A dream came true at a party
It took more than 25 years to think and rethink it, and it took one chat at a party to realize it. Talking of what is still on my to-do-list, I mentioned the borderline walk. Not psychologically, but physically.
The border between the Federal Republic of Germany (West) and the German Democratic Republic (East) was something I took for granted and never expected to disappear in my lifetime. Ironically, the peaceful protests and democratic reforms in East Germany took place in 1989, while I was in Detroit, Michigan. I was fascinated how a dictatorship built on lies could collapse within less than a year. It started in March 1989 and ended on November 9, 1989 when the East-West-border was opened in both directions.
We must not forget: there has been amorality, crime and injustice between 1989 and today induced by Western “invaders” buying properties and well run businesses getting state money and shutting them down, leaving hard working people back. Great ideas of courageous activists have been diluted to homoeopathic doses. You find a lot of bad western ideas in the East, but almost no good eastern ideas in the West. And if so, they are relaunched and renamed as if they had never existed.
The fall of the Berlin Wall — well not only that but a total of a 1400 km border was an unprecedented event in my lifetime history. I still admire what citizens in East Germany made possible: To overthrow a regime with no shot fired except for the fireworks after the reunification.
Finally, in 2018 it started with a bike tour in Luebeck, Germany, up north.
