- Nick Robinson
- BBC “Today” presenter
image source,Getty Images
The children of the 1989 generation will not enjoy the same freedoms as their parents. Growing up, they stopped believing that war was just something that happened in the past.
Just over thirty years ago, I climbed the Berlin Wall, which for nearly three decades had torn apart countless German families and friends, divided the country, and crystallized the division of Europe.
On that exciting night in November 1989, I watched with bated breath, along with thousands, as a brave young man dared to leap from the wall into what was then “no man’s land.” Had he done so a few days ago, he would have been shot to join all those who have paid the price with their lives for daring to “try to bridge” the gap between East and West Germany. But he was not killed by the gun the night the wall came down.
He held out a flower to a bewildered East German soldier, who, after a pause, held out his hand and accepted the gesture of peace. The walled crowd cheered wildly.
image source,Getty Images
The fall of the Berlin Wall – the Potsdamer Platz border crossing in November 1989.
They, and we too – dreamed that Europe might be “free and whole” and that people might soon be free to choose who would govern their country, whether they lived in Berlin or Prague, Warsaw or Budapest; maybe, just Perhaps, people with this dream also live in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Now, I am back in Berlin. The city is facing the fact that this dream has been shattered by Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine and bomb the country’s civilian population.
image source,Reuters
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz
The current German leader, Chancellor Olaf Scholz, spoke of this as a historic turning point. In German, they use this word for a historical turning point (they have a word for everything): zeitenwende.
Scholz also announced that his country will now provide real military assistance to Ukraine.
Germany’s transformation
A few weeks ago, Scholz’s government was ridiculed for supplying 5,000 helmets to the Ukrainian army. And a leader of the German navy had to step down because he said that all Putin wanted in his invasion of Ukraine was respect, and he probably deserved it.
But the German chancellor has now pledged to increase the country’s defence budget by €100bn (£84bn). This means that the country will soon become the largest military power in Europe and the third largest in the world, after the United States and China.
Not long ago, the prospect would have created fear internationally and protests at home.
image source,EPA
The Russian Embassy in Germany, located in what used to be East Berlin.
As a young man, he called himself Nils Schmid, a member of the “Generation 1989”, who studied in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union. Today, he is a member of the German parliament and foreign affairs spokesman for the ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD). He told me that he and his countrymen now have to accept that the “iron curtain” dividing Europe has moved. Once, the Berlin Wall, which symbolized the “Iron Curtain”, was only a few hundred yards away from where he now works. Now, long after the wall has fallen, another wall has emerged on the border between NATO countries (whose defenses are guaranteed by the United States) and those that count on Moscow.
Opposite Mr. Smit’s office is the sprawling Russian embassy in Germany, in what used to be East Berlin. It is now under police protection, and the barricades are decorated with anti-war decorations by the population. A blanket, covered with soft toys, is on the ground, with the message to passersby: These could be your dead children in Ukraine.
There, I met Mike, a cyclist from the Black Forest in southwestern Germany. He was filming next to his Yamada bike, which he had repainted in the blue and yellow of the Ukrainian flag. He rode eight hours from southwest Germany to Berlin with a folder full of 600 messages for Putin from his German friends, neighbors and colleagues, calling on the Russian leader Stop the war now.
image source,Reuters
On March 14, Ukrainians lined up in Berlin to receive mobile phone cards.
However, Russian embassy staff refused to accept the letters. Mack said he’s starting to realize that talking to Russia — known in the past as a reconciliation strategy — isn’t enough. Berlin must now prepare to confront Moscow.
This means that the children of the 1989 generation will not enjoy the same freedoms as their parents. Growing up, they stopped believing that war was just something that happened in the past.
In fact, a recent German opinion poll showed that 70% of Germans are concerned about the spread of the war. This is not surprising. Because, as some say, Ukrainian refugees pushed out of their homes by the invasion are pouring from trains into Berlin’s stations at a rate of 10,000 a day.
In any case, this invasion by Moscow is reshaping the thinking of Europe’s most powerful country, and it will also have big consequences. And what the consequences will be, Germany has only just begun to think.
At least you have to be over 40 to remember the day the wall came down in November 1989. And these days of February and March 2022 are starting to become as important as those of ’89…