Michael J. Sodaro is a professor of political science and international affairs.
“Did you hear about the Berlin Wall? It’s open!”
I couldn’t believe my ears when several students burst into my office with the news in 1989. The East German government’s decision to open the Wall on Nov. 9 was the latest in a series of extraordinary developments that shook the foundations of communism in Eastern and Central Europe, ultimately leading to the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
It also marked a personal culmination for myself, since I had been studying East Germany and its role in East-West relations for 15 years.
As a graduate student researching my dissertation, I had lived in West Berlin for two years in the 1970s, crossing the checkpoint into East Berlin countless times. Then, while teaching courses on Soviet and European affairs at GW, I led an academic organization concerned with the German Democratic Republic, East Germany’s dubious formal name. By 1989, I was completing a book on Soviet-German relations. Early that summer I visited Berlin, interviewing scholars and diplomats on both sides of the Wall.
And yet despite my experience, I did not see it coming. In fact, none of my fellow specialists on German affairs foresaw the opening of the Berlin Wall, let alone the collapse of communism that followed. Our academic theories had no predictive value whatsoever: At best, they could only explain what happened after the fact.
The Wall’s unanticipated opening provides an instructive reminder that political events can sometimes take us completely by surprise, confounding even the most well-informed experts. They can also surprise the most powerful leaders who think they have things under control.
East Germany was an unlikely terrain for democratic change. Once the Wall was built in 1961, it became practically impossible for East German citizens to travel outside the communist bloc until they were pensioners.
Hence it came as a shock when thousands of East Germans escaped to the West while visiting Eastern Europe in the spring and summer of 1989. Some got out by hiking across the recently opened border between Hungary and Austria. Others crammed into the West German embassy compound in Prague, demanding safe passage to West Germany. After negotiations, the East German government allowed 17,000 people to board sealed trains to West Germany without hindrance. Unprecedented pro-democracy demonstrations followed in the weeks leading up to Nov. 9.
These breathtaking events are worth studying after 25 years because they demonstrate that democratic revolutions are possible, even in countries governed by highly repressive dictatorships. When the people have had enough and demand change, unexpected things can happen.
Of course, the conditions for such uprisings will vary from one country to the next. Studying the domestic and international contexts of democratization processes in a systematic manner is imperative – especially in schools like at the Elliott School of International Affairs.
Another lesson of the Berlin Wall is that freedom is indeed precious, and the longing for it runs deeper than what may appear on the surface. Among the many personal reminders of this truth that I have experienced, one in particular stands out.
During a visit to Berlin in the spring of 1990, I interviewed Egon Krenz – the GDR’s last communist leader – at his home.
“As soon as we built the Wall, we should have started taking measures to make it unnecessary,” he mused. He was not clear about what those measures might have been. After the interview, his 16-year-old son, a guitar strapped around his shoulder, walked me to the bus stop.
“I can’t wait to go to America,” he told me. “I want to join a rock band.”
