The Wall Still Stands… Or Does It? Collective Memory of the Berlin Wall as

Represented in American and German Newspapers

A thesis presented to

the faculty of

the Scripps College of Communication of Ohio University

and the Institute for Communication and Media Studies of Leipzig University

In partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degrees

Master of Science in Journalism (Ohio University),

Master of Arts in Global Mass Communication (Leipzig University)

Katlin M. Hiller

August 2018

© 2018 Katlin M. Hiller. All Rights Reserved. This thesis titled

The Wall Still Stands… Or Does It? Collective Memory of the Berlin Wall as

Represented in American and German Newspapers

by

KATLIN M. HILLER

has been approved for

the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism,

the Scripps College of Communication,

and the Institute for Communication and Media Studies by

Michael S. Sweeney

Professor, E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, Ohio University

Scott Titsworth

Dean, Scripps College of Communication, Ohio University

Christian Pieter Hoffman

Director, Institute for Communication and Media Studies, Leipzig University

ii Abstract

HILLER, KATLIN M., M.S., Journalism; M.A., Global Mass Communication,

August 2018

3752360

The Wall Still Stands… Or Does It? Collective Memory of the Berlin Wall as

Represented in American and German Newspapers.

Director of Thesis: Michael S. Sweeney

Committee Members: Mirna Zakić, Patrick Merziger

The fall of the Berlin Wall is widely seen as one of the defining moments of international relations in the twentieth century. The thesis compares and contrasts how the

American and German narratives reconstruct and interpret the events of November 9,

1989 and its aftermath. The analysis presented here highlights some of the key distinctions in how American and German newspaper narratives are presented. In the

American newspapers, reports focus on anecdotal stories in an effort to humanize the event and connect their readers to something that may or may not impact their daily lives.

The German newspapers, in contrast, emphasize the facts and intricacy of the chronology of events. In both the American and German newspapers sample, there is a shift in perspectives between the 1990s and 2009 – in the years immediately following the fall of the Berlin Wall, the articles analyzed here overwhelmingly play into commonly lived memory, comparing the “then and now.” In 2009, however, articles speak of this event in a more metaphorical sense, using it as a moral lesson.

iii Dedication

To my grandparents, for encouraging me to see and understand the world for myself.

To my parents, for always supporting me, even when that means I live very far away.

And to my sister, for giving me a reason to always come home.

iv Acknowledgments

Writing this thesis would not have been possible without the advising of Drs.

Michael S. Sweeney, Mirna Zakić, and Patrick Merziger. I am beyond grateful for their expertise, their patience, and their willingness to work with me from around the globe.

v Table of Contents

Page

Abstract ...... iii Dedication ...... iv Acknowledgments ...... v Chapter 1: Introduction ...... 1 Chapter 2: Literature Review, Theory and Method ...... 8 Chapter 3: American Newspapers ...... 27 Chapter 4: German Newspapers ...... 55 Chapter 5: Discussion and Conclusion...... 90 References ...... 106

vi Chapter 1: Introduction

On December 1, 1990, a stereotypical staple of American cuisine made its way across the Iron Curtain to a small city called Plauen in the eastern German state of

Saxony. The first McDonald’s franchise opened in the former German Democratic

Republic (GDR) just over one year after the fall of the Berlin Wall. McDonald’s offered

Manfred and Brigitte Voight, a couple from Plauen, a twenty-year contract as well as assistance in financing the new franchise. After trying the food for the first time on a trip to Munich, they were sold. Little did the Voights know, this was just the first bite:

Fittingly, as the world contemplates all that happened 10 years ago this week, the Voights are vacationing in Florida, reflecting on a decade of blind luck, of East-West rivalry, of booms and busts, of capitalism devouring communism, of communists devouring cheeseburgers, and of teaching an entire nation of consumers to rise up and say “I want,” instead of merely asking, “Do you have?”1

Though the franchise had its ups and downs over the years, by 1994 the initial euphoria of the collapse of the GDR had worn off; as of November 1999, the Voights were close to serving their one millionth customer. But man does not live by fast-food alone. Many East Germans know that while fry-cooks working behind walls of plywood and plastic can serve up Big Macs within seconds, nourishment for the soul cannot be produced upon demand. The Zeitgeist of the pre-Mauerfall West had seemed delicious – for a while. But with it came many of the West’s problems, including, for some, the angst and anomie of the corporate state, captured in the cliché of a cartoon clown selling hamburgers made of interchangeable components. An entire generation of Germans raised in two distinct systems of government and ways of life were suddenly reunited and made to become one for the first time since the fall of the Third Reich in 1945.

1 After the collapse of Nazi Germany in 1945, the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union occupied postwar Germany. By 1949, the three Western powers had combined their sectors to form the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), and the

Soviet Union’s sector became the GDR. Berlin, Germany’s capital, which lay entirely in the Soviet sector, was similarly divided. In the 1940s and 1950s, both East and West

Germany worked to rebuild everything from morale to infrastructure after the devastation of the Second World War. In 1961, fearing western subversion and looking to stem the flood of citizens fleeing the communist east, the Soviets and East Germans erected a wall around the western sector of Berlin and along the East German-West German border.2

Over the next twenty-eight years, hundreds of individuals attempted to cross the

Wall from East to West – over, under, and through the barrier. While some would die in their efforts to leave the GDR, many would also be successful. For many Germans, the

Berlin Wall was an everyday reality. Concrete slabs and armed guards divided streets and bisected neighborhoods. In this way, the Wall served as an important symbol of the global divisions between the democratic West and the communist East. By the 1980s, the

Wall thus assumed a symbolic quality as a metaphor for the larger ideological struggle.

American leaders, such as Ronald Reagan, waged the Cold War not just in terms of walls, rifles, and tanks, but in ideological and moral terms as well. As the Cold War gained status in mainstream media and discourse, so too did the Berlin Wall. Then-President

Reagan gave a speech exemplifying this on June 8, 1982:

The decay of the Soviet experiment should come as no surprise to us. Wherever the comparisons have been made between free and closed societies – West Germany and East Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia, Malaysia and Vietnam – it is the democratic countries that are prosperous and responsive to the

2 needs of their people. And one of the simple but overwhelming facts of our time is this: of all the millions of refugees we've seen in the modern world, their flight is always away from, not toward the Communist world. Today on the NATO line, our military forces face east to prevent a possible invasion. On the other side of the line, the Soviet forces also face east to prevent their people from leaving.3

Reagan’s speech helps to build the framework for memory based on a moral telling of the

Cold War. Within this framework, the Wall became a symbol, especially in the U.S., for the moral bankruptcy of the communist system and the inherent superiority of democracy.

On November 9, 1989, the previously unthinkable happened: The Berlin Wall, part of the Iron Curtain that divided East and West for almost four decades, was opened.

Families that had been separated by the Wall’s erection in 1961 were reunited, travel restrictions were lifted, and the visual symbol of the ideological divide between East and

West was carved up with hammers and pickaxes. Though November 9, 1989, has gone down in history as the date that began communism’s downfall, a previous crack in the

Iron Curtain helped spur the events that would change the face of Europe as the twentieth century came to a close. In spring 1989, the border between Austria and Hungary was dismantled and East Germans were able to legally immigrate to the West via this route.

By September 1989, more than 10,000 East Germans had done so.4 After the fall of the

Berlin Wall a couple of months later, the subsequent disintegration of the socialist GDR, and the rapid reunification of Germany made official with the German Reunification

Treaty in October 1990, the issue of re-establishing a single German identity penetrated national discourse and generated a multitude of questions about what it really meant to be an East German and what a redefined, shared identity would mean for the memory of a

3 country that existed for fewer than fifty years. To this day, divides exist, says a New York

Times article from February 13, 2018: “The concrete blocks have come down. But walls remain, in people’s heads.”5

Nearly thirty years after November 9, 1989, what has the world remembered, as the public and their media continue to search for meaning about the past? This thesis will examine selected United States- and Germany-based newspapers published in the days leading up to the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. A total of six newspapers were selected for the current study, three American and three German. Five of the six were selected for their sizable circulations, variety of perceived ideological alignment, and thus perceived influence on collective memory. The sixth newspaper was selected because it was founded in the Soviet Zone of Occupation, published throughout the years of the GDR, and is still in print today. This newspaper presents a perspective that the other five, Western-based newspapers, could not possibly provide. The newspapers’ news and feature stories were analyzed for examples of journalistic understanding of American and German collective memory of the GDR. That is, what it meant to live in the GDR and transition to a new system after the fall of the Berlin Wall, how the Wall itself was seen and interpreted in the decades after its fall, and how various newspapers frame this information over time for their diverse audiences.

“Collective memory” is a term used to describe the construction of memories on a group level, rather than individual. Groups select, share, and negotiate meaning for mental images in the present to form collective memories of the past.6 While these memories may include historically accurate events and information, they are also tainted

4 by time and the collective perspective that organized and catalogued them. Newspapers are particularly suited to collective memory studies, as they are an influencing factor in how a culture or country builds and records its memory. The analysis of the selected articles focuses on how the American and German narratives each reconstruct the past and pay particular attention to the common themes and emphases of these two sets of articles.

Chapter Two will present additional background related to collective memory and identity in both divided and reunited Germany, theoretical background about collective memory and its role in the formation of modern German history, and detail the methodology used in the present study. Chapter Three will describe the American newspapers sample, categorizing the selected articles by various themes found in the texts. Chapter Four will do the same for the German newspapers sample, comparing and contrasting this perspective to that of the American articles chapter. The articles presented in Chapters 3 and 4 exemplify some of the key distinctions in how American and German newspapers presented different narratives surrounding the fall of the Berlin

Wall and its anniversaries. In the American newspapers, reports focus on anecdotes in an effort to humanize an event both geographically and chronologically distant from their readers. German newspaper reports provide a more fact- and detail-heavy retelling of the events of November 9, 1989, in lieu of setting the stage with a dramatic anecdote as many of the American articles do. While the German articles share numerous individuals’ recollections from November 9, 1989, editorializing by the newspapers seems to be more prominent in the American newspapers sample. In both American and German

5 newspapers, a shift in tone and perspective can be seen between the articles published in the 1990s versus those published in 2009. Rather than Chapter Five will provide an in- depth comparison of the newspaper content in general and present conclusions.

The iteration of collective memory analyzed here is important to study because it allows for comparison of American and German collective memory of a singular event.

This comparison allows for a broadening of world views and provides an opportunity for future generations to understand how discourse regarding the fall of the Berlin Wall has evolved with time. The Voights’ success with their McDonald’s franchise was not necessarily a common experience for East Germans after the fall of the Wall, but this and other stories depicted here allow readers to get a sense of how the world came to terms with and interpreted the events of November 9, 1989 and its aftermath.

NOTES

1 Roger Thurow, “McHistory Lesson: For East German Pair, McDonald’s Serves

Up an Economic Parable – The Wall Fell, the Voights Got a Franchise, but It Isn’t Just

Buns and Games Seeing Green in Red Habits,” Wall Street Journal (New York, NY),

Nov. 8, 1999.

2 The history of the erection and fall of the Berlin Wall has been told in many books and articles. Among them are: Henry Ashby Turner, Germany from Partition to

Reunification (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992); Dietrich Orlow, A History of

Modern Germany: 1871 to Present (Boston: Pearson, 2012); V.R. Berghahn, Modern

6

Germany: Society, Economy and Politics in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1982). Nick Hodgin and Caroline Pearce, eds. The GDR

Remembered Representations of the East German State Since 1989 (Rochester, NY:

Camden House, 2011).

3 Ronald Reagan, “Speech to the House of Commons,” (speech, House of

Commons, London: June 8, 1982), Modern History Sourcebook, https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/1982reagan1.asp.

4 Walter Mayr, “Cutting the Fence and Changing History: Hungary’s Peaceful

Revolution,” Spiegel Online, May 29, 2009.

5 Katrin Bennhold, “Germans Quietly Pass an Equinox of Unity, but the Walls

Remain,” New York Times (New York, NY), February 13, 2018.

6 See Maurice Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, (Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 1992).

7 Chapter 2: Literature Review, Theory and Method

Literature Review

Much of the available literature related to Germany and collective memory comes back to the idea of Vergangenheitsbewältigung, or the process of coming to terms with the past.1 In many cases and in its original meaning, this specifically refers to Germany’s reassessment of its years under Nazism, both during the division of Germany in 1945 into what would become the GDR and the FRG, and in the years after reunification. As a result, much of the existing English-language literature related to Germany and collective memory is linked to the country’s memorialization of the crimes of the Nazi era rather than the memory of the GDR. In a recent article in Foreign Affairs, Richard Evans suggests that reexamining the Nazi past in the 1990s actually aided in the reunification efforts: “Germans had to find a new source of national identity beyond the liberal democratic values or communist visions that had shaped the respective political cultures on either side of the Berlin Wall.”2 As evidenced by much of the published scholarship, the ideas of national identity and that of collective memory in Germany are not often separated. The need for a collective national identity after reunification goes hand in hand with defining the country’s unified history and thus the widely acknowledged version of history that is shared in mass media and via education. The researcher found few newspaper-based studies of collective memory in Germany,3 so the following paragraphs focus on the literature that does exist related to shaping identity and memory in the years of the GDR and during German reunification in the 1990s.

8 The East and West German governments shaped their own cultures and redefined their collective memories during the years of their separation (in this case, arguably 1945-

1990), and while their manner differed somewhat, their motivations did not. Rather:

The master narrative that informed the societies of the two new states had the same goal, namely to try and make sense of the catastrophic National Socialist period and the Second World War and the trauma of German division, but also to exonerate a large percentage of their populations and integrate them into the new system. Both postwar states claimed to have drawn the correct conclusions from the historical catastrophe, and each accused the other of continuities with National Socialism.4

A sizable amount of English-language scholarship on German identity development focuses on the FRG and its alignment with the West; scholarship related to the development of identity in the GDR is not as widely available in English-language texts. In highlighting relevant scholarship related to the development, implementation, and memory of East German identity, three areas of importance can be discerned: formation and development of a new identity by the state, enforcement of this identity and ideological continuity during the existence of the GDR, and the importance of memory and treatment of history in both West and East leading up to and following

German reunification in 1990.

Redesigning national identity was paramount in the years after the fall of the

Third Reich, most prominently from the late 1940s through the early 1960s as the divide between East and West Germany was emphasized through the erection of the Berlin Wall in August 1961. Scholars’ treatment of the development of a national identity in the GDR focuses considerable attention on its juxtaposition with the FRG. Guntram H. Herb, historian and professor at Middlebury College in Vermont, defines national identity as a

9 form of collective memory.5 Herb claims that the GDR needed to both separate itself from the FRG and simultaneously “show the development of a separate nation despite common roots in the German national movement of the 19th century, a movement that was centered on the cultural unity of all Germans in Central Europe.”6 Though the most obvious point of separation between East and West at this time lies in their communist and capitalist systems, every element of both East and West German society was redesigned to fit with its ideological mold, from its national anthem to its treatment of history (specifically that of the Nazi past) and official memoirs of its citizens.

One example of this is found in the two nations’ national anthems. In its quest for legitimacy on the world’s stage, East Germany commissioned its own national anthem,

Auferstanden aus Ruinen (“Risen from Ruins”), which was meant to “communicate the principles of peace and reconstruction” through both the mood of its melody and its lyrics.7 The text of this new anthem was displayed prominently on banners in the streets and taught in schools to extend its radius of exposure as far as possible. West Germany, on the other hand, chose to adapt Deutschlandlied (“Song of Germany”), the anthem also used by the Nazis. The symbolism of Auferstanden aus Ruinen set it apart from its predecessor, and mandatory participation in the singing of this new East German-specific anthem was intended to manufacture a sense of unity and community among the population.8

The treatment of history and the development of selective memory to serve the official East German narrative meant that all issues and events were filtered through the lens of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). Much of the related scholarship

10 refers specifically to the manner in which the FRG and GDR decided to deal with Nazi past, which proved to be a point of contention between the two Germanys. According to historian Jeffrey Herf, while the West eventually acknowledged the burdens and obligations of the Nazi past and individuals were made to face consequences in their professional lives, the East (first as the Soviet Zone of Occupation then later as the GDR) prioritized contemporary behavior and expertise instead of focusing on a person’s actions during the years of the Third Reich.9 Handling the Nazi past was not the SED’s only concern. Figures and movements in German history, such as “the progressive legacy of

Beethoven, the social struggle in the early sixteenth century of peasants and of Thomas

Müntzer against the authoritarian Reformation of the princes and Martin Luther,” and more were cherry-picked to reinforce the party’s idea of the legacy of international socialism.10 Erich Honecker, while serving as general secretary of the SED, sought to commemorate selected German national history and reinvent selected prominent historical Germans as protosocialists “in a dual attempt to conjoin past and present as well as citizen and state.”11 The SED also worked to deepen its own historical narrative and collective memory through popular literature and the publication of long-time communists’ biographies and memoirs that aligned with the vision of the state. These biographies often told the stories of average (but notable) people, such as Ruth Werner, a woman who spent twenty years as a Soviet spy in China, Poland, Switzerland and

England, and Sepp Hahn, a man who detailed atrocities committed by SS officers while he was an inmate at the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp during the Nazi years.12 This made their experiences and sympathies relatable to the average East German, even if they

11 primarily served as tools of propaganda and historical manipulation. This confirmed the idea of the GDR as the so-called “people’s state,” furthering the state’s quest for legitimacy.

Historical treatment of the GDR in the years immediately after reunification

“began to prioritize certain themes – political structures and the apparatus of coercion, crimes and terror, and the victims.”13 In a manner not terribly unlike that of the SED’s management of Germany’s Nazi past, scholars in the years after the fall of the Berlin

Wall have used similar methods to frame the GDR. The GDR has been exaggerated and dramatized for film and creative license, and for the amusement of the general public. In a reflection on his upbringing and role as a filmmaker from East Germany, Andreas

Dresen said that “films like ‘Good Bye Lenin!’ and ‘Sonnenallee’ have turned the East

German past into blockbuster material, painting an exaggerated, allegorical, and humorous portrait of life in the GDR.”14 Sonnenallee is a coming-of-age story set on a street in Berlin that is divided by an East-West checkpoint. Good Bye Lenin! is a film about a young man (Alex) whose mother wakes up from a coma shortly after the fall of the Wall. Due to her condition, doctors say she should not experience any shock, so Alex tries to re-create the GDR so she does not find out that it no longer exists. The desire to invoke nostalgia about the positive elements of East German society was also present in popular culture. A discussion of various museum exhibits and their role in striving “to preserve, instruct, and dignify life in the GDR” implies that the culture of this short-lived country needs to be dignified in the eyes of Westerners, toward whom the author believes that these exhibits are primarily targeted.15 The portrayal of the GDR’s identity as

12 something to be ashamed of or to need to justify or explain serves to complicate the memories people have about life in East Germany.

Another important aspect of post-1989 German memory stems from debates in the post-unification period regarding how to remember both the Nazi and GDR pasts.

This was further complicated by both Eastern and Western perspectives, which simultaneously had to create a unified narrative. Historian Caroline Pearce refers to this merging of histories as handling Germany’s “triple past,” a phrase that she claims to be more accurate than that of “double past” used in other texts because of its accounting of the Nazi past, the GDR past, and the FRG past as distinct historiographies.16 Pearce also notes that in emphasizing the Nazi past in the post-reunification treatment of history,

“victims of the post-1945 period may feel that their experiences are being downplayed.”17

Similarly, overemphasizing negative aspects of daily life and society also creates inaccurate representations of the GDR. As the United States and Germany continue to reexamine their shared past, numerous books and articles look to define the representations of Germany in the years leading up to and following reunification.18

Theoretical Background

“Collective memory” is the term coined by French sociologist Maurice

Halbwachs to describe the construction of memories beyond the personal: Groups select, share, and negotiate meaning for mental images in the present time to form collective memories of the past.19 For example, no living American has memory of George

Washington, the first president of the United States. But collective memories, shared

13 through interpersonal and mass communication, depict him as simple yet mythic. Some of these “memories” (as opposed to facts) are known to virtually all Americans. These include Washington chopping down his father’s cherry tree and then refusing to lie about it when confronted; his being the “father of our country”; and his having wooden teeth.

Other memories are downplayed: that he kept slaves, that he led British troops during the

French and Indian War (known as part of the Seven Years’ War in Europe), and that he lost more battles than he won as a leader of the colonial rebellion.20

According to journalism historian Janice Hume, collective memory is a rather popular and robust topic for media researchers.21 It is used to create a model of society, as well as a way for individuals to find meaning for their experiences and put these experiences into a modern context. Media heavily influence the manner in which a country or a culture builds its memory,22 and in part because of this, newspapers are particularly suited to the study of the evolution of collective memory. In her seminal essay “Journalistic Uses of Collective Memory,” Jill A. Edy wrote:

It has become a cliché to assert that journalists write the first draft of history. Far less attention has been paid to who does the rewrites. Yet this “memory work” is extremely important. As our society continues to dissect itself into small, competing groups, our possession of a past in common may be one of the few ties that bind us as a whole. Collective memory, the meaning that a community makes of its past, is home to critical aspects of political culture, community tradition, and social identity. It informs our understanding of past events and present relationships, and contributes to our expectations about the future. Frequently, for the narratives of the past that have important impacts on our collective memory, later drafts of history are also written by journalists. The media are unique in their ability to reach huge communities simultaneously. . . . If we are to understand how our past is made meaningful for us in the media, and how our political traditions, culture, and identity are handed down to us, we must explore the ways in which journalists use and reconstitute the past.23

14 While newspapers are particularly suited to this type of study, it is also important to note that eastern Germans “operate in a [media] world in which the media’s prevailing view of them is as an unknown, ‘foreign’ group” and that, according to Thomas Ahbe, this media primarily support western German identities.24 Nevertheless, this should not deter a study such as the present one because of the fact that the former East was westernized after the fall of the Wall.

Collective memory theory should not be confused with communicative memory theory, which according to Jan Assmann, “is not supported by any institutions of learning, transmission, and interpretation; it is not cultivated by specialists and is not summoned or celebrated on special occasions; it is not formalized and stabilized by any forms of material symbolization; it lives in everyday interaction and communication and, for this very reason, has only a limited time depth which normally reaches no farther back than eighty years, the time span of three interacting generations.”25 An article published in 2014 in Medijske Studije (“Media Studies”) a Croatian journal, looks at the role of mass media in communicative memory and uses the GDR as a case study. In this case, the authors say that mass media impacts communicative memory, but that media content plays a role in shaping collective memory.26 As communicative memory is created and passed on orally, this study “used focus groups in order to ascertain the communicative memory of Germans today and the influence of mass media’s coverage of the GDR on their image of the GDR.”27 Thus, the use of newspaper content cultivated by professional journalists, disqualifies communicative memory per Assmann’s definition as an appropriate theoretical framework for use in the present study while mass media’s

15 perceived influence on public opinion further justifies the use of collective memory theory in the present study.

The initial search for articles focused more narrowly on public memory of the

Berlin Wall itself; however, this search did not yield a large enough sample of newspaper articles. The search was expanded to include articles that looked at the many ways that the fall of the Berlin Wall altered physical and human geography. With this in mind, the author aimed to examine more modern representations of Germany’s past, this time focusing on the years after the reunification of the two Germanys. In curating this perspective, this study intends to bring to light the manner in which journalists tried to make meaning out of the East German experience, the emotional events of its expiration, and the reunified country that had to redefine itself yet again at the end of the twentieth century.

Method

The author collected, read, and analyzed available accounts of the fall of the

Berlin Wall in selected German and American newspapers during narrowly defined windows of time. Analysis of these articles focused on the ways in which the two narratives (American and German) reconstructed the past, by way of their memorial coverage around the fall of the Berlin Wall. Particular attention was focused on the common themes – the emphasis – of these two sets of articles, and how they compare and contrast. The author investigated how newspapers’ construction of this history is shaped

16 and how the choices might affect the U.S. and German collective memories of the difficult postwar years.

As Germany is a country reflecting on its own divided history, the use of German media in this study is clear. The relative press freedom in the United States, its status as a world superpower, its role in rebuilding postwar Europe, and its juxtaposition with the

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) as the main exhibitors of capitalist vs. communist ideologies during the Cold War provides justification for the inclusion of

American newspapers in this study as well. The United States was one of four occupying powers in Germany in 1945, and its sector became part of the FRG in 1949 along with the British and French sectors. The U.S. Marshall Plan, founded in 1948 and aimed at reviving the European economy and expanding the market for U.S. goods, provided about $13 billion to Western European nations, including West Germany. It represented a shift in U.S. policy from punishing and/or deindustrializing Germany to rebuilding the country. However well-intended the Marshall Plan was, its acceptance by the West but not by the East did contribute to the increasing divide between the Western zones of occupation and the East, prior to the official separation of the two Germanys.28 The

United States was involved in significant events leading to the formation of the FRG and the GDR in September 1949 and October 1949 respectively, including the Berlin Airlift.

At the U.S.’s urging, the Western powers launched the airlift, in which food and fuel resources were delivered via a narrow air corridor to West Berlin after the Soviets cut off land-based access (the “Berlin Blockade”) from June 1948 to May 1949. According to

Nigel Bushnell and Angela Leonard, “West Berlin had suddenly been transformed from

17 being a symbol of the Nazi dictatorship to a city where Western democratic values needed to be protected by Western allies.”29 Thus, the perspectives about the GDR articulated in U.S. newspapers, with the context of the U.S.’s role in supporting the FRG during the years of separation, justify their relevance to the present study.

Articles relating to the fall of the Berlin Wall and its interpretations were selected from major German and American newspapers on specific anniversaries of the initial opening of the Wall. This created a sample spanning approximately twenty years, and included (as available) coverage from November 1 through November 10 in 1990-1999, and 2009. The research is thus primed for a follow-up study in November 2019, after the thirtieth anniversary of this historical event. Newspapers used in this study were selected in part because of the researcher’s access to the print edition of these newspapers (in hard copy, microfilm, or via online resources such as Newspapers.com or ProQuest), their high circulation and thus assumed impact on collective memory, and their perceived variety of ideological alignment. They were:

• German newspapers: die Süddeutsche Zeitung (center left), die Frankfurter

Allgemeine Zeitung (center right), and die Junge Welt (left)

• American newspapers: The Wall Street Journal (right), The New York Times

(center left), and The Chicago Tribune (center right)

Die Süddeutsche Zeitung (published in Munich), die Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

(published in Frankfurt am Main), and die Junge Welt (published in Berlin) were selected for this study because of their extensive circulation and their perceived influence on a variety of ideological populations in Germany. Die Junge Welt, specifically, was selected

18 because it was founded in 1952 in the then-Soviet Zone of Occupation (which later became the GDR) and to this day remains a leftist publication in Germany.30 The perspective that this newspaper offers is unlike any other in this sample, as it is the only newspaper in the present sample that was published under a communist regime, the aftermath and perception of which this study investigates. Die Süddeutsche Zeitung and die Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung were selected because of their high circulation and thus perceived influence on German collective memory, and because of their widely perceived ideological alignment.31 This is not the first time several of these newspapers have been used for comparison; in 1997, an article published in the American

Sociological Review utilized die Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and die Süddeutsche

Zeitung to represent the centrist and left-leaning printed media in Germany, respectively.32 This same article utilized both The New York Times and The Wall Street

Journal in its analysis as well. Both of these newspapers were selected for their circulations, but also for their left and right leaning audiences, respectively.33 The

Chicago Tribune, while also boasting a high circulation, was selected because of the ancestry of a significant part of its population: German-Americans, who according to a

2015 article published in The Economist, make up America’s largest single ethnic group

(if Hispanics are divided into Mexican-American, Cuban-American, etc.), the Midwest region being one in which this population is heavily concentrated and is the largest ethnic group in most of the counties in these states.34

The articles from American newspapers were selected using a keyword search on two online databases, ProQuest (The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal) and

19 Newspapers.com (The Chicago Tribune). Various combinations of terms were experimented with, but ultimately “Berlin Wall” and “Fall of the Wall” were the search terms utilized in the final gathering of the American newspaper articles in the present sample. Any articles that only referenced the Berlin Wall in passing or were not directly related to its fall or the aftermath of this historical event were not included in the final sample. In addition, there were also several years missing from each section of the sample. A review of the dates and newspapers in question in the microfilm archives at

Ohio University returned no related material during these dates. The online searches for

The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal via ProQuest both turned out text-only files, so the microfilm archives at Ohio University were also used to pull the original articles from their spaces on the pages of each newspaper (based on page information provided by the digital, text-only results), in order to read the official printed version.

There were several years of content missing from the American articles sample, namely

1995-1997 from The Chicago Tribune. Initial searches found 39 articles in The Chicago

Tribune, 185 results in The New York Times and 112 results from The Wall Street

Journal. After redundancies and articles that were not actually significant to the present study were eliminated, 47 articles total were selected for the American newspapers analysis: 16 from The Chicago Tribune, 13 from The New York Times, and 18 from The

Wall Street Journal.

The articles from the German newspapers were collected differently, as the researcher had access to printed editions of the selected papers through the Universität

Leipzig Institut für Kommunikations- und Medienwissenschaft

20 Pressarchiv/Bibliothekarischer Handapparat. A digital archive of all of the aforementioned newspapers was not available. The newspapers were pulled from the archives for the dates selected, and manually searched by the author. The search was limited to titles, images, and the first few paragraphs of each article in the news and feature sections (plus any special inserts included related to the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall), so as to create a sample similar to that of the American newspapers.

There were several years of newspapers missing from the archive (1990 and 1991 for both Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Junge Welt). After redundancies and articles that were not significant to the present study were eliminated, 93 articles total were selected for the analysis of German newspapers: 45 from Süddeutsche Zeitung, 27 from

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and 21 from Junge Welt.

To complete the following analysis, the author read each article once through in its native language during the process of selection, marked the articles that actually fit the desired sample, reread them, and selected a group of articles to best illustrate the arguments presented here. In the case of the German newspapers, much of the relevant information was also manually translated from German to English for the author’s ease of writing and to verify the author’s understanding of the content of the texts (this limitation will be discussed further in the last chapter of this thesis). The author then divided the articles into categories based on their primary focus and tone, thus constructing the organization of the following chapters.

NOTES

21

1 Werner Wertgen, Vergangenheitsbewältigung: Interpretation und

Verantwortung (Munich, Germany: Schöningh, 2001).

2 Richard J. Evans, “From Nazism to Never Again: How Germany Came to

Terms with Its Past,” Foreign Affairs 97, no. 1 (2018): 13.

3 For example, see: Hongtao Li, Chin-Chuan Lee, “Remembering Tiananmen and the Berlin Wall: the Elite U.S. Press’s Anniversary Journalism, 1990-2009,” Media,

Culture & Society 35, no. 7 (2013): 830-846; Rachel Somerstein, “Picturing the Past: The

Berlin Wall at 25,” International Communication Gazette 79, no. 8 (2017): 701-721.

4 Thomas Ahbe, “Competing Master Narratives: Geschichtspolitik and Identity

Discourse in Three German Societies” in The GDR Remembered: Representations of the

East German State Since 1989, ed. Nick Hodgin and Caroline Pearce (Rochester, NY:

Camden Books, 2011), 221.

5 Guntram H. Herb, “Double Vision: Territorial Strategies in the Construction of

National Identities in Germany, 1949-1979,” Annals of the Association of American

Geographers 94, no. 1 (2004): 141.

6 Ibid.

7 Margarete Myers Feinstein, State Symbols: The Quest for Legitimacy in the

Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, 1949-1959 (Boston,

MA: Brill Academic Publishers Inc., 2001), 133.

8 Ibid.

22

9 Jeffrey Herf, Divided Memory: The Nazi Past and the Two Germanys

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 282.

10 Sebastian Gehrig, “Cold War Identities: Citizenship, Constitutional Reform, and International Law Between East and West Germany, 1967-1975,” Journal of

Contemporary History, 49, no. 4 (2014): 794.

11 Paul Betts, “The Twilight of the Idols: East German Memory and Material

Culture,” The Journal of Modern History 72, no. 3 (September 2000): 736.

12 Catherine Epstein, The Last Revolutionaries: German Communists and Their

Century (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), 197-99.

13 Ahbe, “Competing Master Narratives,” 223.

14 Andreas Dresen, “The GDR at the Movies: Reality and Myth,” New Zealand

International Review 35, no. 3 (May/June 2010): 29-30.

15 Daphne Berdahl, “‘(N)Ostalgie’ for the Present: Memory, Longing, and East

German Things” in Ethnos 64, no. 2 (1999): 201.

16 Caroline Pearce, “An Unequal Balance? Memorializing Germany’s ‘Double

Past’ since 1990” in The GDR Remembered: Representations of the East German State

Since 1989, ed. Nick Hodgin and Caroline Pearce (Rochester, NY: Camden Books,

2011), 173.

17 Ibid.

18 Notable examples include: Brian C. Etheridge, Enemies to Allies: Cold War

Germany and American Memory, (University of Kentucky, 2016); Robert P. Grathwol,

23

Donita M. Moorhus, and Douglas J. Wilson, Oral history and postwar German-American relations: resources in the United States (Washington, D.C.: German Historical Institute,

1997); Mary N. Hampton, The Wilsonian impulse: U.S. foreign policy, the alliance, and

German unification (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996); Eric Langenbacher, Power and the

Past: Collective Memory and International Relations (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown

University Press, 2010); Catherine Epstein, "East Germany and Its History since 1989."

The Journal of Modern History, 75, no. 3 (September 2003): 634-61. doi:10.1086/380240.

19 See Maurice Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, (Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 1992).

20 See Barry Schwartz, “Social Change and Collective Memory: The

Democratization of George Washington,” American Sociological Review 56, no. 2

(1991): 221-36, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2095781.

21 Janice Hume and Amber Roessner, “Surviving Sherman’s March: Press, Public

Memory, and Georgia’s Salvation Mythology,” Journalism and Mass Communication

Quarterly 86, no. 1 (Spring 2009): 123-24.

22 Andreas Huyssen, Twilight Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia

(New York: Routledge, 1994), 4-5.

23 Jill A. Edy, “Journalistic Use of Collective Memory,” Journal of

Communication 49, no 2. (Spring 1999): 71.

24

24 Thomas Ahbe, “Competing Master Narratives: Geschichtspolitik and Identity

Discourse in Three German Societies” in The GDR Remembered: Representations of the

East German State Since 1989, ed. Nick Hodgin and Caroline Pearce (Rochester, NY:

Camden Books, 2011), 237-38.

25 Jan Assmann, “Communicative and Cultural Memory” in Cultural Memory

Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook (New York: 2008), 109-118.

26 Michael Meyen and Senta Pfaf Rüdiger, “Mass Media and Memory: The

Communist GDR in Today’s Communicative Memory,” Medijske Studije 5, no. 9 (2014):

3-18, https://www.mediastudies.fpzg.hr/_download/repository/ms_vol5_br9.pdf.

27 Ibid.

28 Nigel Bushnell and Angela Leonard, Germany Divided and Reunited, 1945-91

(London, England: Hachette UK, 2009), 23.

29 Ibid., 24-25.

30 “Diese Zeitung,” Junge Welt, April 14, 2009, https://www.jungewelt.de/ueber_uns/diese_zeitung.php.

31 “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.” Encyclopedia Britannica. August 17, 2017. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Frankfurter-Allgemeine-Zeitung; “Süddeutsche

Zeitung.” Encyclopedia Britannica. September 6, 2017. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Suddeutsche-Zeitung.

25

32 Carol Mueller, “International Press Coverage of East German Protest Events,

1989,” American Sociological Review 62, no. 5 (1997): 820-832, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2657362.

33 Amy Mitchell, Jeffrey Gottfried, Jocelyn Kiley and Katerina Eva Matsa,

“Political Polarization and Media Habits,” Pew Research Center’s Journalism Project,

October 21, 2014.

34 “The Silent Minority: America’s Largest Ethnic Group Has Assimilated So

Well That People Barely Notice It,” The Economist, February 5, 2015.

26 Chapter 3: American Newspapers

This chapter provides a deeper look into the content published in three major

American newspapers in the 1990s and 2009. The New York Times, The Chicago

Tribune, and The Wall Street Journal were selected for this study because of their extensive circulation and thus perceived influence on American collective memory. In the first decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall (also referred to here as the Mauerfall, which is one of the ways this event is referred to in the German literature), the selected newspapers, along with the rest of the world, were coming to terms with the demise of communism and the rapid reunification of East and West Germany. Most of the articles written in the 1990s seem to focus on the past – in several cases portraying it as a better and more stable time – and present the future as uncertain. While the articles in question do not necessarily glorify the communist part of the former East Germany, many of their subjects seem to subscribe to the idea of Ostalgie, or nostalgia for former times in the

East,1 and in some cases the articles’ subjects clearly reject the government and system that came out of German reunification. An overall critical and more negative tone invoked in these articles further serves to enforce a Western bias and a dichotomy of “us- versus-them” that exacerbates the general East-West divide still apparent in American representations of Germany in the 1990s. However, it is important to note that the fall of the Berlin Wall seems to be considered in a predominantly positive manner in the West, despite the focus of many of these articles of the Mauerfall’s negative impact on lives on either side of the former border, i.e. that the Wall itself coming down was not a bad thing, but that its fall also created numerous challenges as two countries and ideologies rapidly

27 merged back into one system. This is not to say that the selected American news media were nostalgic for East Germany itself, but instead that the accounts presented here juxtapose underlying American perspectives with the knowledge that reunified Germany did adopt a Western capitalist system.

The articles also employed a number of metaphorical images, especially that of the metaphorical walls that still remain. The rhetoric of victimization used in this sample of articles, the inevitability of the Berlin Wall’s downfall, the economic impact of the

Mauerfall, and lessons learned from this experience were all recurring themes in this sample. For the purposes of organizing this analysis, the following categories will be used to discuss groups of the related articles: “The Wall Still Stands,” “Victims of

History,” “Reflections on the Past,” “Ostalgie and the Economy,” and “Celebration with a Side of Caution.” “The Wall Still Stands” takes a closer look at metaphorical walls that remained after the physical Berlin Wall was taken down and its pieces sent around the globe, and among these are economic discrepancies between East and West Germans.

“Victims of History” refers to the rhetoric of victimization used to describe life in the

GDR and sometimes East Germans themselves. This section also brings to light the

“other” November 9s, of which three significant dates in German history are discussed.

“Reflections on the Past” examines what seems for some to have been the inevitability

(or rather, lack thereof) of the events of November 9, 1989, and discusses the importance of anniversaries and places of memory, such as museums, in forming and maintaining collective memory. “Ostalgie and the Economy” gets deeper into the economic impact of the Mauerfall. “Celebration with a Side of Caution” focuses on the twentieth anniversary

28 celebrations of the fall of the Wall and shifts its view forward toward the future and what lessons can be taken away from the experience of the Wall itself and the process of

German reunification. The following sections of this chapter will highlight these and other themes that stood out in analyzing the sample of articles.

The Wall Still Stands

Perhaps one of the most predominant themes found in these texts was that of the metaphorical wall still running through German thought, discourse, and culture in the

1990s. In the early 1990s, as little as one year after the fall of the Wall, the initial euphoria that surrounded the events of November 9, 1989, had already begun to wear off.

Some sources cited in these articles expressed sentiments of nostalgia related to the fall of the Wall. Annette Simon, clinical psychologist living in Berlin at the time, was quoted in an article in the New York Times from 1990. Reflecting on the Mauerfall, she said:

Everyone was caught up in this intoxication. . . . Now we belonged to the West and everything else could be forgotten. Naturally, it brought enormous chances for everyone. But it remains a day of mixed feelings. For one thing, it was truly liberating. Suddenly you could do all the things that were once forbidden. But then there was also the feeling that all that we once were was suddenly gone.2

This cognitive dissonance of being part of the West while simultaneously losing a homeland helped to create lingering ghosts of an East-West divide. The resurgence of

Berlin in the early 1990s and official German reunification on October 3, 1990, did not automatically bring the two populations of East and West together. A 1992 article in The

Wall Street Journal cited the fall of the Wall as the tipping point that set off Berlin’s resurgence, but also notes that though the divide between East and West Berlin is no

29 longer visible, for many East and West Germans, this division remained. Socialization between the two groups in the early 1990s was minimal, and stereotypes remained.3 A

1991 article from The Chicago Tribune references a potential return to previous border control conditions should the freedom to travel be abused due to an apparent surge in illegal East-West migration.4 An article from The New York Times from 1992 references the divide in book publishing – several East German book publishers at this time had closed or had been acquired by West German publishing houses.5

While the fall of the Berlin Wall was seen by Westerners as an overall positive development on the world stage, it created new tensions and new problems for Germans to deal with, particularly East Germans. In 1990, Germany decided to return all property seized since 1933 (excluding the years 1945-1949, an agreement made with the Soviets).

In the aftermath of the Mauerfall, East Germans faced numerous challenges to their way of life including managing a switch to market capitalism and, for some, even the threat of having their homes being reclaimed. An article published in The New York Times in 1991 told the story of Paul and Christine Wallich, siblings who returned to Potsdam (just outside West Berlin) to reclaim their home after the Mauerfall. Though the building was still there, it was at that time being used as a Kinderwochenheim, an East German childcare system that was a mix between boarding school and day-care. In order to reclaim their family home, the day-care would cease to exist. According to this article, as of November 1991, more than 1.3 million claims had been made on property in East

Germany.6 Though travel restrictions had been lifted in the late 1980s, the opening of the

30 Berlin Wall and subsequent collapse of the GDR served also to drive a wedge between property owners that did not exist when the east was still sectioned off.

In the early 1990s, many of these sentiments and examples may not be surprising.

Little time had passed since the two Germanys were officially reunified, and many changes were still emerging. However, in the later 1990s, these divisions were still very much a part of everyday life for many Germans, particularly those living in Berlin. The rest of the articles in this sub-section were published in 1999, in the days leading up to the tenth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Underlying factors of separation between East and West Germans are further exemplified in several other articles. In an article from The Chicago Tribune, Brookings Institute Guest Scholar and a member of the National Security Council under then-U.S. President Richard Nixon, Helmut

Sonnenfeldt, was cited as saying that the United States “has a tendency to view its own economy as a model for the world,” with one catch: the world was not buying it.7 While this same article presents the United States as the clear winner of the Cold War, including that label in its headline, it does somewhat blur the line between East and West in terms of international relations. With the world no longer divided along the Berlin Wall, the cast of characters was not as easy to label in terms of “us-versus-them” – at this point in time the article said, Cold War-like mentality still “linger[ed] in politics and diplomacy.”8

However, not all lines were blurred. In an article in The Chicago Tribune that focused on three world leaders’ recollections of the Mauerfall, editorial decisions also led to the portrayal of an existing divide and Western bias. In this article, former U.S.

President George H.W. Bush and former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl were cited as

31 playing significant roles in bringing about the triumph of democracy and the reunification of the two Germanys. The separation between these two Western leaders and their

Eastern counterpart, former Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev, was exemplified by the lexicon used to describe the trio’s role in the fall of the wall: “Both former leaders honored the third player in the drama, former Soviet leader Gorbachev, whose reform policies ultimately brought down communism and paved the way for German reunification.”9 The line between East and West is still apparent here, even in the structure of these sentences, in which Kohl and Bush are grouped together and

Gorbachev is referred to separately. This could have been due to the sides each leader was on during the Cold War or an unconscious choice; while the author of this newspaper article may not have meant for this phrase to be pulled out and examined so closely, in reading this article nearly twenty years later, an underlying Western bias can be inferred.

The divisions portrayed in this sample of articles extends beyond the aforementioned political and local divisions. In an article from The Chicago Tribune, one source cited that the wall running through Germany in the late 1990s was not physical, but instead one of economic and political inequality.10 In lieu of celebrating the anniversary of the Mauerfall and the so-called triumph of democracy as this article suggests was the norm in 1999, the subjects of this article have been relegated to a bar, demeaned by their employment status and lower rank on the social hierarchy stemming from their past. The impact of these bar patrons’ (and others’) newfound socioeconomic status was reflected in how citizens of the former East voted after reunification: “In

Berlin’s elections last month, the Party of Democratic Socialism, heir to the former East

32 German Communist Party, won in almost every eastern district.”11 It is no coincidence that this voting trend existed, even ten years after a democratic and capitalist system overtook a communist one. In one case, it seemed as if the divide between East and West was gone for some but still very present for others. An East German speaker was added to a ceremony lineup at the last-minute – apparently the thought to include someone from the “other side” of the Wall was not on the minds of the organizers.12 This afterthought mirrors the manner in which Mikhail Gorbachev was separated from Western leaders in an aforementioned article.13 For the West, the Wall is gone but it did not change everyday life all that much; for the East, the Wall is gone and its absence continued to divide the country in two.

By the time of the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 2009, the divide between East and West seemed to be more a memory than a daily presence in the lives of Germans, according to the American newspapers examined here. However, as of

2009, this divide had still not permanently disappeared for all. In a somewhat amusing tale, The Wall Street Journal profiled a certain population that, at the time of publication, still did not cross the line where the Wall formerly stood: red deer, herds of which roam both sides of the former border but “mysteriously turn around when they approach it,” twenty years after the fact.14 One specific deer, called “Ahornia,” has been tracked by wildlife biologists, who know that this specific doe has “never ventured beyond he strip where the fence once stood.”15 This of course does not imply a that this doe or the red deer population had a political agenda, but rather serves as an amusing anecdote to illustrate the prevalence of the Berlin Wall’s continued physical influence on the world

33 around it. Though much of the human population of Germany seemed to have no qualms about crossing the former border in the years after reunification, this does not mean that some people were still not satisfied with the switch to capitalism after the fall of the Wall.

An article in The Wall Street Journal from 2009 cited strain on the “adolescent market economies of the old Eastern Bloc” as one of the reasons why fewer people in this region supported the shift to capitalism in 2009 than did in 1991, despite also being

“substantially happier with life twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.”16 Though the legacy of 1989 is, for the most part, presented in a positive light in the selected articles, divisions in this mindset can still be found in Europe. An article from The Wall

Street Journal put it nicely:

The historical legacy of 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War thawed, is as political as the upheavals of that decisive year. The events of 1989 spurred a striking transformation of Europe, which is now whole and free, and a reunified Germany, milestones that are being observed with celebrations all over the continent, including a French-German extravaganza Monday evening on the Place de la Concorde. But 1989 also created new divisions and fierce nationalisms that hobble the European Union today, between East and West, France and Germany, Europe and Russia.17

Despite the passage of time, East-West divisions in Germany still stand in American collective memory, per the newspapers analyzed. These three newspapers’ anniversary coverage of the fall of the Berlin Wall show a clear Western bias, which is expected given the U.S.’s involvement in the partitioning of Germany and its support of the FRG in the decades leading up to November 9, 1989. After all, divisions that lasted longer than the Wall itself cannot be expected to disappear overnight, nor can everyone come out of such a political and economic shift unscathed. Even years later, metaphorical walls in

34 politics and economics still stand tall and are very much present in the newspaper coverage analyzed here.

Victims of History

Another theme found in the selected articles from American newspapers relates to the portrayal of victims of the past – in many cases, this means portrayal of East Germans as victims of an oppressive system of government, though the selected articles show that this extends beyond just this population group and this one label. One way in which this perspective is shown is through commentary related to the Berlin Wall itself: “From man’s earliest history through the Middle Ages, people built walls to keep other people out,” a 1999 article in The Chicago Tribune article said. “The Berlin Wall was a rare, if not unique, example of one built to keep people in and to cut a city apart. Thus, it stood as an advertisement of an embarrassing fact: a system that could not trust its own people bore within it a fatal weakness.”18 This article detailed a variety of escape attempts across the Wall, some successful and some not. In focusing on the struggles of the past, this article exuded negativity in its East-West sentiments and even ended by citing statistics saying that 20 percent of East Germans, as of 1999, wished that the Wall still stood.19

Rather than being portrayed as victims of a system, these East Germans are now being victimized by the capitalism and democracy that forcibly took them in. An article from

The Wall Street Journal, written in 1999 by former U.S. Secretary of Defense Caspar W.

Weinberger, suggested that the biggest difference between East and West was that:

All our guard posts and observation towers faced east, toward the invasion routes we expected the Soviets to use. But what was striking was that their towers

35 and posts also faced east – to guard against escape. That was the perfect illustration of the difference between us. The Berlin Wall was built not to prevent an invasion by the West. The Soviets built it to ensure that people in lands without freedom could not ever see what they were missing. We were defending against a foe determined to destroy the freedoms we and our allies enjoyed. Their highest priority was to maintain the internal slavery they imposed.20

Given Weinberger’s position, it is no coincidence that he would elect to portray the Cold

War in moralistic terms. Nevertheless, as a major public figure during the Cold War, it can be assumed that his opinions on this matter carry at least some clout and that this sentiment aligns with that of the then-current administration and of much of the public.

The rhetoric of victimization of East Germans and the moralization of the Cold

War were abundantly clear in these two examples. In others, this is not as explicitly stated, but still definitely exists. An article from The Chicago Tribune portrayed East

Germans as victims of both their former country and of reunification. Though the tenth anniversary of the Mauerfall was celebrated in Berlin, this article focused on a group of bar patrons who were not in much of a celebratory mood. One bar patron reflected: “It’s difficult . . . because now you must think for yourself. Before, the government thought for you. They told you which schools to attend, which jobs you would work.”21 On one hand this statement implies that Easterners were coerced into working jobs that the state approved and were only challenged to follow orders (as per what seems to be a typical

Western perspective). On the other hand, it implies that Easterners now had the freedom to choose their own destinies – even if it means that this population was not in fact better off economically, socially, etc., after reunification.

An article from The New York Times used the phrase “newly liberated”22 to describe the East German population and mentions recession, unemployment, and

36 insecurity of the population just one year after the Wall fell. While these characterizations are not quite as straightforward as Weinberger’s commentary, they do present East

Germans as victims of history and victims of their now-former country. In a first-person account of the night the Wall fell, the author said he “reveled in the experience of seeing suddenly emboldened East Germans challenging their fossilized government in the street.”23 This also suggests that East Germans were seen and portrayed as victims of their own system of government. A 1999 article in The Wall Street Journal also applies a moralistic angle when the author uses the word “liberated” to describe the state of Central

Europe after the fall of the Wall.24 This specific article does not focus as much on

Germany itself, but instead only uses the Mauerfall as a jumping-off point to comment on the state of the other now-former Eastern Bloc countries in the decade since 1989.

The juxtaposition of the ideas of freedom and enslavement are also implied in a few of these texts. One specific example comes from an article in The New York Times, published just one year after the fall of the Wall, on November 1, 1990. This article focuses on Berlin’s continuous redevelopment and what the city means to Germans, citing the 1948 blockade and the “flight to freedom” via West Berlin, which in part led to the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961.25 People were not the only “casualties” that stemmed from the fall of the Wall. A Wall Street Journal article from 1994 talked about the fate of a small town on the modern German-Polish border called Horno. A large mining company in the GDR had been eyeing this town as its next location. Horno’s inhabitants thought that common sense would prevail after the fall of the Wall and that this threat to their livelihood would disappear when the Wall came down. Unfortunately,

37 this article suggests that as of its writing, Horno’s small population was mistaken. One source said that the townspeople’s realization of their powerlessness has been awful and that “profit can determine policy,” in this case suggesting that the decision to mine was based on potential financial benefits rather than the impact of this activity on the livelihood of the citizens of Horno or whether or not they wanted this industry in their town.26 This powerlessness in turn plays into the idea of a lack of freedom that seems to permeate the discourse found in these articles.

1989 was not the only historically significant year for November 9 in German history. Though the events of November 9, 1989, and their aftermath in the following decades are the focus of this thesis, some of the articles collected in this sample focus on other victims of history and their relationship with the day November 9 in Germany. As several articles note, November 9 is the anniversary of Kaiser Wilhelm II’s 1918 abdication, Adolph Hitler’s arrest after his 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, Kristallnacht (“the night of broken glass”) in 1938, and of course the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

Regarding Kristallnacht, on this night in 1938, Nazis and their sympathizers across

Germany “ravaged hundreds of Synagogues and Jewish-owned businesses, while police looked on in silence or joined in.”27 Another article, published by The Chicago Tribune in

1991, mentions Germany’s commemoration of Kristallnacht as a “national obligation to remember the past” but also notes “millions of Germans would much prefer to celebrate the breaching of the Wall instead.”28 It is nearly impossible to talk about twentieth century German history without mentioning the country’s Nazi past, and given the history of November 9, it is almost absurd not to do so. The numerous significant events

38 related to this date in German history may just be a crazy coincidence, but it is nonetheless important to note. The rhetoric of victimization and the ideas of freedom presented in some of the articles in this sample have been used to shape American collective memory from its own Western perspective.

Reflections on the Past

What would the world be like today had the Berlin Wall not come down on

November 9, 1989? Would it have come down at all, making among other writings, including the present study, non-events? Or might it have come down eventually, beginning with slightly less travel restriction from East and West? An article published in

The Chicago Tribune in 2009 expressed this sentiment:

So often we think of history as something inevitable, a culmination of great, grinding forces that can only lead to where they end up. Not so. The reality of 1989, one of the organizers of the mass protests at the time told me, is that “it was possible at any point, or any time, for events to take a different course.”29

The Mauerfall is no different. Many records exist that tell the story and provide background as to how and why the events of November 9, 1989, happened as they did.

An article published in The Wall Street Journal in 1999 made a similar comment regarding the idea that many people seem to consider the events leading up to and the

Mauerfall itself as destiny: “The temptation today is to regard these developments as inevitable. But it could easily have gone another way.”30 This sub-section looks at some of the articles in this sample that came face to face with the past and in many cases, doubted the inevitability of the fall of the Wall. An article from The New York Times, published on the ten-year anniversary of the fall of the Wall, started by describing Harald

39 Jaeger’s night. Jaeger was a lieutenant colonel in the East German border guards at the time of the Mauerfall, who had been guarding the Berlin Wall for twenty-eight years when the announcement came that East Germans were free to travel without restriction, beginning immediately. The article also mentioned Jaeger’s apparent “hopelessness” 31 when faced with growing crowds of people waiting to cross the border and the overall confusion of this historical evening, which an article in The Wall Street Journal also describes as chaotic:

No one knew what to do next. Every few minutes some boisterous Westerners jumped off the rampart and tried to run across the no-man’s land into East Berlin. It was a pointless gesture – Westerners had always been able to travel to the East – but each time, the Eastern soldiers would rush at the daredevils and force them back up on the rampart.32

Though this particular article and several others33 were actually focused on

Poland and its fate after the fall of the Berlin Wall and subsequent collapse of the Eastern

Bloc, the first-person author’s descriptions of his experiences on November 9, 1989, demonstrated some of the chaos and uncertainty that the night of the Mauerfall brought.

Another first-person feature of the Mauerfall, written by then-U.S. Ambassador to

West Germany Vernon A. Walters, reflected on his premonition that the Berlin Wall would come down during his time of service in Bonn and some of the backlash he received at the time for expressing this opinion. Walters said he expected the Wall to fall as a result of the attempted reforms made by Gorbachev as one of the reasons for this premonition. Walters described the initial breach of the Wall, saying “crowds had burst through” and “other checkpoints were about to collapse under the pressure of the crowds.”34 A source quoted in an article from The Chicago Tribune noted that this could

40 have all happened completely differently, or not at all, and called the opening of the

Berlin Wall a “botch.”35

Beyond the speculation regarding alternative courses of history, this selection of articles also focuses on what did in fact happen and how some Germans dealt with yet another major change in their political system. In addition to being portrayed as victims of their system and of history as described in the previous section, several of the articles in this sample acknowledge some of the challenges presented by the transition to capitalism. An article published by The Wall Street Journal in 2009 emphasized the fact that the challenges for East Germans didn’t end with the Mauerfall: “The Wall was torn down by the actions of ordinary people who pushed for freedom – and then, over the next two decades, navigated the upheaval to remake their lives.”36 While many Germans certainly faced quite a challenge of assimilating to life in reunified Germany, they weren’t the only ones.

Many of the articles in this sample are focused around Berlin. This is most likely due in part to the importance of this city during the Cold War, the presence of foreign journalists in Berlin at the fall of the Wall and now on significant anniversaries, its status as reunified Germany’s capital city as well as a former capital city, and the importance of the Wall in its history, among other potential reasons. East Germans faced numerous challenges as two Germanys became one again, and the city of Berlin itself also faced challenges as it too was reunited in the early 1990s. An uphill battle for recognition and success ensued after Berlin was named reunified Germany’s capital city. An article in

The New York Times comments on Berlin’s progress one month after reunification was

41 made official in 1990: “Nearly a month after unification, this sprawling city of more than three million people is still struggling to become the united Germany’s capital in more than name alone.”37 About twenty years later, Berlin was flourishing (and arguably still is, now almost thirty years after the Mauerfall). An article in The Chicago Tribune from

2009 comments on the juxtaposition between 2009 and 1989:

Back then, life in the East was bleak, gray, and demoralizing because of ongoing political repression and the unresponsive Soviet-style command economy. Today, Berlin feels like the nuclear fuel rod of a great nation. It’s so vibrant with youth, energy and an anything-goes-and-anything’s-possible buzz that Munich feels spent by comparison.38

There is a sense of importance around this date, November 9, 1989, but part of that label of importance comes with hindsight and with the manner in which a community consciously chooses to commemorate its passing. Berlin, the city that once divided East and West and personified Cold War tensions for decades, now plays host to an abundance of museums, some of which are related directly to the Mauerfall and the country’s decades of division. The Chicago Tribune article quoted above lists several prominent examples – the Checkpoint Charlie Museum in the center of Berlin, the East Side

Gallery, a section of the Wall still standing along the Spree River, and the Berlin Wall

Gallery at the historical site of the Nordbahnhof S-Bahn Station are only a few examples of how Germany’s collective memory of the events leading up to and including

November 9 are displayed for tourists and locals alike.39

One article in The New York Times specifically noted the role of anniversaries in the placement of importance of world events in collective thinking. This article emphasized the fact that just because a certain event plays a significant role in the

42 collective memory of a large group of people (in this case, the role of November 9, 1989, in the minds of Berliners, Germans, or the world population) doesn’t mean that the event was actually as significant as it is presented after the fact:

Anniversaries provide the occasion for looking back, and for re- evaluating. Perhaps the most curious thing about the events of 10 years ago is that just as Westerners were utterly surprised by what happened, we also overestimated what it signified. Caught up in high hopes for what freedom would bring to the former Soviet bloc, we confused the collapse of a failed ideology with a victory of our own system. Thus we are puzzled and disappointed that in the intervening decade the results have been uneven, with progress (in our meaning of the word) visible in some countries but barely apparent in others.40

The world now sees the fall of the Berlin Wall as a significant moment in history

– enough so that the Wall itself is now displayed in museums and institutions around the world, including at Capital University in the city of Bexley, Ohio, a small suburb of

Columbus, Ohio, in the United States, where the author of this thesis grew up. While speculation about potential alternative paths of history can easily (and have often been) made, what is important to focus on is the importance that the fall of the Berlin Wall holds in collective memory, as evidenced by the aforementioned literature, the current newspapers being analyzed, and the very fact that the current project exists. The way in which collective memory is presented in mass media presents a distinct perspective of the events in question, and this in turn presumably influences how those with only secondhand knowledge come to see the events surrounding the Mauerfall and their continued reverberations.

Ostalgie and the Economy

43 Just because the date November 9 has come to symbolize so much for Germany doesn’t mean that everyone sees the opening of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Germany’s subsequent reunification, embrace of market capitalism, and the ups and downs these developments brought in a positive light. Chapter Two mentioned the term Ostalgie, which refers to the desire to invoke nostalgia about the positive elements of East German society.41 As some of the newspaper articles in this analysis reflect on the changes in

Germany since 1989, several sources cited shared their opinions about the fact that some issues that exist in a market capitalist society would not exist in the GDR. They also share some of their more general feelings of nostalgia toward East Germany.

In 2009, The New York Times published an article about current German

Chancellor Angela Merkel, who grew up in the GDR, and her role in Berlin’s twentieth anniversary celebrations. A sense of anguish is presented in this text, as Nicholas Kulish describes the waning of initial euphoria in the early years after the Wall fell:

But in less than a year of the opening of the heavily fortified border crossings in Berlin, reunification was a reality. Many East Germans, ecstatic about the opening of the Wall, quickly began to have second thoughts about becoming the junior partner to West Germany, and in particular about the tendency in the West to reduce the country where they grew up to merely the dictatorship and the East German secret police, known as the Stasi.42

Many of the sentiments presented in the articles seem to stem from the state of

German and world economies in the late 1990s. An article from The Wall Street Journal in 1994 echoed these sentiments and emphasized the difficulties brought on by rapid reunification and shift of half the country’s economic system from communism to capitalism:

44 When the Berlin Wall was breached five years ago, European communism was destined for history’s dustbin. At the same time some economists lamented the absence of a “model” for the transition to capitalism from communism. As we reflect back over those five years, we now can see that there was in fact a model, but not the tidy sort that economists imagine when they set their computers whirring… Germany, which attracted cheers from all around the world when the Wall was being torn down on that famous night five years ago, has fared less well than some of us expected.43

An article from The Chicago Tribune published in 1999 mentioned the 1997 financial crisis and said that it “appears to have convinced most policy makers that free markets cannot be allowed to remain unrestricted and unregulated,”44 but also noted that dealing with this problem is a task for world leaders in the twenty-first century. Two additional articles, both from The Wall Street Journal, articulate the newspaper’s view on the current economic situation and what, at the time, seemed to be on the horizon.45

The reduction of the GDR into museums and memorabilia coupled with the overwhelming sweep of capitalism across the country in the early 1990s left the East primed for economic challenges and nostalgia for the relative stability that existed before.

Though there were pockets of near-immediate success stories (the Voights’ experience described in Chapter 1, for example), the predominant school of thought presented in these articles is that the challenges brought by a new system in part inspired the undertones of Ostalgie found in these texts. November 9 means many things to many people, but at times, it seemed like the beginning of the end.

Celebration with a Side of Caution

As Germany reintegrated itself and the official process of reunification commenced, it brought with it personal, local, and national-level conflicts. Personal and

45 local struggles have been mentioned in previous sections of this chapter, but one of the predominant national conflicts that Germany and Europe faced in the early 1990s (and is still facing in 2018) is the rise of nationalism. In The Wall Street Journal, a 1991 article looks at the aftermath of the fall of communism though the lens of the North Atlantic

Treaty Organization (NATO), defending its relevance and commenting on the remaining necessity of such a force: “In the euphoria that swept Europe, many thought that it was time to abolish military blocs of both East and West. But without communist rulers or the specter of world war to suppress discontent, national rivalries erupted.”46 Instead of disbanding when the initial purpose for its existence faded away (at least on paper),

NATO was able to regain some of its relevance as nationalism and inner-state conflicts began to increase. Numerous other factors contributed to this resurgence of relevance, well beyond the scope of the present study.

As anniversaries of the Mauerfall came and went, celebrations were met with cautionary tales and protest. Three articles, two published in The Chicago Tribune in

1991 and one published in The New York Times in 1992, are focused on protests against attacks on refugees,47 hate groups, and neo-Nazism.48 Concern for “the continuing threat of violence from extremists”49 seemed from these articles to be especially prominent around November 9, in part because this date is also the anniversary of Kristallnacht, an event with very different connotations and a very different outcome. Also in 1992, The

Wall Street Journal published an article that focused on the future that Germany faced, which then included redoing an image that the article’s headline called ugly:

In recent weeks the picture postcard clichés of Germany as the land of cold beer, fast cars and lederhosen have given way to more ominous images. TV

46 pictures of German neo-Nazis attacking refugees have aired nightly around the world. . . . The nation’s image has long been a complex juxtaposition of present- day achievements and wartime horrors, [Henning Wegener, head of foreign operations of the German government’s press and information department] says, with the positive usually outweighing the negative. What he doesn’t yet know is whether unification has tipped that balance.50

Twenty years later, times had certainly changed, as had the dominant perspective of some of these articles, published in the days leading up to the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Articles published in The Chicago Tribune, The New York

Times, and The Wall Street Journal in 2009 focused on the success of German reunification and the fading of divisions between East and West, celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the Mauerfall, and looked toward the future, keeping in mind what lessons could be taken from the experiences of the past.

While the past was always present in the articles examined for this sample, in

2009 the idea of Ostalgie as seen in previous articles was not as prevalent. Instead, this sentiment was essentially replaced with positive memories of the success of reunification efforts. An article from The New York Times remarked on Germany’s “transcendence” of its own history:

The anniversary on Monday has prompted a powerful national conversation, not just about a moment two decades ago, but about Germany today. It is more united and less turbulent than many here or abroad expected and, given its twentieth century history, than many thought it deserved to be. Especially among the young, there is the sense that the aspiration to transcend Germany’s dark history and simply become normal may finally be within reach.51

The idea that future generations hope to transcend Germany’s dark history was also reflected in then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s remarks at

Berlin’s twentieth anniversary celebration, in which she called for a stronger trans-

47 Atlantic partnership to “bring down the walls of the twenty-first century.”52 Despite the argument presented previously that the events of November 9, 1989, were not necessarily inevitable, the day nonetheless is seen as a defining moment in German, European, and world history. The Chicago Tribune labels the Mauerfall as such several times, including in a 2009 article that details various world leaders’ commentary on the twentieth anniversary. Then-French President Nicholas Sarkozy called the Mauerfall “an appeal to all to vanquish oppression, to knock down the walls that throughout the world still divide towns, territories, peoples”53 This call to arms, so to speak, was in part inspired by “the courage of East Germans who stood up against their oppressive regime,”54 as former U.S.

President Barack Obama said in a video address streamed in Berlin.

The symbolism of the Berlin Wall was not lost on the twentieth anniversary. As part of the twentieth anniversary celebrations in Berlin, a line of colorful dominoes was also set up along part of the route of the Wall and were toppled as part of the commemoration.55 In this case, collective memory and raw emotion were used by world leaders with the goal to inspire the public to take some of the lessons learned in the years during and after the existence of the Berlin Wall into the future. Merkel led distinguished guests across the former East-West border, in a show of unity and a symbol of how far the world had come in the last twenty years.56 The use of the Berlin Wall as a symbol extended beyond just the anniversary celebrations: in an address to Congress, Merkel used it in 2009 as a metaphor for other barriers, including nationalism and the global financial crisis.57

48 As the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall came and went, the importance of the Mauerfall was not lost on the public or the American newspapers analyzed. Much of the media coverage detailed in this section comes from 2009 and faces the future, unlike much of that from the 1990s which is still looking back and focusing on the past. Using the Berlin Wall as a symbol and a reminder of the past, world leaders called for a better future and for the tearing down of other walls. Instead of just being a symbol of the past, by 2009 world leaders used the Berlin Wall to serve as a reminder for the future: to take the lessons from the past and demonstrate that the world has learned from them though policy and international relations.

NOTES

1 Clarence Page. "East Germans nostalgic for the bad old days." The Chicago

Tribune, November 11, 2009.

2 John Tagliabue, “Evolution in Europe: A Year after the Wall, Some Nostalgia,”

New York Times, November 9, 1990.

3 Frederick Kempe, “City’s Crossroads: Berlin Flourishes Again as Newcomers

Pour In, but Difficulties Arise – Many Dream of a Golden Era, yet the Reunited Center Is

Plagued by Divisions – Who Killed Hanno Klein?” Wall Street Journal, November 4,

1992.

4 Chicago Tribune Wires, “Germany Gets Support for Tighter Borders,” Chicago

Tribune, November 1, 1991.

49

5 Katie Hafner, “A Millionaire Marxist in German Publishing,” New York Times,

November 2, 1992.

6 Katie Hafner, “The House We Lived In,” New York Times, Nov. 10, 1991.

7 Charles M. Madigan and John Diamond, “Cold War’s Clear Winner Facing a

Cloudy Role,” Chicago Tribune, November 9, 1999.

8 Ibid.

9 Tribune News Servies, “Cold War Leaders Gorbachev, Bush Recall 1989 Fall of

Wall,” Chicago Tribune, November 9, 1999.

10 Ayla Jean Tackley, “Germany Uncorks Wall Party: But at East Berlin Pubs,

Jobless Drink to Bleak Present,” Chicago Tribune, November 10, 1999.

11 Ibid.

12 Roger Cohen, “For the Wall’s Fall, East Germans Are Given Their Due,” New

York Times, November 10, 1999.

13 Tribune News Services, “Cold War Leaders Gorbachev, Bush Recall 1989 Fall of Wall.”

14 Cecilie Rohwedder, “Deep in the Forest, Bambi Remains the Cold War’s Last

Prisoner – Deer Still Shun Iron Curtain Border, 20 Years After the Guards and Barbed

Wire Vanished,” Wall Street Journal, November 4, 2009.

15 Ibid.

16 Charles Forelle, “World News: In Eastern Bloc, Wary View of Democracy,”

Wall Street Journal, November 3, 2009.

50

17 Steven Erlanger, “The Legacy of 1989 Is Still Up for Debate,” New York Times,

November 9, 2009.

18 Ray Moseley, “Berliners Tell Their Tales of Life against the Wall,” Chicago

Tribune, November 7, 1999.

19 Ibid.

20 Caspar W. Weinberger, “…And How the East Was Won,” Wall Street Journal,

November 9, 1999.

21 Ayla Jean Yackley, “Germany Uncorks Wall Party: But at East Berlin Pubs,

Jobless Drink to Bleak Present,” Chicago Tribune, November 10, 1999.

22 Serge Schememann, “Evolution in Europe: For Eastern Europe Now, a New

Disillusion, New York Times, November 9, 1990.

23 Ray Moseley, “Witness Finds Real Story of the Berlin Wall’s End,” Chicago

Tribune, November 7, 1999.

24 George Melloan, “Ten Years On and Still Much Unfinished Business,” Wall

Street Journal, November 9, 1999.

25 John Tagliabue, “Berlin, the Capital, Fears for the Future,” New York Times

November 1, 1990.

26 Peter Gumbel, “Does Town of Horno Border on Extinction – Or Just Poland? –

Government Wants to Raze It to Expand a Coal Mine in Former East Germany,” Wall

Street Journal, November 4, 1994.

51

27 Amity Shlaes, “The Fall of the Wall: Ten Years Later – Nov. 9, a Day of

Horror and Glory,” Wall Street Journal, November 9, 1999.

28 Alfons Heck, “Another Kristallnacht in Germany?” Chicago Tribune,

November 9, 1991.

29 Michael Meyer, “What if? The Collapse of Communist Governments in

November 1989 Now Seems Inevitable, but . . .” Chicago Tribune, November 8, 2009.

30 “The Wall,” Wall Street Journal, November 9, 1999.

31 Roger Cohen, “At Berlin: The Crumbling, Then and Now,” New York Times

November 9, 1999.

32 Radek Sikorski, “Where There Was a Wall – Internet and Trade Talks,” Wall

Street Journal, November 9, 1994.

33 See Craig R. Whitney, “Poles Review Postwar Treatment of Germans,” New

York Times, November 1, 1994.

34 Vernon A. Walters, “The Fall of the Wall – Ten Years Later: What I Saw at the

Revolution,” Wall Street Journal, November 5, 1999.

35 Meyer, “What If?”

36 Roger Thurow and Almut Schoenfeld, “Recalling Berlin’s Wall, and the

Rebuilding of Lives,” Wall Street Journal, November 7-8, 2009.

37 John Tagliabue, “Berlin, the Capital, Fears for the Future.”

38 Rick Steves, “Knocking Down One Wall Gave Berlin Room to Flourish,”

Chicago Tribune, November 8, 2009.

52

39 Ibid.

40 David Fromkin, “Nothing behind the Wall,” New York Times, November 7,

1999.

41 Daphne Berdahl, “‘(N)Ostalgie’ for the Present: Memory, Longing, and East

German Things” in Ethnos 64, no. 2 (1999): 201.

42 Nicholas Kulish, “To Merkel, a Night in ’89 Was Just the First Step on a Long

Path for 2 Germanys,” New York Times, November 6, 2009.

43 “After the Wall,” Wall Street Journal, November 9, 1994.

44 Colin McMahon, “Upheaval in the Former Soviet Union: ‘Russians Can’t Let

Us Go,’” Chicago Tribune, November 8, 1999.

45 Terence Roth, “Western Germany’s Industrial Output Fell in September,” Wall

Street Journal, November 3, 1992; David Hale, “The Coming Golden Age of

Capitalism,” Wall Street Journal, November 7, 1991.

46 Robert Keatley, “NATO Gains New Life as Europe Faces Rising Threat of

Nationalism,” Wall Street Journal, November 7, 1991.

47 Associated Press, “Germans Protest Attacks on Refugees,” Chicago Tribune,

November 10, 1991.

48 Associated Press, “German Rallies Protest Hate Groups, Neo-Nazism,”

Chicago Tribune, November 10, 1991.

49 Craig R. Whitney, “Germans Emphasize the Non-Rioters at Rally,” New York

Times, November 10, 1992.

53

50 Peter Gumbel, “Germany Strives to Redo Image That’s Grown Ugly,” Wall

Street Journal, November 3, 1992.

51 Nicholas Kulish, “With the Berlin Wall Just a Memory, German Divisions

Fade,” New York Times, November 8, 2009.

52 Agence France-Presse, “Clinton: Recall Berlin Wall to Seek Freedom,”

Chicago Tribune, November 9, 2009.

53 Agence France-Presse, “Unity Among Leaders on Anniversary of Fall,”

Chicago Tribune, November 10, 2009.

54 Ibid.

55 Reuters, “Reunited State: Berlin Celebrates 20 Years after the Fall of the Wall

That Divided the World,” Chicago Tribune, November 10, 2009.

56 Marcus Walrer and Almut Schoenfeld, “World Leaders Revisit Berlin Wall’s

Fall: On the 1989 Anniversary, Merkel and Her Guests Step Across Remnants of the

Divider of Europe,” Wall Street Journal, November 10, 2009.)

57 Stephen Power, “Merkel Brings Agenda to Congress,” Wall Street Journal

November 4, 2009.

54 Chapter 4: German Newspapers

This chapter will provide a deeper look into the content published in three major

German newspapers in the 1990s and 2009. As was also the case with the American newspapers analyzed in this study, many of the articles published in the selected newspapers in the 1990s are focused on the past – from remembering the past to dealing with more immediate consequences of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of the two Germanys. While overall many articles published in the selected German newspapers focus on the events of November 9, 1989, there is also a notable group of articles that discuss Germany’s other significant November 9s – more so than was found in the American newspapers sample. In a manner similar to that of the American newspapers sample, there are contrasting perspectives printed within the selected newspapers. In the 1990s, journalists writing for both German and American newspapers focused on the lingering divisions between East and West and the challenges that reunification brought; in 2009 both sets of articles appeared to focus more on the twentieth anniversary celebrations and looked toward the future.

In analyzing these articles, the researcher found numerous themes, many of which are similar to those apparent in the American sample. For the purpose of this thesis, categories such as “The Wall Still Stands,” “Victims of History,” “Reflections on the

Past,” and “Celebration with a Side of Caution” used in Chapter 3 will also be used to analyze the German newspapers sample. “The Wall Still Stands” takes a closer look at metaphorical walls that remained after the physical Berlin Wall was taken down and its use as a border negated. “Victims of History” refers to the rhetoric of victimization used

55 to describe East Germans and their way of life, in some cases extending to include their experiences of the 1990s as well. “Reflections on the Past” examines the significance of

November 9, 1989 and discusses the importance of anniversaries in forming and maintaining collective memory. “Celebration with a Side of Caution” focuses on the twentieth anniversary celebrations of the fall of the Wall. In addition to these categories, this chapter has two additional categories: “Crossing the Border: Memories from a Night in November,” which examines various articles profiling individuals’ experiences with the Mauerfall, many of whom who were in Berlin that night, and “The Other November

9,” which specifically discusses other significant November 9s in German history and their relation to November 9, 1989.

The Wall Still Stands

The Berlin Wall stood for 10,316 days – from 1961 to 1989.1 Though it appeared overnight on August 13, 1961, and much of it was chiseled away in the weeks after

November 9, 1989, the twenty-eight years of division that the Wall enforced did not disappear quite so easily. Numerous articles demonstrate that inequalities between East and West still exist decades later. These inequalities ranged from the personal to the professional; from access to and quality of medical care, to education, to housing and economic considerations.

Some of the harshest effects of the Mauerfall could be felt in the education sector.

These examples are perhaps the most obvious forms of real and perceived divisions remaining post-Mauerfall. Die Junge Welt focused on the impact that the Mauerfall (and

56 later, German reunification) had on the state of education in the former Eastern states.

The academic discipline of the humanities was hit particularly hard, according to an article in die Junge Welt published in 1994.2 The reputation of East German teachers was tarnished by Western assumptions about their qualifications, which had an impact on people’s jobs. An article in die Süddeutsche Zeitung specifically references unequal payment: “Das Bundesinnenministerium plant nach Angaben der Gewerkschaft

Erziehung und Wissenschaft (GEW), die rund 230 000 Lehrer in den Ländern der früheren DDR auch langfristig zwei bis drei Besoldungsstufen niedriger zu entlohnen als

Pädagogen im alten Bundesgebiet (The Federal Ministry of Interior plans to pay the approximately 230,000 teachers in the former GDR two to three salary levels lower than those in the FRG, according to the Education and Science Union).”3 One possible reason for this, according to the article, is the discrepancy in teacher training between the former

East and the former West. An article published in die Junge Welt in 1994 also speaks to the unequal treatment of teachers from the former GDR, and says that the reputation of

East German humanities scholars was tarnished over the course of German reunification and reorganization.4 Before the tenth anniversary of the fall of the Wall, an article in die

Junge Welt commented on the “misslungenen Einheit” (or “unsuccessful unity”) of the field of science.5 However, not all of these interactions were portrayed quite so negatively. According to this die Süddeutsche Zeitung article, the Federal Labor Court ruled that teachers from the former GDR would not automatically be deemed unsuitable educators. Instead, only teachers with connections to the SED could be justifiably removed from their university teaching positions.6 Similarly, judges who had served

57 during the GDR were also not immune to this consequence of reunification. There are several mentions of this phenomenon, one specifically from die Frankfurter Allgemeine

Zeitung, which claimed that “special circumstances” allowed former GDR justices to be barred from easily taking up their independence and practicing law.7 The assumption that these individuals were not fit to serve stems from decades of distrust and misunderstanding between East and West.

Two articles in die Süddeutsche Zeitung focused specifically on East-West divisions related to medical care. The first, published in 1990, illuminates concerns that a wave of layoffs would endanger health care options for citizens in the former GDR.

Among the concerns expressed in this article was also that of the transition to a West

German insurance health insurance.8 In 2009, one doctor remembered this situation:

“Ganze Abteilungen mussten damals schließen, weil so viele Krankenschwestern, Pfleger und Ärzte in den West gingen (Entire departments had to close because so many nurses, orderlies and doctors went to the West).”9 This particular division could have had an effect on the health and well-being of those living in the former GDR, and is thus worth noting here.

Another remaining division between East and West in the years after the fall of the Berlin Wall was that of the housing market and related finances. With rising rents and an urgent need to modernize many buildings in the former East, the issue of who was to pay for such structural changes was up for debate. The federal government put pressure on local governments, but with limited resources there was only so much that local governments could do in this regard. One article, published in die Junge Welt in 1992,

58 expressed worry about who would end up paying both financially and socially for the consequences of changes coming to the housing market.10 Die Süddeutsche Zeitung looked at this issue from a similar lens: who comes up with the funds. According to a

1990 article, in the GDR, the state had to subsidize a significant amount of the costs involved with maintaining an apartment building. The issue of finding affordable housing did not disappear with the Wall, rather this article called for the creation of a sufficient amount of low-cost housing to help close this divide.11 An article in die Frankfurter

Allgemeine Zeitung from 1993 also references the state of finances in the East, citing the burden of debts on society and the need to lay off numerous employees to get a better grip on municipal finances (in this article, specifically in Leipzig).12 Ultimately, Berlin and the West ended up paying for many of these structural problems, through the

“solidarity surcharge” (part of the “Solidarity Pact” aimed to help the East catch up with the West).13

Transitioning from a communist system to a capitalist system meant that some of the foundations of a country disappeared very rapidly, forcibly changing the way of life of its former citizens. Die Süddeutsche Zeitung contrasts decreases in unemployment in the former FRG with increased unemployment in the former GDR in both 199014 and

1991.15 According to an article from 1990, at the time, East Germans were taxed 25 percent less than West Germans.16 However, without additional labor policies and help on a federal level, there would be even more cause for alarm: “Ohne diese Hilfen, sagte der Präsident der Bundesanstalt für Arbeit in Nürnberg, Heinrich Franke, am Mittwoch vor der Presse, ‘müsste man sicher um die Erhaltung des sozialen Friedens fürchten’

59 (Without this assistance, said President of the Federal Labor Office in Nürnberg Heinrich

Franke, “one would certainly have to fear for the preservation of social peace”).”17 The responsibility for compensating wage discrepancies was also a topic of interest for an article in die Junge Welt, published in 1993.18 Despite some of the assistance programs cited in some of the aforementioned articles, as of 1994, the trend of decline in the East continued.19 By 1999, the tenth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, articles published in the selected newspapers still cited unequal employment as one of the most significant divisions remaining between East and West Germany.20 An article published in die Junge Welt in 1999 summed up some of the general sentiment:

Deutschland im Herbst 1999. Zehn Jahre nach der Fall der Mauer gibt es im Osten wenig Grund zum Jubel: Die Nürnberger Bundesanstalt für Arbeit registriert im Oktober knapp 1,3 Millionen Arbeitslose in den sogenannten neuen Ländern. . . . Während im Westen die Arbeitslosigkeit weiter leicht zurück geht, gibt es für die Betroffenen im Osten kaum Hoffnung auf eine Änderung der Situation. Die offizielle Arbeitslosenquote steht bei 16,9 Prozent! Prognostiziert wird, dass die Schere bei der Entwicklung der Arbeitslosigkeit zwischen Ost und West weiter auseinandergehen wird.

(Germany in fall 1999. Ten years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, there is little reason to rejoice in the East: In October, the Nuremberg Federal Employment Office registered almost 1.3 million unemployed in the so-called new states. . . . While unemployment in the West continues to fall slightly, there is little hope for those affected in the East to change the situation. The official unemployment rate stands at 16.9 percent! It is predicted that the gap in the development of unemployment between East and West will continue to diverge.)21

Beyond just talking about unemployment in general, one article also specifically mentioned the role of women in the workforce post-Mauerfall. The article, published in die Junge Welt in 1994, portrays Western men in the workplace as finally having figured out that women in the GDR had legitimate leadership roles and responsibility in the

60 workplace. It cited Elke Holst from the German Institute for Economic Research and

Petra Drauschke from the Social Science Research Center Berlin-Brandenburg, who claimed that this “veränderte Situation” (“changed situation”) posed new challenges and thus that a reorientation of the value of domestic work must come about.22

As anniversaries of the Mauerfall came and went, sentiments toward the continued existence of metaphorical walls in German society were brought to light. Three specific articles published in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung speak to this phenomenon.

The first, from 1994, called the Mauerfall an Unverhofften Wiedersehen (“unexpected reunion”) and said that it was not easy for Germans to leave behind their past.23 The second, from 1995, evoked a sense of nostalgia for the GDR, despite certain post- reunification conveniences:

Sechs Jahre nach der Maueröffnung haben wir uns an vieles gewöhnt, so schnell, als hätten wir es nie anders gekannt: an die Bananen und die Kiwis im Supermarkt, an das früher nie für möglich gehaltene Angebot in den Geschäften, an die Reisemöglichkeiten, auch daran, dass wir heute schimpfen und protestieren können, dass unsere Kinder in der Schule nicht mehr den Marxismus lobpreisen müssen, dass uns keine Stasi mehr bespitzelt und dass Menschen nicht mehr erschossen werden, nur weil sie von Deutschland nach Deutschland wollen. Das Schlechte und Böse aus der DDR haben wir oft schon vergessen, das Angenehme und Gute – das es zweifellos gab – tritt um so stärker hervor. Wer die Freiheit gewinnt, verliert ein Stück Geborgenheit.

(Six years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, we've gotten used to a lot, as fast as we've never known it before: to the bananas and kiwis in the supermarket, to the never-before-seen offer in the shops, to the travel options, and to that that today we can rant and protest that our children no longer have to praise Marxism in school, that the Stasi no longer spy and that people are no longer being shot just because they want to go from Germany to Germany. We have often already forgotten the bad and the evil the GDR, the pleasant and the good – which undoubtedly existed – are the more prominent. Whoever gains freedom loses a piece of security.)24

61 This suggests that citizens of the former GDR were, six years after the Mauerfall, beginning to move forward and feel like they’re a normal part of the integrated country.

However, using the phrase haben wir uns an vieles gewöhnt (“we have gotten used to a lot”) simultaneously implies that a divide still exists between the East in the West. This also speaks to the westernization of the East during the process of German reunification and its impact on everyday life. Finally, in 1999, an article presents a more positive outlook: even though it has taken some time and there are still unsolved problems stemming from forty years of divisions, Germans were moving forward and adapting.25

Despite the progress and success of reunification seen in some of the aforementioned articles, however, memories of the Wall and of the old way of life could not just become casualties of reunification. They would remain in the minds of those who lived through this experience.

Victims of History

When the two Germanys were reunited and two very distinct systems of government had to become one, compromise was limited. In the articles described in this section, the portrayal of East Germans as victims of their situation was an underlying theme. While it is important to note that in some cases this is due to the treatment of East

Germans after the Mauerfall, in others it is a part of the everyday rhetoric in these published articles. Many of the more obvious references to victims of the system relate to the conditions of everyday East German citizens in the years after the fall of the Berlin

Wall and German reunification. An article published in die Junge Welt in 1997 talks

62 about high rates of homelessness in the former GDR, as compared with those in the former FRG:

In den neuen Ländern gab es allerdings einen sprunghaften Anstieg um 25 Prozent. Dort hat sich die Zahl [der obdachlosen Menschen] seit 1992 auf 66 000 verdreifacht. Der leichte Rückgang im Westen liege zum Teil daran, dass weniger wohnungssuchende Aussiedler zugewandert seien, sagte der Geschäftsführer der Arbeitsgemeinschaft, Heinrich Holtmannspötter.

(In the new states, however, there was a jump of 25 percent. There, the number [of homeless people] has tripled since 1992 to 66,000. The slight decline in the West is partly due to the fact that fewer resettled immigrants have immigrated, said the managing director of the consortium [Federal Association for Housing Assistance], Heinrich Holtmannspötter.)26

An article published in die Junge Welt in 1999 speaks to the same topic27 and yet another article from 1997 specifically references growing poverty rates in the East and a clear polarization of political sentiments stemming in part from this.28 Though poverty and homelessness exist all over the world, in these two specific cases, the manner in which it is described as a distinctly East German problem appears to be one of the methods in which these articles portray East Germans as victims.

No individual seems to be immune to this rhetoric, from everyday citizens to political leaders. In an article published in die Süddeutsche Zeitung in 1990, former SED party leader Erich Honecker calls himself as a scapegoat for former East Germans. The article references an interview Honecker had with the London-based newspaper The

European, and claims:

[D]ie Geschichte werde erweisen, dass er [Honecker] historisch gesehen im Recht gewesen sei. Vor irgendeinem Prozess habe er keine Angst, da er sich niemals auf Kosten des Volkes bereichert habe. Er persönlich habe keine Schuld daran, dass 200 Menschen an der DDR-Grenze getötet worden sein.

63 ([T]he story will prove that he was historically right. He [Honecker] is not afraid of a trial, as he never enriched himself at the expense of the people. He was not personally to blame for the fact that 200 people were killed at the GDR border.)29

Several articles focused on possibly indicting the East German regime for human rights violations and other crimes are also included in this sample. In 1995, die Junge

Welt published an article that argues that judges from the GDR could only retain their positions in reunited Germany only if they possessed political integrity.30 Another issue addressed in an article published in die Süddeutsche Zeitung in 1992 included the severity of the consequences for a border guard who may have shot someone trying to escape across the Wall.31 Through these examples, those found in The Wall Still Stands, and other examples that may become apparent as this chapter continues, it is clear that some of the word choices used in these articles – whether from sources or journalists themselves – paints a picture of East German citizens as victims of reunification, and those in charge of the system as perpetrators. Though not directly related to memory and representations of the Mauerfall, numerous articles published within the timeline of this sample were related to judicial proceedings and the persecution of East German leaders after the Mauerfall. While on one hand this supports the idea presented here of many East

German citizens as victims of the GDR system, it also presents leaders of the regime as perpetrators. In the previous chapter detailing the American articles in this sample, the examples are more striking and straightforward in terms of the phrasing used. There could be a variety of reasons for this, but the most is that of distance: when writing for an

American audience who may or may not have a vested interest in the outcomes and consequences of the Mauerfall in 1989, stronger language of victimization may have

64 been used to pique the interest of readers whose daily lives were not necessarily impacted by this historic event. However, for a German audience in the 1990s, alienating part of that audience was most likely not a goal of the newspapers analyzed in this sample. The

Cold War is presented here as a tale of morality, in which one system eventually defeated the other – communism is bad, but capitalism is good. This sort of rhetoric is used predominantly in articles published in the 1990s, with little to none being part of the 2009 coverage used in this sample and is stronger in the American sample than in the German sample.

Crossing the Border: Memories from a Night in November

While the American newspapers analyzed here have more content that uses victimization rhetoric to describe East Germans and their experiences after the fall of the

Berlin Wall, the German newspapers analyzed here appear to have spent much more time focusing on the chain of events of that fateful night in November 1989. From first-person accounts to play-by-plays32 of the various events and interactions that led to Günter

Schabowski’s nach meiner Kenntnis ist das sofort, unverzüglich (“to my knowledge, this immediately, without delay)”33 in response to a journalist’s clarifying question about when the travel restrictions would be lifted and the subsequent wave of people making their way to a various border crossings in Berlin, a variety of articles in this sample bring to light a multitude of perspectives and memories of November 9, 1989. The reaction to

Schabowski’s press conference is described in one article from 1999 as a surging sea:

Seine Worte setzten die Bevölkerung der DDR in Bewegung, wie ein Grundbeben die Wasser des Meeres. Die Welle wuchs, gewann Fahrt, wogte zu

65 den Passierstellen. Die Grenzsoldaten, verwirrt, ohne klare Befehlslage, leisteten noch eine Zeit lang Widerstand. Dann sahen auch sie ein, dass es keinen Sinn mehr hatte. Der Leiter der Passkontrolleinheit, Oberstleutnant Görlitz, sagte: “Wir fluten jetzt. Wir machen alles auf. ” Die Mauer war gefallen.

(His words set the population of the GDR in motion, as a shake up the waters of the sea. The wave grew, gained momentum, surged to the passages. The border guards, confused, without a clear command, resisted for a while. Then they also realized that it no longer made sense. The head of the passport control unit, Lieutenant Colonel Görlitz, said: “We are flooding now. We open everything.” The wall had fallen.)34

What is portrayed in many of these articles as Schabowski’s slip up ended up having a major impact.35 Beginning with the lead-up to the fall of the Berlin Wall, this section will highlight some of the experiences and recollections of both East and West Germans.

According to one article published in Süddeutsche Zeitung in 1990, a handful of people knew that travel restrictions would be lifted as early as two weeks before the

Mauerfall. Among them were Schabowski and Berlin’s Governing Mayor Walter

Momper.36 Even so, other articles published characterized Schabowski’s press conference as chaotic and the spokesman unfocused: neither the general public nor the press assembled seemed to have any idea that this would happen.37 Based on many of the other portrayals of this event, neither the SED nor Schabowski realized just how significant an impact his words would have that night. What began as an organized press conference ended up in a chaotic evening of uncertainty and eventually the opening of the border.

One example states it plainly: “Dass dieser Tag, mit einer Rüge wegen der Mauermörder begann, mit dem Fall der Mauer enden sollte, ahnte keiner” (“No one suspected that this day, which began with a complaint about the Wall murders, should end with the fall of the Wall”).38 Though most people were not expecting the fall of the Berlin Wall on

66 November 9, 1989, it is a date that resonates around the globe. One article published in die Süddeutsche Zeitung in 2009 implies this in its title: “Der Ruf der Freiheit: Wo warst du am 9. November?” (“The call of freedom: Where were you on November 9?”)39

Many accounts focus on Schabowski’s press conference, but an article in die Süddeutsche

Zeitung suggests other important causes, notably the protest movement that spread across the GDR in the months preceding Schabowski’s announcement.40

Similar to the sample of American newspaper articles analyzed in the previous chapter, some of these articles also discuss whether the fall of the Wall was inevitable.

Though travel restrictions were to be lifted, there is no telling if the Wall would have come down had events not occurred as they did. In an interview in die Süddeutsche

Zeitung with journalist Riccardo Ehrman, the journalist recalls receiving a call from an

East German journalist who reminded him of Schabowski’s press conference and encouraged him to ask about the travel law. According to Ehrman, he was late to the press conference because he could not find a parking space outside the building, which at the time was a rarity for such press conferences.41 In an interview with die Junge Welt published on November 9, 1999, Stasi-General Gerhard Niebling spoke about the events leading up to the Mauerfall:

Da wäre natürlich über die vielfältigen inneren Ursachen in der DDR zu reden, über die Unzufriedenheit mit der Versorgungslage, die Verärgerung über unzureichende Dienstleistungen, Mängel in der medizinischen Betreuung, eben die eingeschränkten Reisemöglichkeiten, den Unmut über die Arbeitsbedingungen und nicht funktionierenden Produktionsabläufe in Betrieben, über bürokratisches und herzloses Verhalten, die Ablehnung der Medienpolitik. Das waren schwerwiegende Probleme, die schon vorher hätten angepackt werden müssen, damit sie nicht zu massenhaften Anträgen auf Ausreise und zu Fluchtaktionen führten. Doch diese Probleme hätten vielleicht auch noch 1989 gelöste werden können. . . . Der entscheidende Punkt war Schabowskis Pressekonferenz, der ein

67 Chaos folgte, in dem das vorher so oft erprobte zentrale Führungssystem der DDR nicht funktionierte.

(Of course, there would be a lot to say about the manifold internal causes in the GDR, the dissatisfaction with the supply situation, the annoyance about inadequate services, shortcomings in medical care, the limited travel options, the displeasure regarding working conditions and the non-functioning production processes in companies, about bureaucratic and heartless behavior, the rejection of media policy. These were serious problems that needed to be tackled beforehand so they would not lead to mass applications for departures and escapes. But these problems might have been resolved in 1989 as well. . . . The crucial point was Schabowski’s press conference, a chaos which followed in which the previously so centralized leadership system of the GDR did not work.)42

These articles argue that the fall of the Wall was in fact inevitable, though the suddenness with which it was shifted to the annals of history was unexpected.

While most of the articles in this sample present adult perspectives of the events leading up to the Mauerfall as well as its aftermath, one article stands out and perhaps is the clearest examples of a division between East and West. This division isn’t economic, but rather is related to communication, expectations, and understanding (or in this case, lack thereof) of what life was like behind the Iron Curtain. An article published in die

Süddeutsche Zeitung in 1994 presents a different perspective: the experience and recollection of children who crossed the border for the first time that night. The article talks about a girl named Julia, who described her first experience in the West as just the beginning of embarrassment:

[Sie] erinnern sich an ihren ersten Besuch im Westen der Stadt. Wie es Begrüßungsgeld gab an der U-Bahn, wie bunt und riesig, groß und glitzernd die Schaufenster der Kaufhäuser waren. Und was für einen Spaß es machte, sich einen Tag nach der Maueröffnung an der Hand der Eltern durch die euphorische Menschenmenge auf dem Ku’damm zu hauen. Sie erinnern sich an freundliche Fremde, die ihnen Bonbons und Schokolade schenkten. Und sie erinnern sich daran, dass es Erwachsene gab, die meinten, Kindern aus dem Osten erklären zu

68 müssen, wie man eine Banane schält und isst. „Das war dann schon die erste Demütigung,” sagt Julia.

([They] remember their first visit to the west of the city. How they received money on the subway and how colorful, huge, big and glittering the shop windows of the department stores were. And what fun it was to see the euphoric crowd on the Ku’damm one day after the opening of the Wall, holding their parents’ hands. They remember friendly strangers who gave them candies and chocolates. And they remember that there were adults who thought they had to tell children from the East how to peel and eat a banana. “That was already the first humiliation,” says Julia.43

This article goes on to talk about the changing of education in the East to conform to Western standards and Western versions of history, and how Julia and other children referenced in the text were still working on coming to terms with their own experiences.

An interview published in die Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in 2009 focuses on the experiences of a film crew that was already at the Bornauerstraße border crossing to document the reaction to Schabowski’s announcement while many other journalists were in the bar of the Grand Hotel in Berlin-Mitte discussing what the announcement at the press conference could have meant.44 Other memoirs, this time from die Frankfurter

Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper journalists, tell their own stories of what they saw and experienced the night the Berlin Wall fell.45 One article describes the euphoria of this night:

Das Licht einer strahlenden Herbstsonne, der Geruch von Zweitaktgemisch, der Duft Thüringer Bratwürste, das emsige Schnurren der Trabis und jenes Lambada-Stück, dessen lockend absteigender Melodiebogen zum Ohrwurm geworden war – der 9. November 1989 hat seine Farben, seine Gerüche und Gräusche. Am Abend, drei Minuten vor sieben Uhr, hatte SED- Politbüromitglied Schabowski in einer Pressekonferenz eher beiläufig verkündet, dass “ab sofort Bürger der DDR” in die Bundesrepublik und nach West-Berlin reisen könnten. Das war das Startsignal für ein Tag währendes Fest des Wiedersehens in Deutschland. Noch in der Nacht machten sich Zehntausende auf den Weg, zu Fuß, mit dem Auto oder, in Berlin, mit der S-Bahn. Jubel und

69 Freudengesänge erfüllten die Züge, wenn sie den Bahnhof Friedrichstraße in Richtung Westen verließen.

(The light of a radiant autumn sun, the smell of two-stroke mixture, the fragrance of Thuringian sausages, the buzzing purr of the Trabis and that Lambada tune whose luring descending melody bow had become a catchy tune - November 9, 1989 has its colors, its smells and scents. In the evening, three minutes to seven o'clock, had SED Politburo member Schabowski in a press conference rather incidentally proclaimed that “from now on citizens of the GDR” could travel to the Federal Republic and to West Berlin. That was the starting signal for a day-long celebration of the reunion in Germany. Tens of thousands started their journey that night, on foot, by car or, in Berlin, by suburban train. Cheers and joys of joy filled the trains when they left the Friedrichstraße station to the west.)46

These examples showcase some of the stories told about the night of November 9, 1989, but the examples here are predominantly focused on the chain of events that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall. The next section will delve deeper into some individual reflections about that night and its perceived significance in world history.

Reflections on the Past

“Selten wurde ein epochales Datum wie der Fall der Berliner Mauer am 9.

November 1989 so schnell von seinen eigenen Wirkungen überholt,” (“Rarely has an epochal date, such as the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, been so quickly superseded by its own effects”) commented Reinhard Mohr in an article from 1993.47

This article is one of several that takes time to reflect on the significance of November 9,

1989 and the aftermath of the events that led to the fall of this symbol of the Cold War.

Another article from 1994 called this moment a rarity, “in denen sich Weltgeschichte sichtbar manifestiert” (“in which history is visibly manifested”), adding that each person would remember where they were and what they were doing when they learned of the fall

70 of the Berlin Wall.48 “Als am neunten November 1989 die Mauer in sich zusammensank, als die abgeschnittenen Straßenstummel diesseits und jenseits des Checkpoint Charlie sich wieder zu der einen und ungeteilten Friedrichstraße zusammenfügten, verkündeten

Philosophen das Ende der Geschichte,” (“When, on November 9, 1989, the Wall collapsed, as the truncated stubs on both sides of Checkpoint Charlie merged into one and undivided Friedrichstraße, philosophers announced the end of history,”), said another article.49 Time and time again in the present sample, articles either hint at or explicitly say that November 9, 1989 was a significant day in German (and world) history.

The previous section focused on individuals’ stories and memories of the events of the night of November 9, 1989. The following articles take a deeper look at what the events of November 9, 1989, meant on a deeper level for Germany and its citizens. Some of the articles reflect on the quality of life in Berlin several years later; others are more nostalgic and express sentiments of longing for the past; still others take a critical look at the Westernization process that the former East went through after the Mauerfall and official German reunification in 1990. Similar to the sample of American newspaper articles analyzed in the previous chapter, a handful of these articles also focus on individuals’ reactions to the anniversary celebrations.

As was the case in the American newspapers sample, Berlin itself is the subject of several articles. One, published in die Süddeutsche Zeitung in 1992, characterizes Berlin as a city caught between nostalgia and utopia.50 Another, published in 1995, describes the author’s neighborhood in troubling terms at best:

Nachts kommen Diebe in mein Haus und klauen Fahrräder. Sie sägen das gedrechselte Geländer ab. Bei der Nachbarin war das Schloss schon abgeschraubt,

71 als sie wach wurde und im Nachthemd die Männer davonjagen konnte. Der vollgekiffte junge Obdachlose, der auf unserem Hausboden übernachtete und mit Zigarettenschachteln kokelte, zückte schreiend ein Messer, als die Polizei kam, und wurde in Handschellen abgeführt.

(At night, thieves come into my home and steal bicycles. They saw off the railing. They had already unscrewed the lock when the neighbor woke up and chased the men away in her nightgown. The homeless young man, who slept on our house floor and played with packets of cigarettes, waved a knife and screamed when the police came, and was handcuffed.)51

Several other articles likewise chose to compare the “Old Berlin” with the “New

Berlin.” They cite differences ranging from the renaming of various streets in East

Berlin52 to westernizing schools and the version of history taught in these schools.53 The primary setting of these articles being Berlin comes as no surprise; as a city divided, it acted as a microcosm of the greater tensions of the Cold War.

An article from 1999 asked if the East is “only good for jokes” and says that some people found the GDR and the Wall bearable because the citizens did not take them seriously,54 but this seems to be the lightest tone – bordering on patronizing, almost – used in this sample in reference to the events of November 9, 1989. An article from die

Süddeutsche Zeitung refers to East Germans as das glücklichste Volk der Welt (“the luckiest people in the world”) the night that they surged across the Wall into the West.55

After some time had passed from the Mauerfall, it became easier to reflect on the events of and leading up to that night. An article from three years after the Mauerfall examines the state of international relations between reunited Germany and the now-former Soviet

Union.56 An article about a die Süddeutsche Zeitung-sponsored forum in 1999 commented on the variety of reasons people had for loving Berlin and how its recent past may or may not have influenced these perspectives.57 Despite the positive spin that many

72 of these articles seem to have – thus suggesting that the fall of the Wall and the end of the

GDR were positive developments in world history – they all seem to have more serious undertones.

A story of two sisters, separated by the Berlin Wall thanks to a chance visit to

West Berlin one evening, could be read either positively or negatively. On one hand, the

Mauerfall brought about a family reunion; on the other hand, two sisters who grew up living entirely different lives lacked communication and a shared history.58 Similar stories of separation and a reunion wrought with misunderstanding and cultural clash were also found in the American articles. Some articles, however, display more explicitly critical or negative angles toward the end of the GDR and the aftermath of the Mauerfall.

One such article profiles Margot Honecker, former SED Chief Erich Honecker’s wife who lived in exile in Chile after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1992. In 2009, she appeared in a video prepared for a celebration of the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the GDR and claimed among other things that 50 percent of East Germans were worse off under capitalism than before and that they remembered a “nice time” in the GDR.59

Another article describes the sentiments of some East Germans on the tenth anniversary of the fall of the Wall – in this case, not so joyful due in part to some of the aforementioned divisions that remained years after the Mauerfall.60 Rather than having some sort of nostalgia (or “Ostalgie”) as some of the articles seem to profess, this elucidates some of the hardships related to the transition away from capitalism and into a western-minded reunified Germany. The idea of Ostalgie as found in these articles seems to be more concentrated in the American articles rather than the German articles; while

73 one of the sub-sections above highlighted personal reflections and memories of the night of November 9, 1989 as published in the three German newspapers analyzed here, this portrayal focuses on the events of the past and does not necessarily express a longing to return to the days of the GDR. Articles in this sample reflected on the past and used hindsight to explain the past and provide a broader context for the events of November 9,

1989, rather than to pine for the ways of the past.

An article penned by Schabowski himself reflects on the Mauerfall and its aftermath and its symbolism:

Die Gedenktagsschwemme dieser Wochen hat Spekulationen und Legenden über den 9. November neu belebt. Gewiss hängt das mit der Symbolträchtigkeit des Betonwalls zusammen, der mehr als 30 Jahre lang bizarr, drohend und todbringend durch die deutsche Landschaft schnitt. Das Datum scheint für viele den Anfang vom Ende der DDR und des Ostblocks, die Wegscheide zwischen dem zweigeteilten Europa und der Chance zu einer Neuen Einheit des Kontinents zu markieren. Ich wage den Einwand, dass dies eine parallaktische Sichtverschiebung ist. Dass Deutsche als Angehörige eines lange zwangsgeteilten Volkes es so sehen, ist erklärlich. Tatsächlich kommt jedoch dem 2. Mai 1989, als Budapest den Grenzstacheldraht zwischen Ungarn und Österreich zerschnitt, das Verdienst der Initialzündung zu.

(The commemoration of these weeks has revived speculation and legends about November 9th. Of course, this is connected with the symbolism of the concrete wall, which cut over the German landscape for more than 30 years in a bizarre, threatening and deadly way. For many, the date seems to mark the beginning of the end of the GDR and the Eastern bloc, the divorce between the divided Europe and the chance for a new unity of the continent. I venture the objection that this is a parallactic visual shift. That Germans, as members of a long-compelled people, see it that way is understandable. In fact, however, May 2, 1989, when Budapest cut the border barbed wire between Hungary and Austria, the merit of the initial spark.)61

This date is seen around the world as a significant day in history – a day in which the world as we previously knew it changed. However, as this article shows, history isn’t always as it seems. The fall of the Berlin Wall was a monumental event, but so then was

74 the opening of the Austria-Hungary border several months prior. The visual nature of

Berlin’s Wall opening is thus one of the contributing history to its retelling in mainstream media. Berlin’s centrality to the ongoing East-West conflict made it the perfect exemplar of tensions and a perfect backdrop for remembering and reflecting on the past.

The Other November 9

According to an article in die Süddeutsche Zeitung, former German Foreign

Minister Klaus Kinkel described November 9 as“der symbolträchtigsten Tag in der deutschen Geschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts” (“the most important date in twentieth century German history”).62 Numerous articles published in all three German newspapers analyzed here speak to this phenomenon.63 Still other articles describe other important

November 9s – most often, Kristallnacht in 1938, though references to the anniversary of

Kaiser Wilhelm II’s 1918 abdication and Adolph Hitler’s arrest after his 1923 Beer Hall

Putsch also make appearances.64 One article went as far as to say that without

Kristallnacht in 1938, there would not have been a November 9, 1989, to remember, as the course of history would have been entirely different.65 Due in part to the multiplicity of significance that November 9 has in German history, in 1993 it was decided that the date would not be used solely as a day of Jewish remembrance – however, the date has still gone down as a day of many-leveled remembrance and of twentieth-century historical significance. 66 It is almost impossible to talk about one November 9 without referencing at least one of the others discussed here. One article, published in die

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in 2009, says it best:

75 Es ist möglich, sich über das eine zu freuen, ohne das andere zu vergessen oder zu verdrängen. Der 9. November ist seit zwanzig Jahren nicht mehr nur ein Datum der nationalen Schande, sondern auch ein Datum des nationalen Glücks; für die Ostdeutschen ist er ein Tag des berechtigten Stolzes. Kein anderes Datum vereint die Tief- und Höhepunkte der deutschen Geschichte so wie der neunte Tag des Novembers. Er ist ein Tag der historischen Wahrhaftigkeit.

(It is possible to rejoice over one without forgetting or displacing the other. For twenty years, November 9th is no longer just a date of national disgrace but also a date of national happiness; for the East Germans it is a day of justified pride. No other date unites the low and high points of German history as well as the 9th of November. It is a day of historical truthfulness.)67

This is not to say that one November 9 is necessarily more influential in collective memory than another, but is simply meant to highlight the day’s reoccurring presence in

German history and thus inspiration for the current study.

Celebration with a Side of Caution

In the years since 1989, the events of November 9 have been remembered in a variety of ways. Over time, general sentiments expressed in the analyzed newspaper articles spin more positively in relation to the anniversary celebrations. On the tenth anniversary of the Mauerfall, the Reichstag was closed for celebrations, which one article published in die Junge Welt said should begin early, as there is much to be celebrated on

November 9.68 Despite this, however, mostly negative undertones permeated the articles in this sample published in the 1990s. In the days leading up to the tenth anniversary of the Mauerfall, several articles reported on criticism of the lineup of people slated to speak at the official celebrations. One such article, published in die Süddeutsche Zeitung on

November 3, 1999, quotes Harald Ringstorff, then the governor of Mecklenburg

Vorpommern: “Im Westen scheint man zu vergessen, dass es Ostdeutsche waren, die

76 durch ihre friedlichen Demonstrationen im September und Oktober 1989 das

Entscheidende zur Wiedergewinnung der Freiheit beitrugen” (“In the West, one seems to forget that it was primarily East Germans who contributed to the recovery of freedom by their peaceful demonstrations in September and October 1989.”)69 Distaste at the exclusion of East German voices at the tenth anniversary celebration, as mentioned previously, was a topic covered also in die Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.70

However, the efforts of peaceful protesters in the GDR were not entirely forgotten by these newspapers. The emphasis on the efforts of peaceful protesters in the former communist bloc in several of the German articles served to give these individuals almost a martyr status, as people who had pushed so much to become part of the West.71 Even

Kohl thanked these demonstrators and said “Ihr Schicksal darf nicht vergessen werden, den es macht uns bewusst, dass Freiheit ein kostbares Gut ist, das alle Demokraten gegen die Feinde der offenen Gesellschaft verteidigen müssen” (“Their fate must not be forgotten, because it makes us realize that freedom is a precious commodity that all democrats must defend against the enemies of open soeicty”).72 In both 1999 and 2009, these protesters were once again mentioned and hailed for their efforts in the fall of the

Berlin Wall and communism.73 Other articles skimmed in the process of selecting the sample for this thesis seemed to share similar sentiments, even though their primary focus was not on the Mauerfall and its aftermath (and thus were excluded from the present sample).

In contrast to the tensions surrounding the tenth anniversary celebration of the

Mauerfall, around the time of the twentieth anniversary celebration in 2009, the tone of

77 the related articles was lighter. Many of the articles published then focused primarily on the actual celebration of the twentieth anniversary and looking toward the future, rather than fixating on the past and the lingering divisions that still seemed to be more prominent in 1999 discourse. For example, multiple articles describe the series of eight- foot-tall Styrofoam dominoes that were placed along the former site of part of the Berlin

Wall, then knocked down to symbolize the opening of the border and the domino effect this event had across Europe;74 former U.S. President George H.W. Bush, former German

Chancellor Helmut Kohl, and former General Secretary of the Communist Party of the

Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev were noted as significant dignitaries in attendance at the twentieth-anniversary celebrations in Berlin; 75 a symbolic walk of dignitaries across the Bornholmer Bridge;76 and current German Chancellor Angela Merkel utilized this

Fest der Freiheit (“festival of freedom”)77 to call for a new global order focused on climate change, prevention of armed conflict, and increasing equality between East and

West Germany.78

Beyond Germany, the symbolism and memory of the Mauerfall was not forgotten on the twentieth anniversary of its fall. Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger wrote in 2009:

“Zwanzig Jahre später ist es möglich, ein Ereignis zu würdigen, das vielen maßgeblichen Politikern mit uns befreundeter und verbündeter Länder 1989 unheimlich war und das einige mindestens zu verzögern suchten: Paris feiert mit Pomp den Fall der Mauer, in London schmilzt das Eis, in Rom wird gefeiert, und selbst in Sofia fällt eine “Berliner Mauer” – symbolische Mauerstürze allerorten.”

(Twenty years later, it is possible to acknowledge an event that was uncanny to many of the most influential politicians in our friendly and allied countries in 1989, and which some at least sought to delay: Paris celebrates the fall of the wall with pomp, in London the ice melts, and in Rome it is celebrated, and even in Sofia a “Berlin Wall” falls – symbolic wall falls everywhere.)79

78 The celebration of the anniversary of the Mauerfall across Europe and around the world further strengthens the narrative of its significance. Its use as a metaphor and a cautionary tale serves to solidify its significance in modern discourse and collective memory. In one example, Merkel stressed that “Im Zeitalter der Globalisierung müssten die ‘Mauern zwischen Gegenwart und Zukunft’ eingerissen werden, überdehnte sie die Metapher.

Jedenfalls gelte es, in aller Welt für Freiden und Sicherheit, für Wohlstand und

Gerechtigkeit zu sorgen” (“In the age of globalization, the 'walls between present and future' would have to be torn down, stretching the metaphor. In any case, it is important to ensure freedom and security, prosperity and justice all over the world.”)80 Though

Berliners may have experienced the Mauerfall firsthand and have personal stories to pass down from generation to generation, the impact of the Berlin Wall goes beyond its borders.

NOTES

1 Adam Jeffery, “The Berlin Wall: Now It’s Gone for as Long as it Stood,”

CNBC. February 6, 2018. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/05/the-berlin-wall-its-now- gone-for-as-long-as-it-stood--10316-days.html.

2 Klaus Singer, “Konkurrenz ausgehebelt: Die Geisteswissenschaften der DDR wurden nach der Wende zugrunde gerichtet,” Junge Welt, November 5, 1994.

3 Deutsche Presse Agenteur, “GEW gegen niedrigere Lehrerlöhne in Ex-DDR,”

Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 6, 1990.

79

4 Klaus Singer, “Konkurrenz ausgehebelt: Die Geisteswissenschaften der DDR wurden nach der Wende zugrunde gerichtet,” Junge Welt, November 5, 1994.

5 Siegfried Prokop, “Unerledigte Aufgaben: Wie unter Vertragsbruch die DDR-

Wissenschafts-Akademie diskriminiert wurde,” Junge Welt, November 4, 1999.

6 Associated Press, “DDR-Hochschullehrer darf weiterlehren,” Süddeutsche

Zeitung, November 8, 1995.

7 “Nicht-Übernahme eines DDR-Richters rechtmäßig: Entscheidung des

Bundesverwaltungsgerichts,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, November 7, 1995.

8 “Sorgen um Gesundheits in früher DDR,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 3-4,

1990.

9 Alex Rühle, “Da kann ja jeder kommen: Unser Autor beendet gerade ein

Zivildienst, als die Mauer fällt und im Osten der Pflegenotstand ausbricht,” Süddeutsche

Zeitung, November 7-8, 2009.

10 Dietmar Huber, “Ost-Wohnungen auf West-Markt?: Bund macht Druck auf

Regierungen der Neuen Länder,” Junge Welt, November 5, 1992.

11 Volker Wörl, “Millionen Hausen in Ruinen: In den neuen Bundesländern muss mit Milliarden-Aufwand modernisiert, abgerissen und neu gebaut werden,” Süddeutsche

Zeitung (Munich, Germany), November 3-4, 1990.

12 “Kommunen zu Entlassungen entschlossen: ‘Ost-Sonderregelung verlängern,’”

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, November 10, 1993.

80

13 Jefferson Chase, “Taxpayers Demand End to ‘Soli’ Tax to Boost Eastern

German Economy,” Deutsche Welle, November 9, 2017.

14 “Mehr als 500 000 Arbeitslose im Osten: Rückgang in den Alten

Bündesländern auf weniger als 1,7 Millionen,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 7, 1990.

15 “Mehr Erwerbslose im Osten: Im Westen bleibt die Zahl im Oktober nahezu unverändert,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 7, 1991.

16 Reuters, “Genscher: 25 Prozent weniger Steuern in Ex-DDR,” Süddeutsche

Zeitung, November 3-4, 1990.

17 “Mehr Erwerbslose im Osten: Im Westen bleibt die Zahl im Oktober nahezu unverändert.”

18 “Wer bezahlt die Strukturkrise?: Regierung und Opposition im Streit um

Lohnausgleich für Arbeitszeitverkürzungen,” Junge Welt, November 8, 1993.

19 Agence France Presse, “Ostdeutsche Städte verfallen zunehmend,” Süddeutsche

Zeitung, November 2, 1994.

20 See “Im Oktober 3,9 Millionen ohne Stelle: In Ostdeutschland bleibt die

Arbeitsmarkt-Lage ungünstig,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 10, 1999 and Peter

Schmitt, “Arbeitslosigkeit größtes Problem in Ostdeutschland: Konjunkturelle Besserung nur im Westen spürbar,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 10, 1999.

21 “Bilanz 1999: Depression beherrscht Beitrittsgebiet,” Junge Welt, November

10, 1999.

81

22 Annette Weber, “Frauen machen Arbeit: In Berlin diskutieren

Wissenschaftlerinnen und Gewerkschaftsvertreterinnen über Erwerbstätigkeit und sozialen Lagen der Frauen in den neuen Bundesländern,” Junge Welt, November 10,

1994.

23 “Unverhofft,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, November 9, 1994.

24 Herbert Wagner, “Die verführerische ‘Ostalgie,’” Frankfurter Allgemeine

Zeitung, November 10, 1995.

25 “‘Keine Mauer in den Köpfen’: Schäuble würdigt Erfolge nach zehn Jahren deutscher Einheit,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, November 8, 1999.

26 Associated Press/Junge Welt, “Im Osten immer mehr Wohnungslose,” Junge

Welt, November 8-9, 1997.

27 Christian Linde, “Obdachlose: Der Osten hold mächtig auf,” Junge Welt,

November 8, 1999.

28 Tilo Gräser, “Im Osten wächst die Armut: ‘Sozialreport 1997’ in Berlin vorgestellt,” Junge Welt, November 1-2, 1997.

29 Wire (various), “Honecker: Kommunismus wird siegen: Ex-Parteichef der

DDR sieht sich in der Rolle des Sündenbocks,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 3-4,

1990.

30 Wire (various), “DDR-Richter auf Distanz: Übernahme nur bei

‘Nachdenklichkeit,’” Junge Welt, November 7, 1995.

82

31 “DDR-Grenzrecht verstieß gegen Menschenrechte: Urteil gegen

‘Mauerschützen’ wegen Totschlags bestätigt Auswirkungen auf das Verfahren gegen

Honecker erwartet,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 4, 1992.

32 “Die Mauer Fällt,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, November 9, 1999.

33 “‘Sofort, unverzüglich’: Ein Potsdamer Kolloquium über den 9. November

1989,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 3, 1999.

34 Konrad Schuller, “Zehn Jahre deutscher Zwischenzeit sind zu Ende: Die DDR sinkt in die Vorvergangenheit,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, November 10, 1999.

35 Stefan Aust, “Des Zettels Traum: Heute zeigt das Erste ein filmisches Protokoll des 9. November 1989, als Günter Schabowski am Abend fast beiläufig die

Ausreiseregelung erklärte und die Mauer sich öffnete,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,

November 2, 2009.

36 Reuters, “Berliner Senat wusste vorab Bescheid: Momper- Von SED-

Politbüromitglied 14 Tage vorher informiert,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 9, 1990.

37 Albrecht Hinze, “Schabowski verbreitet Chaos, dann stürmt das Vold die verbotene Stadt: Wie ein Volk in Ost und West vier Stunden lang brauchte, um den

Knüller aus dem Politbüro in seiner ganzen Tragweite zu erfassen,” Süddeutsche Zeitung,

November 9, 1994; Albrecht Hinze, “Versehentliche Zündung mit verzögerter

Sprengkraft: Wie das damalige SED-Politbüromiglied aus einem Irrtum heraus die

Grenzöffnung vor ungläubigen Journalisten bekannt gab,” Süddeutsche Zeitung,

November 9, 1990.

83

38 “Das Protokoll eines Tages 1: Morgens um 9.00 Uhr ist die Welt noch in

Ordnung…” Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 9, 1999.

39 Annette Ramelsberger, “Der Ruf der Freiheit: Wo warst du am 9. November?”

Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 8-9, 2009.

40 Christiane Kohl, “Die Idee der Freiheit veränderte die Geschichte: An der

Revolution vor 20 Jahren war nicht Schabowskis Zettel schuld, sondern es waren die

Protestbewegungen in allen Winkeln der DDR,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 9,

2009.

41 Jochen Arntz, “‘Hier spricht der Mann aus dem U-Boot’: Riccardo Ehrman

über den 9. November 1989,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 5, 2009.

42 Holger Becker, “‘Eine geschlossene Front gegen die DDR’: MfS-General

Gerhard Niebling über das Vorspiel zum 9. November 1989,” Junge Welt, November 9,

1999.

43 Evelyn Roll, “Die unverkrampften Kinds der Wende,” Süddeutsche Zeitung,

November 9, 1994.

44 Michael Hanfeld, “Die Menschen wollten nicht mehr auf,” Frankfurter

Allgemeine Zeitung, November 6, 2009.

45 Stefan Locke, Reinhard Müller, Frank Pergande, Matthias Wyssuwa and Petra

Urbaniak, “Mein 9. November,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, November 7, 2009.

46 Eckhard Fuhr, “Novembersonne, Trabis und Lambada,” Frankfurter

Allgemeine Zeitung, November 9, 1994.

84

47 Reinhard Mohr, “Geschichte im Windkanal,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,

November 9, 1993.

48 Gustav Seibt, “War da was?: Die Historiker und 1989,” Frankfurter Allgemeine

Zeitung, November 9, 1994; “Ist das wirklich geschehen?” Frankfurter Allgemeine

Zeitung, November 9, 2009.

49 Konrad Schuller, “Niemand weiß mehr, wo genau die Mauer Stand: Einst ein

Trennstrich durch die Welt,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, November 8, 1997.

50 Albrecht Roeseler, “Im scharfen Wind der Normalität: Das wiedervereinigte

Berlin zwischen Nostalgie und Utopie,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 9, 1992.

51 Regine Sylvester, “Vermüllt, verrucht, vital: Leben in Berlin-Mitte, Sechs Jahre nach dem Mauerfall,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 4-5, 1995.

52 Wolf-Dieter Vogel, “Vorläufiger Sieg der Kreuzberger Lindenstraße: Vier

Ostberliner Straßen umbenannt,” Junge Welt, November 1, 1995.

53 Nils Kaiser, “Im Orkus deutscher Geschichte?: Namen sind Schall und Rauch,”

Junge Welt, November 9, 1993.

54 “Die DDR als fidele Baracke: Taugt der Osten heute nur noch zum

Witzemachen? Ein Gespräch mit Richard Schröder über das, was bleibt,” Süddeutsche

Zeitung, November 10, 1999.

55 Annette Ramelsberger, “Guten Abend, ich wird verrückt,” Süddeutsche

Zeitung, November 9, 1999.

85

56 “Beziehungen zu Moskau auf neuer Grundlage: Kohl und Gorbatschow unterzeichnen einen umfassendem Vertrag über die künftige Zusammenarbeit,”

Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 9, 1992.

57 Marianne Heuwagen, “‘Durch den Rummel müssen wir durch’: Vier neue und ein alter Berliner stritten beim SZ-Forum über das neue und das alte Berlin,” Süddeutsche

Zeitung, November 1, 1999.

58 Frank Rothe, “‘Die Wärme hat gefehlt’: Zwei Schwestern und die Mauer,”

Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 2, 1999.

59 Deutsche Presse Agentur, “Loblied auf die DDR,” Süddeutsche Zeitung,

November 2, 2009.

60 Constanze Bullion and Marcus Jauer, “Statt der Freude: Jahrestag 9. November:

Eigeschweißte Mauerstückt, Trabis aus dem Westen und dazu eine Coke,” Süddeutsche

Zeitung, November 10, 1999.

61 Günter Schabowski, “Vor fünf Jahren barst die Mauer: Erinnerung und späte

Einsichten,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, November 8, 1994.

62 Reuters and Deutsche Presse Agentur, “‘Symbolträchtigster Tag’ – Kinkel:

Mauerfall und Pogromnacht waren Höhe- und Tiefpunkt,” Süddeutsche Zeitung,

November 10, 1995.

63 “Gedenken an ein Datum mit zweifacher Erbschaft: Maueröffnung und

Judenverfolgung,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, November 10, 1994; “‘Der symbolträchtigste Tag der deutschen Geschichte’: Kohl und Kinkel gedenken der

86

Öffnung der Berliner Mauer am 9. November vor sechs Jahren,” Frankfurter Allgemeine

Zeitung, November 10, 1995; “Rührung und gemessene Freude Feiern zum zehnten

Jahrestag der Maueröffnung,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, November 10, 1999.

64 See: Johannes Willms, “Der 9. November: Vier Zäsuren in der deutschen

Geschichte,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 9, 1993; Hans Mommsen, “Der Fetisch der formalen Legalität: Der 9. November – Ein Datum, das über die schwierige Geschichte der Deutschen im 20. Jahrhundert Auskunft gibt,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 10,

1998; Moritz Schuller, “Zehn Jahre sind ein Tag: Ein Jubiläum, Zwei Standpunkte: Vom

Osten aus gesehen, war Berlin immer schon eine richtige Hauptstadt,” Süddeutsche

Zeitung, November 3, 1999; Dietmar Huber, “Deutsches Gedenken an den 9. November:

Klare Worte,” Junge Welt, November 10, 1993; “Schicksalstag der Deutschen:

Deutschland am 9. November: 75-70-55-4 Jahre danach,” Junge Welt, November 10,

1993; “Symbolträchtig: 9. November,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 8, 1994.

65 “Bubis ruft Demokraten zur Wachsamkeit auf: ‘Des Mauerfalls hätte es nicht bedurft, wenn es den 9. November 1938 gegeben hätte,’” Süddeutsche Zeitung,

November 10, 1995.

66 Dietmar Huber, “Reden über die Historie: 9. November – Süssmuth-Rede unter

PDS-Kontrolle,” Junge Welt, November 9, 1993.; “Vatis Gedenktag: Wie es wahrscheinlich war, oder auch nicht – Der neunte November in Deutschland,” Junge

Welt, November 9, 1994.

87

67 Berthold Kohler, “Der Tag der Deutschen,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,

November 10, 2009.

68 Uwe Soukup, “Tag mit pastoralem Beistand: Viele Reden, eine Meinung,”

Junge Welt, November 10, 1999.

69 Deutsche Presse Agentur, “Ärger um Feier zum zehnten Jahrestag des

Mauerfalls,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 3, 1999.

70 Deutsche Presse Agentur, “Kritik an Rednerliste für den 9. November,”

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Nov. 9, 1999; “‘Kollektive Verantwortung’: Streit um

Redner für 9. November,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, November 4, 1999.

71 “Die Parteien gedenken der friedlichen Revolution in der DDR und würdigen die Aufbauleistungen der Ostdeutschen,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, November 9,

1999

72 Associated Press, “Kohl lobt Verdienste der DDR-Bürgerrechtler,” Süddeutsche

Zeitung, November 9-10, 1996.

73 Süddeutsche Zeitung Eigener Bericht, “Bundestag würdigt Mut der

Ostdeutschen,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, Nov. 10, 1999; Jens Schneider, “Lustvoll in die

Demokratie: Im Herbst 1989 kämpften Bürgerrechtler kreativ für mehr Freiheit in der

DDR – und führten sie so in den Untergang,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 6, 2009.

74 “Mauerspektakel im Namen der Freiheit,” Junge Welt, November 9, 2009;

Junge Welt STAFF, “Gott war’s: Blühende Phantasie bei Feiern in Berlin,” Junge Welt,

November 10, 2009; Wulf Schmiese, “Wieder schauen die Völker auf diese Stadt: Zum

88

zwanzigsten Jahrestag der Grenzöffnung reißt Berlin noch einmal die Mauer nieder,”

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, November 10, 2009.

75 Stefan Braun, “Die drei von der Ruhmeshalle: Es geht nicht ohne große

Gefühle, wenn Helmut Kohl, Michael Gorbatschow und George Bush Senior sich noch einmal treffen, um als Giganten der deutschen Einheit gefeiert zu werden,” Süddeutsche

Zeitung, November 2, 2009.

76 Peter Carstens, “Nie wieder im Schlafanzug über die Grenze,” Frankfurter

Allgemeine Zeitung, November 10, 2009.

77 “Berlin feiert Fest der Freiheit: 26 Staatschefs kommen in die Hauptstadt,”

Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 5, 2009.

78 Peter Blechschmidt, “Merkel: Nationalstaaten müssen Macht abgeben:

Kanzlerin fordert neue globale Ordnung, um Kriege und Klimawandel zu verhindern,”

Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 10, 2009.

79 Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger, “Im Herzen Europas,” Frankfurter Allgemeine

Zeitung, November 10, 2009.

80 Matthias Rüb, “Mauerfälle,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, November 6,

2009.

89 Chapter 5: Discussion and Conclusion

The Berlin Wall means something different to everyone. For some, it spent decades as a physical presence and part of everyday life and may remain to this day a border seldom crossed; for some, it was a symbol of the division of the times, far away but still relevant; still for others, it may just be a feature of a study unit in a world history survey course. For hundreds of millions during the Cold War, the Berlin Wall defined a city and personified world order for decades. It clarified who the Cold War opposition was and made the world seem more black and white. Since its fall in 1989, the Berlin

Wall has become didactic – a symbol used to encourage open dialogue and cooperation on a global stage. Its presence no longer looms; the eight-foot tall fortification and the death strip that once discouraged East-West migration are now a “patchwork landscape that comprises traditional landscape elements such as plants, surfaces and urban furniture, commemorative installations and new buildings, but also a new memory landscape made of the combination of what remains and what was lost.”1 Tourists flock to Berlin from around the globe to take photos with the murals at the Berliner Mauer East Side Gallery and to walk through the Brandenburg Gate, then go home with their own allegedly authentic pieces of the Wall, purchased at strategically placed gizmo shops around the city.

An ancient Indian fable tells of a group of blind men discovering for themselves the nature of an elephant. To do so, each man touches his own section of the elephant – the tusks, the ear, the trunk, etc. As a result, their individual descriptions do not match – the blind man who touches the elephant’s side considers it a wall, the tail is a rope, the

90 tusk is a spear, and so on. Thus, together the men cannot come up with a conclusive definition of what an elephant is.2 Like the parable of the elephant, an individual’s interpretation of the Berlin Wall and its significance is strongly influenced, if not determined, by their individual biases.

Memory itself is inherently biased because of how the human brain is structured.

Real-time sensory experience of an event takes place right behind the forehead, in the prefrontal cortex. Take for example a man with a sledgehammer striking the Berlin Wall in 1989. For this memory to become long-term instead of just an ephemeral sensation, the memory must become consolidated in neural pathways in the brain’s frontal lobe. This can occur in several ways. The first step is repetition. Like a child learning the A-B-C’s by the repeated singing of the ABC Song, the brain consolidates the memory through rote iteration of the sensory data. Second, analysis. Reason enhances understanding and can encode significance. What should one make of the man striking the Berlin Wall with a sledgehammer? What significance does this image have? Third, though not necessarily applicable here, is through physical motion and the development of muscle memory.

When one first learns how to ride a bike, he or she has to pay attention to the combination of balance, steering, and pedaling. Over time, however, this process becomes encoded in muscle memory in the cerebellum at the back of the brain and occurs without conscious thought. Fourth and finally, memory attains a degree of permanence through strong emotional connection. A “flashbulb” memory activates the brain’s amygdala due to fear, joy, or some other strong emotion. In the present context, this could be the first time someone could travel to the West or the experience of reuniting with family members

91 when the Berlin Wall fell. For many, the Berlin Wall’s demise would play out repeatedly, analytically, and with this intensity.

Despite this process, such memories are not permanently fixed. The same neural pathways that experienced the event in the first place are reactivated when the event is recalled, and other sensations simultaneously occurring in the mind at the point of recall may attach to it, making the memory fluid. Changes in memories are more likely to occur

(and on a greater scale) as more and more time passes since the original event. Thus, the memory of the Berlin Wall is expected to evolve over time and reflect the individual idiosyncrasies of the observer. English playwright and wit Oscar Wilde called memory

“the diary that we carry about with us.” Perhaps this is so, but in reality, even the earliest leaves contain the most fictions as the brain continuously rewrites each page.3 This fluidity of memory is very important to take note of. Newspapers create a record of the day, freezing thoughts, opinions, and context in time. Despite this, however, memory itself remains fluid. This is reflected in the evolution of coverage produced by both the

American and German newspapers, as the newspapers reflect the world around them. The classic chicken-and-the-egg debate (which came first?) can be applied here as well: Do newspapers create or cover public opinion? It is this author’s belief that both answers are accurate. While newspaper content is primarily driven by what is happening in the world and what public officials (and increasingly, average people) are saying about global events, it also influences public opinion. Those who read newspaper coverage may have their opinions validated by the coverage, or in some cases, may be exposed to other opinions or analyses.

92 While the facts of what actually happened and a distinct timeline of events leading up to and following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 certainly exist – and in the present study are described by many of the newspaper articles analyzed – the manner in which sources such as newspapers also elect to portray and characterize an event (such as the Mauerfall) serves to create a generalized, collective memory in accordance with that newspaper’s underlying political and ideological biases. Each time a person recalls an event from the past, this memory is re-contextualized to fit a certain situation. In the present context, this “flashbulb” memory also impacts the manner in which a certain event is remembered. Kathy Pezdek, a cognitive psychologist at Clarmont Graduate

University in California, postulated that the closer someone is to an event and the more personal involvement they have, the greater the likelihood is that emotion will affect their memory of said event.4 Marilyn C. Smith, Uri Bibi and D. Erin Sheard used this framework to investigate memories of the events of September 11, 2001 in New York

City. They found that event memory was indeed better for those with a strong emotional connection to the events of September 11 and that, with the passage of time, the accuracy of the event memory decreased while the details of personal information recalled increased.5 Thus, the memory of an event comes to bear the imprint of the one who remembers. As this thesis shows, it seems to be no different in collective memory.

In a similar vein, the articles analyzed here follow this pattern and demonstrate the impact that both spatial and chronological distance have on the manner in which the events of November 9, 1989, are catalogued in collective memory of the selected newspapers. Even today, almost thirty years after the Mauerfall, the Berlin Wall itself has

93 a slightly different connotation and significance than it did when it was standing and even when the later articles in this sample were published. The analysis presented here suggests some of the key distinctions in the way American and German newspapers presented different narrative perspectives surrounding the fall of the Wall. In the selected

American newspapers, reports focus on anecdotal stories in an effort to humanize the fall of the Wall and connect their readers to distant events. In the selected German newspapers, reports focus on a more cut-and-dried retelling of the events of November 9,

1989, with fact- and detail-heavy reporting in lieu of more editorial anecdotes and few personal recollections and reflections, as seen in the American newspapers. However, these perspectives were not fixed in time, but rather vary decade to decade – in the 1990s, most articles are concentrated on comparing then-and-now and play into commonly lived memory; in 2009, most articles are removed from the event and speak of the Mauerfall in more of a metaphorical or “lessons learned” sense. This change is seen as generations become removed from the events of November 9, 1989, and memories are faded by the passage of time and introduction of new geopolitical factors and potential comparisons.

This will presumably continue to shift as new generations grow up learning about the

Mauerfall from secondary sources and as the imagery and significance of walls continue to evolve with the modern political climate.

The way in which each newspaper’s audience interacted with memories of the

Berlin Wall played a direct role in how each newspaper chose to present the topic. The three American newspapers moralized the Mauerfall, sometimes in terms of victims and perpetrators and always with more anecdotal evidence to draw the reader in.

94 Journalistically, this stems from an American audience’s inherent distance from an event that happened so far away (first in terms of geography, and later in time as well). Many of the intricate challenges faced by East Germans after reunification are not emphasized in the American articles. Rather, the challenge, and ultimate success, of fitting the five

East German states into the West German world order is presented as a triumph of democracy over communism. On the other hand, the German newspapers painted the picture of the Mauerfall in poignant, realistic, and sometimes even tragic terms. The pitfalls of reunification and the intricacies of combining two systems into one in such a short amount of time were not lost on these newspapers. Tales of misunderstanding and a plethora of articles referencing the trials of former GDR and Stasi officials in the 1990s stand out as examples of this fact-heavy angle.

Over time, as the Berlin Wall faded from lived reality to memory, the coverage in all of the selected newspapers also shifted. In the 1990s, both American and German newspapers compared the pre-Mauerfall years with current experiences and circumstances. By 2009, the Berlin Wall served as more of a cautionary tale for current and future world leaders to look back on and to learn from than part of everyday life and discussion. The Berlin Wall went from being daily reality, especially for those living in its shadow, to historical memory and moral lessons from the West. The Wall has not lost its intrigue as a major symbol of the divisions of the twentieth century, but instead has rather become an almost-mythical source of reason and perspective.

Though the articles selected from The Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, and

The Wall Street Journal shared several prominent themes as evidenced in Chapter 3,

95 there were some notable differences among the papers themselves, specifically that on which each newspaper’s coverage focused. The Wall Street Journal tended to look more at the economic effects of German reunification and how the country worked to bring two systems that had been pitted against each other for decades back together. This was not particularly surprising, given the newspaper’s target audience is business-minded. The

Wall Street Journal’s coverage of the Mauerfall and its subsequent effects all included a business or economic angle.

The Chicago Tribune appeared to have a more positive outlook about the

Mauerfall than the other two newspapers did. The Chicago Tribune made a point to emphasize the hardships faced by East Germans after reunification in the early 1990s and seemed to see the Soviets and the GDR as somewhat backwards. In doing so, it portrayed the fall of the Wall as a positive development in German history. Though much of this newspaper’s coverage from the 1990s did examine hardships faced by East Germans after their country ceased to exist, in 2009 its outlook was overwhelmingly positive and could even be described as somewhat celebratory. Despite the emphasis on human suffering and hardship, ultimately the articles in The Chicago Tribune had an underlying positive attitude toward the Mauerfall and German reunification.

While it too had several human-interest-type stories, The New York Times is a more liberal-leaning publication in the U.S. than the other two American newspapers utilized for this part of the current analysis. This fact sets its coverage apart on a different level. Unlike the other two newspapers, whose articles seemed to the researcher to be more direct-impact based (for example, involving unemployment statistics or personal

96 anecdotes), The New York Times’s coverage reflects on the Mauerfall, the legacy of the

Wall, and looks toward the future. These themes seem to be more abstract than those found in The Wall Street Journal and The Chicago Tribune, though all three American newspapers analyzed do, to some extent, utilize the past to look toward and to contemplate the impact it has on the world even further removed from the events of 1989.

What one is to make of these differences is hard to say. Perhaps, given that The New York

Times is seen as the United States’ paper of record and a key player in the setting of the nation’s news agenda, it makes the most substantial effort to make sense, to explain history, and to give the events a progressive (liberal) spin.

Like the American newspapers, each of the German newspapers analyzed here was selected for a variety of reasons – their high circulations, their perceived significance in relation to the topic at hand, and their diverse ideological alignment. As referenced in

Chapter 2, die Junge Welt’s unique history as the only publication in this sample published in the GDR and its maintenance of a far-left leaning audience to this day were its primary qualifications. Though Germany does not have a two-party political system like the United States does, die Süddeutsche Zeitung and die Frankfurter Allgemeine

Zeitung represent viewpoints aligned with two of the more prominent political parties in the country (the CDU/CSU and FDP). As such, these three newspapers present a cross- section of content and three variations of the German perspective toward the GDR and reunified Germany, suitable for comparison with the selected American newspapers.

Beyond the differences seen in the American and German newspapers in this sample, each German newspaper analyzed here brings to the table its own perspective

97 and journalistic style. However, unlike the American newspapers analyzed here, the differences in coverage were not so pronounced. Die Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, catering to a politically right-center-leaning audience, did spend more time talking about the significance of the Mauerfall in more concrete terminology and explicit examples than the other two newspapers seemed to do. Günter Schabowski’s reflection, published in 1994, is one such example. He writes somewhat plainly of some of what he sees the consequences for opening the Wall.6 Die Süddeutsche Zeitung spent some time looking back at the relationship between the SED and the church during the GDR years. Concern for the moral well-being of East Germans seemed to be on the editorial staff’s mind, which could play into the aforementioned moralistic arguments of Americans such as

Reagan. In this case, it should be noted that the region in which die Süddeutsche Zeitung is published (Munich) was part of the American Sector of post-World War II occupied

Germany.

The one outlier, so to speak, was die Junge Welt. Though it was selected for this sample because of its uniqueness, the researcher also expected to find a different type of coverage within its pages. That she did – but not how as expected. Instead of describing feelings of nostalgia for the former times of the GDR as its political alignment may lead readers to expect, die Junge Welt seemed to be the most critical of other populations, specifically toward the Nazis. Numerous articles published in almost every year surveyed describe the events of Kristallnacht in 1938 and use these stories to set apart the perpetrators of this event from its readership. While die Süddeutsche Zeitung and die

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung also refer to Kristallnacht on a number of occasions

98 (several of which are cited specifically in Chapter 4), during the collection of the sample, it was very clear that the die Junge Welt editorial staff made a point to contrast its existence from that of the previous regime. Die Junge Welt also focused a number of articles (again, not included in the present sample) on the 1917 October Revolution that led to the formation of the Soviet Union. What should be made of this? Perhaps die Junge

Welt, like a convert to a religion, embraces holy writ with more enthusiasm than those raised with it, or feels a need to distance itself from a questionable past in order to feel at home in the new church. Or perhaps die Junge Welt, in emphasizing events such as

Reichskristallnacht in its coverage, seeks not to distance itself from the past but to remind readers of what capitalism can lead to. This perspective in turn distances die Junge Welt from capitalism itself.

Overall, there were several notable differences between the newspaper coverage published in the United States and that published in Germany. The American newspapers, as a whole, used more descriptions and flowery language to pull readers into the story, whereas the German newspapers relied more on significant facts than engaging narratives. The German newspapers shared limited personal anecdotes (and when they were shared, they came directly from the source) and had a more cut-and-dried approach to presenting the information. The American newspapers seemed to view the Berlin Wall as a geopolitical entity, now defunct but still a symbol for the backbone of modern East-

West relations. These articles still, however, emphasize the human suffering and overcoming challenges angle to get the story across to their audience. The German articles, while also viewing the Berlin Wall from a geopolitical angle, dive deeper into

99 the minutia of the Wall and its demise. The repetition of articles focused on details related to the process of the Mauerfall and later German reunification, such as

Schabowski’s press conference or the trials of former Stasi and SED officers. To say cut- and-dried here is to imply the straightforwardness and almost logistical nature of the articles reviewed here. Of course, not every article analyzed in Chapters 3 and 4 of this thesis fit this characterization exactly, due to nuances in the writing and the inherent biases of the researcher (for example, more familiarity with the American newspapers’ writing style). However, distinct variations in how American and German newspapers chose to remember the fall of the Berlin Wall in their anniversary coverage still exist and can be plainly seen in this sample.

There is also a difference in coverage between the 1990s and 2009, for both the

American and German articles analyzed. Much as how memories are stored and altered over time on an individual or personal level, so are the perspectives presented in the selected newspapers. In the 1990s, both American and German newspapers were focused on comparing the more immediate past with the present and looked at what progress still needed to be made with regards to reunification. In 2009, outlooks across the board appeared to skew more positively, with emphasis on the progress made and the future of reunified Germany as a powerful player on the world stage. The Cold War and the

Mauerfall are presented here as tales of morality, in which one system defeated the other

(one is bad and one is good). As mentioned previously, this dichotomous rhetoric is mostly found in articles from the 1990s. However, very little of this sort of sentiment was found in the 2009 coverage. Even though both American and German newspapers used

100 this to make a point, the language used in the American sample is stronger than that of the German sample, due in part to the fact that Germany needed to maintain and not alienate its reunified audience. One example occurs when an article in The Wall Street

Journal described the nature of the guard towers that lined the Berlin Wall. The article explicitly states that the towers faced East in an effort to control the border –not from an approaching enemy, but rather from the migration of the GDR’s own people.7

The articles analyzed here demonstrate the didactic nature of the Berlin Wall.

Year after year, newspapers in the United States and in Germany commemorate the

Mauerfall, and year after year new conclusions are reached regarding its role in modern relations and its impact on modern life. Researchers can look to lexicon, to content, to perspective, to circumstantial comparisons, and more to determine what this event means in a given time, but what they can’t do is speak to each individual’s reaction to an anniversary. Collective memory in and of itself is subjective – in the case of these newspapers, it pushes the opinions and perspectives of a group of journalists, editors and publishers out into the world. Based on the previous examples and anecdotes, it is safe to say that memory changes over time. However, its influence and the influence of significant events in political history does not change. History and memory are the backbones upon which nations build foreign policy and choose to interact with one another on the global stage. This is important to note because while time passes and memories are re-contextualized, these memories are still used to justify and interpret events and anticipate the actions or reactions of other actors on the world’s stage. The memories (inherently biased versions) that are deemed valuable enough to pass on to

101 future generations help shape future world leaders’ minds both through official (i.e. school curriculum) and unofficial (i.e. family) means.

Newspapers, such as those analyzed here, serve a similar function. In preserving this collective memory as daily (or otherwise regular) record, newspapers serve as a resource for understanding how certain events were interpreted in the past and how these interpretations have evolved over time. In comparing newspapers, in this case from varied ideological perspectives as well as from different countries, one can better understand how another country or culture interprets the past and chooses to present it to the public. Comparing American and German newspaper accounts of the fall of the

Berlin Wall and subsequent interpretations presented in anniversary coverage of this event allows people to recognize differences in coverage in a way that they otherwise might not see, as per Alexis de Tocqueville’s analysis of democracy in America in the

1800s which says that the best observer of a culture is not a member of that culture.8 With this in mind, such a comparison between American and German newspapers’ interpretations and anniversary coverage of the fall of the Berlin Wall is invaluable. The present comparison allows for an in-depth look at how each country has chosen, through some of its more widely read media, to represent this event.

The present study has several notable limitations. Firstly, the multilingual aspect of this analysis presented a challenge. The researcher is a native English speaker but is an intermediate-level German student, still in the process of learning, and thus is unable to pick up on some of the subtle nuances of the written language. All of the German articles examined here were initially read in German, and the newspapers as a whole were

102 skimmed with minimal translations to obtain the sample in the first place. Secondly, the samples were selected using two different methods. The American articles were found using keyword search terms in online newspaper databases; the German articles were manually selected by skimming through about three hundred days of printed newspapers available in the Universität Leipzig Institut für Kommunikations- und

Medienwissenschaft Pressarchiv (Institute for Communication and Media Studies Press

Archive) for similar keywords. Though applying that same method for the American articles might have produced the same results, it is still a potential factor worth mentioning. Thirdly, the perspective and education of the researcher impacted how the articles were ultimately interpreted. Having been born in the 1990s and raised in the

United States, the researcher went into this project with certain expectations of what sort of content would be found and what it would indicate.

Despite limitations, the present analysis provides a needed comparison in

American and German collective memory related to the fall of the Berlin Wall in

November 1989. However, this thesis is only able to tell part of the story. Given additional time and resources, the researcher would like to see the analysis expanded to include more newspapers and more countries. Including the four occupying powers in postwar Germany (Russia, Britain and France, in addition to the United States already presented here) would enlighten readers to additional perspectives and experiences – more blind men discovering the elephant, as it were. While the United States and

Germany have certainly shared a close relationship over the years, the U.S.’s geographical detachment from Europe removes potential security concerns that may

103 impact the tone or content of articles published by newspapers in a country such as

France. Though the findings here are significant, newspapers from other stakeholders would certainly serve to enhance the analysis.

NOTES

1 Deborah Ascher Barnstone, “Between the Walls: the Berlin No-Man’s Land

Reconsidered,” Journal of Urban Design 21 no. 3 (2016): 291.

2 Lucy C. Cheke and Nicola S. Clayton, “The Six Blind Men and the Elephant:

Are Episodic Memory Tasks Tests of Different Things or Different Tests of the Same

Thing?” Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 137, (2015): 164-171. doi:

10.1016/j.jecp.2015.03.006.

3 Michael S. Sweeney, Brain: The Complete Mind, How It Develops, How It

Works, and How to Keep It Sharp (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Press, 2009).

4 Kathy Pezdek, “Event Memory and Autobiographical Memory for the Events of

September 11, 2001,” Applied Cognitive Psychology 17 no. 9, (2003): 1033-1045.

5 Marilyn C. Smith, Uri Bibi, and D. Erin Sheard, “Evidence for the Differential

Impact of Time and Emotion on Personal and Event Memories for September 11, 2001,”

Applied Cognitive Psychology 17, no. 9 (2003): 1047-1055.

6 Günter Schabowski, “Vor fünf Jahren barst die Mauer: Erinnerungen und späte

Einsichten,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Frankfurt, Germany), November 8, 1994.

7 Caspar W. Weinberger, “…And How the East Was Won,” Wall Street Journal,

November 9, 1999. 104

8 Alexis de Tocqueville, J.P. Mayer, and George Lawrence, Democracy in

America (New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006).

105 References

A Note on Sources: All selected newspaper articles referenced here come from the print edition of the selected newspapers. Though the American articles were found via online databases, this information was used to find the relevant printed copies either in microfilm or via a PDF scan. This was done to keep as much continuity in the sampling process as possible, as the German articles were only available in print form. On multiple occasions, more than one newspaper would say the same thing or quote the same person

(a notable example being Günter Schabowski’s press conference statement from

November 9, 1989). In such cases only the most complete account is cited. In both the

American and German sample, there were several instances of missing articles, as mentioned in the previous chapters. The years 1995, 1996 and 1997 were unavailable for

The Chicago Tribune, as were the years 1990 and 1991 for the Frankfurter Allgemeine

Zeitung and Junge Welt. In addition, many of the German articles did not have bylines – merely staff, or Eigener Bericht (“own report”).

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