and we could see and hear the fireworks in the distance celebrating the reunification of Germany. I had had a front-row seat and was able to observe one of the most interesting periods in modern history – the process that led to the reunification of Germany. The demise of the East Mark in June and the Two-Plus-Four Talks, which sought to put an end to the still-open issues of the Second World War and prepare for the reunification. I made contact with the Jewish community in East Berlin, giving a talk in their small meeting room in East Berlin and inviting a group to the BDC. I met with East German historians who were interested in access to the BDC, and I was invited to give a paper at the Akademie Der Wissenschaft in East Berlin.
In the fall of 1993, I was engaged in the negotiations for the transfer of the Berlin Document Center to the German Government. Although the transfer was being planned for many years before the reunification, the process was extremely sensitive and involved highly contentious issues of access and privacy. The negotiations took place in the former Foreign Ministry of the DDR. We successfully worked out a practical solution, which led to the formal transfer of the BDC, after its complete microfilming, to the German Federal Archives on July 1, 1994. The transfer marked the end of an era. The German government took control of this most important and sensitive collection of Nazi records -- it had assumed control of this memory and history.
My family and I returned home to the States later that month as the Allies were preparing to leave their posts in the formerly divided Berlin. Before the Allies left, however, we worked together to plan and build a museum to preserve the history of the Allied presence here and to tell its story. I was one of the founders of the Allied Museum, located in the former US sector, housed in its library and cinema, and for a few years before our departure, we collected material evidence of our presence in Berlin, including the iconic building from Checkpoint Charlie.
September 11th (2001)
Seven years later, in early September 2001, I returned to Berlin as a guest of the German government to attend the opening of the Berlin Jewish Museum. On the day after the gala opening -- on September 11th -- we learned of the attack on the World Trade Center.
The museum in New York City, of which I was the director at that time, was located just south of the World Trade Center, and my apartment at that time was located within five blocks of the twin towers; many of the televised images of that fateful day included scenes of my building. One of the most powerful amateur videos that aired repeatedly on television actually showed the second plane, which struck the south tower, as it passed over my apartment building. I received frantic emails from my staff describing the collapse of the towers, and I was convinced that among the many dead were certainly people whom I knew.
With no air transportation available to NY for days, I was stranded in Berlin for nearly a week. I was the grateful recipient of an outpouring of support and affection from German friends and colleagues, which made my forced isolation bearable. I recall during this short period in the direct aftermath of 9/11, a remarkable warmth and closeness in German-American relations that we had never seen and perhaps will never see again.
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History is unpredictable; indeed, the world can change beyond imagination as one watches, as it did more than once as I watched in and from Berlin. Erich Honecker’s prediction that the Wall would last a century more was off by more than 99 years and who would have thought that Lech Walesa, Vaclav Havel, and Joachim Gauck – all leaders of protest movements in their respective countries – would later become the presidents of those countries.
In our own lives, as we observe nature and the world around us, change occurs in gradual, nearly imperceptible ways. Although there are times when radical change comes upon us – the unexpected death of a loved one, the automobile accident – the course of our lives is generally marked by small, undramatic steps. It is, of course, the same with history. But at certain points, like the emergence of a violent movement, the fall of the wall, or the fall of the World Trade Center towers, history can usher in new and unimagined changes like ones I witnessed from my vantage point in the remarkable city of Berlin.
While we may all not be able to be significant actors in, we are all audience to, history. The act of witness brings with it opportunities and responsibilities. We all have a duty to be careful observers and an opportunity to make our observations a useful part of our lives.
by David G. Marwell, Ph.D.
Author of the book: Mengele: Unmasking the "Angel of Death"
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