GERMANY’S AMBASSADOR to Ireland has described the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago today as the “most thrilling chapter” in German postwar history.
Ambassador Busso von Alvensleben was posted in Geneva in 1989 and only heard that the Berlin Wall had fallen early on November 10th, when a family friend called with congratulations.
For him, the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 had a private meaning: the chance to return to the historical family home in the Altmark region of eastern Germany, confiscated by the Red Army in 1945.
But the euphoria was soon dampened by a German court ruling that only property confiscated by East German authorities after 1949 would be returned; the Alvensleben home would not be returned, along with all other properties over 100 hectares seized before 1949.
Despite the ruling, Mr von Alvensleben leased agricultural land in the area for many years and worked with locals to gather and publish information about the region before 1945.
The ambassador says the events of 1989 took West Germany’s political leaders by surprise.
“I don’t think chancellor Kohl saw the wall would fall, his speeches from the time don’t give any clue,” he said. “But he had a tremendous gut instinct and intuition for making historical and even risky decisions.”
Mr Kohl’s 1990 promise of eastern “blossoming landscapes” was optimistic, the ambassador suggests, but it was an optimism shared around the world.
“We all expected Germany to be the new economic motor for another economic miracle,” he said.
Today, some eastern regions are still struggling with high unemployment and structurally weak local economies. “The unification process was such a complex business that few people, then or now, could conceive the effect it would have on individuals,” he said.
