Berlin Wall: 25 Years After Its Fall, Germany Is a Curious Mix of Success and Struggle

November 9 should be the day when Germans have one big party. It’s a day that should be akin to the July 4 in the USA or July 14 in France. A day when Germans look back and remember something positive, something constructive about which they can be justifiably proud.

This Nov. 10, 1989 file photo shows Berliners singing and dancing on top of The Berlin Wall in celebration of the opening of the East German-West German border. AP Photo/Thomas Kienzle

November 9 should be the day when Germans have one big party. It’s a day that should be akin to the July 4 in the USA or July 14 in France. A day when Germans look back and remember something positive, something constructive about which they can be justifiably proud.

November 9 1989 was the day that the “anti-fascist protection wall” – or the Berlin Wall to you and me – was finally and definitively breached. Berlin would no longer be divided by barbed wire and land mines. Overnight, German, European and indeed global geopolitics fundamentally changed.

The Berlin Wall in front of the Brandenburg Gate, shortly before its fall in 1989. Lear 21, CC BY-SA