Essay from the year 2002 in the subject History of Germany - Modern History, grade: IB-Diploma full score, Waterford Kamhlaba United World College of Southern Africa, course: History, language: English, abstract: This investigation, including the examination of unpublished primary sources, accounts for the Fall of the Berlin Wall as a historical event. The disintegration of the Warsaw Pact along with the interior social, economic and political problems in the GDR are examined as long term causes as well as the influence of the media, the church and the citizens of the GDR themselves as main players in the short term. Additionally, the immediate events in the beginning of November 1989 are scrutinized in connection with the Fall of the Wall. The research question in two parts is whether the events around the 9th of November, 1989, can be labelled 'peaceful revolution' and what the causes for that revolution are. What is the historical significance of the event and what was it derived from? Consistent with the primary and secondary sources used, the essay concludes that the Fall of the Wall was indeed a peaceful revolution. Examining the development towards pluralism and democracy by the USSR and her satellite states as the foundation for that revolution, the essay scrutinizes both the work of the media with its fuelling effect and the actions of the church as a 'replacement public' as causes for the incident. The state with its restrictive forces impaling every aspect of public life producing social, economic as well as political disadvantages for its citizens is the reason for opposition developing. Encountering this opposition, the party looses control over the people and misses a historical chance. Instead of selling the Fall of the Berlin Wall as a sovereign decision for empowerment of the GDR's citizens it has to watch how the means of isolating them from foreign influences is dismantled. Therefore the significance of the 9th of November 1989 lying in the irreve

Essay from the year 2002 in the subject History of Germany - Modern History, grade: IB-Diploma full score, Waterford Kamhlaba United World College of Southern Africa, course: History, language: English, abstract: This investigation, including the examination of unpublished primary sources, accounts for the Fall of the Berlin Wall as a historical event. The disintegration of the Warsaw Pact along with the interior social, economic and political problems in the GDR are examined as long term causes as well as the influence of the media, the church and the citizens of the GDR themselves as main players in the short term. Additionally, the immediate events in the beginning of November 1989 are scrutinized in connection with the Fall of the Wall. The research question in two parts is whether the events around the 9th of November, 1989, can be labelled ‘peaceful revolution’ and what the causes for that revolution are. What is the historical significance of the event and what was it derived from? Consistent with the primary and secondary sources used, the essay concludes that the Fall of the Wall was indeed a peaceful revolution. Examining the development towards pluralism and democracy by the USSR and her satellite states as the foundation for that revolution, the essay scrutinizes both the work of the media with its fuelling effect and the actions of the church as a ‘replacement public’ as causes for the incident. The state with its restrictive forces impaling every aspect of public life producing social, economic as well as political disadvantages for its citizens is the reason for opposition developing. Encountering this opposition, the party looses control over the people and misses a historical chance. Instead of selling the Fall of the Berlin Wall as a sovereign decision for empowerment of the GDR’s citizens it has to watch how the means of isolating them from foreign influences is dismantled. Therefore the significance of the 9th of November 1989 lying in the irreversible loss of power and control by the SED was initiated by the party itself.

Twenty years after its fall, the wall that divided Berlin and Germany presents a conceptual paradox: on one hand, Germans have sought to erase it completely; on the other, it haunts the imagination in complex and often surprising ways

The story of the Wall itself and of all that it came to signify in East-West relations, from the fall of the Third Reich in 1945 and the division of Germany to the series of events leading to reunification in 1990.

In autumn 1989 the world watched transfixed as East German citizens, demonstrating under the banner ‘We are the people!’, staged the only successful, totally peaceful revolution in German history. By October 1990, the process of reunification was formally concluded, bringing together a nation that had been divided for almost four decades. Now, nearly twenty years later, it is possible to judge the causes and consequences of the revolution more clearly. Was the fall of the Berlin Wall an unexpected fluke, or was it, in fact, the result of a long process of engagement between East and West? And did the momentous events of 1989 really signal the start of a bright new future for a united Germany? In this probing and wide-ranging account, Lothar Kettenacker considers the background behind the division of Germany and explains how the Berlin Wall and its death trap border proved to be the most horrendous manifestation of East-West antagonism. He also looks beyond 1990 to show how the confusion caused by the sudden collapse of the GDR and the fusion of two radically different economies is proving to be a challenge that will preoccupy Germany for generations to come.

More than two decades after the Wall's collapse, this book brings together leading authorities who offer a fresh look at how leaders in four vital centers of world politics--the United States, the Soviet Union, Europe, and China--viewed the world in the aftermath of this momentous event. Jeffrey Engel contributes a chronological narrative of this tumultuous period, followed by substantive essays by Melvyn Leffler on the United States, Chen Jian on China, James Sheehan on Germany and Europe, and William Taubman and Svetlana Savranskaya on the Soviet Union.