In my opinion Socially East and West Germany was not successful in reunifying their cities. But, constitutionally they were successful.
Putting up the gate, to divide the East and West was a horrible decision. It divided friends, family, u-bann lines, lakes and rivers. In the East, you could not go to certain stations because they were too close to the wall. Those became ghost stations. Wanting the wall down was probable the one thing the East and the West could agree on. Could you imagine not being able to see your family just because they lived on a different side of town?
There were many factors leading up to the wall coming down 1990. One of those reasons was President Ronald Reagan put pressure on the Germans in his famous Berlin Wall speech in 1987. He exclaimed “Gorbatov Tear Down that Wall.” He also amped-up the Cold War rederick, by calling the Soviet Union an evil empire, because Reagan was fighting communism; which opened up doors to talk about the wall with the Soviet leader. The protests in 1981, was another thing that put pressure on them to open up the wall. Austria and Hungry had opened up their walls in August 1989. Lastly, on November 9, 1990 a reporter misreads from his script and states “the borders are open you may leave.” People from the East and West come running and break the wall down. On October 3, 1990, eleven months after the wall comes down there was reunification again.
They brought in artists to paint these murals on their once dividing wall, in order to reclaim the wall for their democracy. Many of the pictures stand for international solidarity, peace, and brotherhood.
I thought it was interesting how they thought that “for the West Germans nothing had changed after the wall came down, but for the East Germans everything had changed.” The West Germans came in and tried to change everything about the East Germans. The West tried to change the East Germans street signs, they tried to take down their monument of Lenin. Due to the West coming in thinking they were the “boss” and changing everything, the East decided to fight back. Funny enough the argument started over their street lights, because the East thought their street lights were friendly, and the West German’s lights looked mean. The East and the West did not agree on much, because they were raised very differently, due to the wall. Not so long ago there was a poll, and 66% of East German’s felt like they were being treated as second class citizens.
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