The 35th anniversary of the Berlin Wall’s fall is a significant milestone in German history and the Cold War’s end. Commemorated on November 9, 2024, it honors the historic night when East and West Berliners came together to peacefully dismantle the wall that had divided them for nearly 30 years, symbolizing freedom’s victory over oppression and paving the way for German reunification. Osamah Khalil, history professor at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, shared his thoughts on the 35th anniversary below. If you’d like to schedule an interview with him, please reach out to Vanessa Marquette, media relations specialist, at vrmarque@syr.edu.
Osamah F. Khalil
Khalil writes: “Even before the dramatic pictures of Germans taking down the Berlin Wall thirty five years ago, there were significant movements toward ending the Cold War. Almost a year earlier, Mikhail Gorbachev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, addressed the United Nations in December 1988 about finding a way ‘towards a new world order.’ This was part of a broader effort by Gorbachev to reduce Cold War tensions and eliminate nuclear weapons. However, he encountered skepticism in the Reagan administration that was also mirrored in the U.S. press. Gorbachev’s attempts to reach an international audience was matched by his efforts to institute reforms within the Soviet Union and Soviet-bloc states.
Gorbachev’s economic reforms had intended and unintended consequences. Within the Soviet Union, they were accompanied by calls for greater political reforms and liberalization. Gorbachev also worked to install reformers within the leadership of the Soviet-bloc states. This included forcing East Germany’s hard-line Erich Honecker to step down. In addition, Gorbachev was adamant that unlike previous Soviet leaders, he would not attempt to suppress protests by force or deploy the Soviet military to secure the rule of communist governments in the Warsaw Pact nations. This was brought into stark relief by the Tiananmen Square protests in China in May 1989. Gorbachev was on a state visit to China when the protests occurred, and the harsh crackdown on the protests was only launched after he left. Gorbachev vowed that he would not repeat these actions.
Gorbachev’s determination was tested throughout the summer and fall by protests and a migration crisis in East Germany. In October, Soviet Foreign Minister Edward Shevardnadze declared that Warsaw Pact countries would be allowed to determine their own domestic affairs and ‘go their own way,’ which he referred to as the ‘Sinatra Doctrine.’ By early November, an unfolding economic and political crisis in East Germany as well as Gorbachev’s unwillingness to intervene, helped set the stage for the remarkable events at the Berlin Wall.
The building and the deconstruction of the Berlin Wall represented two symbols. In constructing the wall in August 1961, the Soviet Union and East Germany hoped to stem the ‘brain drain’ to West Germany and beyond while deescalating tensions with the United States. Instead, it became a symbol of repressive authoritarian rule to be challenged and dismantled. Even if the wall’s destruction wasn’t inevitable – or the way that it occurred – it provided indelible images of the desire for freedom globally that remain more than three decades later.
The end of the Cold War provided an impetus for German unification and European integration. There was movement towards this since the end of the Second World War, including the creation of the Council of Europe (1949) and the European Economic Community (1957). In addition, there were economic ties between East and West Germany that predated the end of the Cold War and unification. Although the establishment of the European Union in 1993 appeared to offer a more hopeful future, the past decade has witnessed tensions within the EU that threaten economic and political stability in Europe. With the election of Donald Trump in the United States and the rising popularity of right-wing parties in Germany and France, those trends may become more pronounced over the next four years. Indeed, the fortieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall may see a different Europe and increasingly strained Euro-American relations.”
