A special day for German history
Description:
Great Day of 1989
On this day in 1989, the Berlin Wall fell and the process of German reunification began.
Construction of the Berlin Wall, one of the most famous symbols of the Cold War, began on August 13, 1961. At first, these were wire fences, which then turned into a concrete wall up to five meters high with barbed wire stretched at the top and with watchtowers.
The purpose of the wall is to reduce the number of defectors from the GDR to West Berlin, the number of which grew from year to year.
The length of the wall separating the city was 45 kilometers plus 120 kilometers around West Berlin, separating it from the rest of the GDR. On the east side, a half-kilometer-wide dead zone adjoined the wall, where houses destroyed in the war stood. On the western side, people approached the wall, drew caricatures and wrote calls for peace.
It all happened on the evening of November 9, 1989. At another sluggish press conference on the work of the SED Central Committee, Günter Schabowski, a member of the Politburo, was asked by Italian journalist Riccardo Ehrman about new rules for trips by citizens of the GDR to capitalist countries for up to 30 days.
Shabowski flipped through his papers and read out the decision: “GDR citizens are allowed to apply for private trips abroad without good reason. The exit permit will be issued as soon as possible.” Thus, Shabowski unwittingly opened the borders of the GDR.
Residents of East Berlin immediately took the opportunity to visit the West. Thousands of people rushed to checkpoints on the border with West Berlin that evening. The border guards of the GDR were not ready for such a rapid development of events. Border guards were completely confused and soon opened checkpoints.
After the fall of the communist regime in the GDR immediately began the destruction of the wall jubilant Berliners. Soon, most of it was disassembled for souvenirs. Now there is the Museum of the Berlin Wall, which tells what tricks people went to overcome it. A couple literally catapulted their child through a wall.
In November 2004, on the 15th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, a ceremony was held in the German capital to unveil the Berlin Wall monument. It is a rebuilt section of a 200-meter-long wall on the site of the Charlie checkpoint, the main crossing between the western and eastern parts of Berlin. There are 1,065 crosses in memory of people killed in 1961-1989 while trying to escape from East Germany to West Germany.
Warning Day, 1923
On November 9, 1923, a “beer putsch” (an attempted coup) in Munich, organized by Adolf Hitler and his supporters, was suppressed.
On the evening of November 8, about 3,000 people gathered at the Burgerbraukeller, a huge beer hall in Munich, to listen to Gustav von Kara, a member of the Bavarian government. Together with him on the podium were the local highest ranks - General Otto von Lossov, commander of the armed forces of Bavaria, and Colonel Hans von Scheisser, chief of the Bavarian police.
As Kar spoke to the audience, about 600 members of the SA (Nazi assault units) quietly cordoned off the hall. They set up machine guns on the street, aiming them at the front doors. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, surrounded by his supporters, rushed into the dark between the tables, jumped onto a chair, shot the ceiling, and shouted in silence: “The national revolution has begun!”
He then addressed the astonished public: “There are 600 armed men in the hall. No one is allowed to leave. The Bavarian and Berlin governments are now deposed. A new government will now be formed. The Reichswehr barracks and police have been captured. Everyone must rise again under the banner of the swastika!
Turning to the podium, Hitler rudely ordered von Kahr, von Lossow and von Scheisser to follow him to the next room. There he declared them arrested and informed them that he and General Erich Ludendorff, a war hero, were forming a new government. Threateningly, he obtained from the members of the government an agreement that the next day the Bavaria army would go to Berlin to overthrow the government.
Hitler was going to act like Mussolini, who had captured Rome with a small force a year earlier.
On November 9, 1923, a detachment of about 3,000 Nazis marched into the central square of Munich. However, the leaders of Bavaria at the last minute changed their intentions and put a cordon of local police in the square.
As a result of the clashes, 16 Nazis and three policemen were killed. Among the wounded were Hitler and Goering. Hitler, like the others, ended up in prison with a minimum sentence of 5 years. In fact, he was only in prison for eight months, during which time he began his literary opus Mein Kampf (My Struggle).
The Beer Putsch, despite its failure, glorified Hitler. All the German newspapers wrote about him, his portraits were published by weeklies. He's been talked about. In 1933, Hitler came to power democratically. His party won the majority of votes in the elections to the Reichstag, which gave him the constitutional right to become Chancellor, that is, head of the German government.
Republic Day 1918
And again, on November 9, only already in 1918, the collapse of the monarchy occurred in the history of Germany.
Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated the throne. Reich Chancellor Max von Baden resigned and commissioned the Social Democrat Friedrich Ebert to form a new government.
The Social Democrat Philipp Scheidemann from the window of the Reichstag proclaimed a democratic republic in Germany.
In an effort to get ahead of events, a few hours earlier, the Communist Karl Liebknecht, on behalf of the revolutionary proletariat, had proclaimed Germany a socialist republic.
Germany did not become socialist, but the establishment of a democratic republic had a huge impact on the entire development of the country.
Such strange coincidences happened in the life of Germany of the XX century.