Wittenberg

Today, 34 years ago, Germany has reunited, even though there were no hopes for reunification.

I wish to all Talossans with German roots a happy holiday.

Here's a video of the lyrics to the anthem.

I was born that year and my father had a friend who was there when the wall was being teared down. People were collecting the debris and that friend brought one piece for my father as a souvenir? It was the size of a fist with visible graffiti on it. I remember being a kid and grabbing that rock without knowing the story behind it, but given its special place he put it on, I thought of it as an important thing. In 1997 my sister was born and my mother hired a lady to help us clean the house, but that kind lady, without knowing, threw it away and my father didn't realize that until a few days later. Lol. So long, rock.

I lived in West Germany in the 80s, several years before reunification. I vividly remember when they united and wished I had been able to visit East(ern) Germany but so far, that has not happened.

If I remember the story right, on 9 November 1989, our old friend @DNVercaria was in a bar in Hamburg drinking with friends, when someone burst in and yelled "they've opened the Wall in Berlin!" So they all piled in their cars and drove 9 hours across the intra-German frontier, to mingle with crowds of East Berliners wandering about the Ku-damm gawking at the fast food joints and the sex shops.

I may be a communist, but the DDR was an abortion and a parody of socialism and belongs in the dustbin of history. That said, the film Goodbye Lenin! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5hzmwGW4Ac) explains why many of its citizens had mixed feelings about that - not so much the death of the shitty reality, but the death of the ideals.