2009 November, 9th

Mihaela Lica

Europe, and the World, celebrate today 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, an event that led to the collapse of the communist power in Eastern Europe and the end of the Cold War. Through the fall of the Wall,
Communist German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) united after 28 years of separation (the construction of the Wall began in 1961). In 1989 some of the European leaders lobbed against the fall of the Wall:

President Mitterrand of France warned Margaret Thatcher that a reunited Germany might “make even more ground than Hitler had.” So the British Prime Minister plead Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to prevent the fall of the Wall: “We do not want a united Germany. This would lead to a change to postwar borders, and we cannot allow that because such a development would undermine the stability of the whole international situation and could endanger our security.”

Today, 20 years after, the unified Germany is one of the safest living environments in the world, peaceful and focused on its own economical growth rather than on taking over the world, as Mitterrand and Thatcher feared.

The fall of the Wall changed the face of the entire continent and led, through a series of events that followed, to the collapse of the Soviet Union by the end of 1991. Germany inspired the people in Europe to stand up and fight for their right to freedom: Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and Albania were next to put an end to the communist regime on their territories, with Romania as the only Eastern-bloc country to overthrow its communist regime violently and execute its head of state, Nicolae Ceausescu.

Today, world leaders are no longer fearful of a united Europe. The pro-democracy moment of 1989 is still an inspiration for creating a better world. World leaders celebrate with the Germans the dawn of freedom in a Europe that was suffering under Communism for over 50 years. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joined Angela Merkel, ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, former Polish President Lech Walesa and former Hungarian Prime Minister Miklos Nemeth today to celebrate the collapse of Communist power, German reunification and the Cold War’s end.

This is “not just a day of celebration for Germany, but a day of celebration for the whole of Europe” said German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“Our history did not end the night the wall came down,” Hillary Clinton said. “To expand freedom to more people, we cannot accept that freedom does not belong to all people.”

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About the Author

Mihaela Lica is senior partner at Pamil Visions PR and editor at Everything PR. She is a widely cited authority on search engine optimization and public relations issues (BBC News, Force for Good, Reuters and others), with an experience of over 7 years in online PR and SEO. Mihaela writes for SitePoint, Search Engine Journal, and other online publications. She also maintains a personal blog called eWritings. Follow Mig on Twitter or send her an email at mig [at] pamil-visions [dot] com.

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