THE MYSTERY OF THE BERLIN WALL

In commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the building of the infamous Berlin Wall (13th August, 1961 -- 13th August, 2011), I am now posting this quick comment, reiterating in part a previously made comment (see my earlier posted entry Secret History Of The Iron Curtain), then a propos, but here at center-stage.

They say with good reason that perceptions are everything. Indeed, too often the reality of things and events is completely concealed behind their propaganda-induced or simply mistaken popular perceptions. The case of the Berlin Wall is one of a biased perception, supported by powerful imagery, a host of cold war legends built around it, by now too entrenched to be supplanted by any evidence to the contrary.

Was the Berlin Wall a bad thing or a good thing? A bad thing, of course!!! But was it all bad? There ought to be no “second opinion” on this, and yet there is.

There are two contrarian things to say on this subject, both amounting to the fact that the Berlin Wall might not have been such a bad thing, after all. First this:

It is very difficult for today’s audience, accustomed to the dominant negative symbolism of the Berlin Wall, to look beyond that symbolism, going back to the situation in Berlin before the Wall was built.

Does the phrase the Berlin Blockade ring a bell? The Soviet blockade of “West” Berlin in 1948-1949 was a reflection of the Soviet strategic desire to end the four-partite military occupation of Berlin, so that the city as a whole, located deep inside Soviet-controlled East Germany, would eventually bow to the inevitable and become completely dependent on the USSR. With this in mind, the formal status of military occupation of East Germany was lifted, and the Soviet sector of Berlin became the capital of GDR. Although the blockade failed, Moscow’s plan to control all Berlin did not die in 1949, but lingered on until… 1961!

Yes, indeed! The building of the Berlin Wall, whose somber anniversary is being commemorated today, has been a sign of Moscow’s recognition of West Berlin’s total independence from the GDR and Soviet control. It is easy to see it as a symbol of enslavement of the people of East Germany, who would now find it much more difficult to move to West Berlin, and I understand the legitimacy of such perception, but here we are coming to my second, more general point.

The Berlin Wall represented a forced physical division of Germany along the battle lines of the continuing Cold War. It is no news to anyone that Germany herself had no say in this matter, but I know from a number of very credible Germans, both East and West, that hardly any of them ever subscribed to such a division, but continued to view themselves as members of one German nation. It is therefore impossible to imagine that at any time during the Cold War any German would obediently acquiesce to a start of a hot World War III, immediately pitching a German against a German, and thus, in a kind of crooked way, the division of Germany had become a major impediment to a superpower war in Europe.

In this respect, the physical Berlin Wall, as a part of a larger Wall cutting one Germany into two unwilling parts, helped reduce the occurrences of provocation and sabotage by either side, or perhaps by an outside troublemaker, which might further jeopardize the already fragile coldwar peace, and thus served as a positive factor in keeping to a minimum the excesses of the superpower conflict in Central Europe.

…Mind you, I am not trying to downplay the human tragedy of the Berlin Wall. But things are not simple in this case, and, by the same token as I am willing to acknowledge the legitimacy of the public perception, the “second opinion” here expressed ought not to be dismissed either, as it reflects a crucial aspect of the reality of those seemingly distant times.