How one man’s decision and the right moment brought down the Berlin Wall.
Something to think about next time things look hopeless.
How one man’s decision and the right moment brought down the Berlin Wall.
Something to think about next time things look hopeless.
A friend of mine just showed me this:
http://www.trusted2know.co.uk/blog/2014/10/09/save-a-life-surrender-your-knife/
Those of you in the UK, can you verify, is this for real?
That’s amazing. I can’t recall ever reading about that before. Wonderful… and yes, I do believe that there are good people, even heroes tucked in among us everywhere, and often in the most unexpected places.
I was living in [West] Germany at the time, so I thought I’d write a bit about my memories of that historic occasion.
Get enough people in the streets, sometimes the rulers have to give in. Not all mobs are bad…
I’ve been thinking for several days about this article about the guard in charge of the Wall when it “came down”. The more I think about it the lower my approval of him becomes.
Jäger made no principled decision to open the gates; he simply couldn’t get any superior officer to tell him what to do. This was a man who had spent his entire career guarding the Wall (long enough to be in charge of a crew of 14, anyway). How many people had he shot during that time, or prevented from escaping to freedom? He was a “good German”, simply following orders, and when those orders no longer came he was paralyzed. “Jäger spent hours on the telephone in a desperate attempt to find out what Schabowski’s announcement meant for him and his 14 men on the Berlin Wall’s front line.” He viewed the Politboro official’s comments about opening the border as “diarrhea”; clearly he had no desire to open the gate or change anything about the existing system. But with no orders coming, the apparent (if unclear) instruction of a senior Politboro official, and a large and growing crowd he really had no choice. After which, his “world collapsed”.
This is no hero, not even a “good person” (not as I would define it, anyway). This was a petty enforcer of a tyrannical regime, perfectly happy with his role, who found himself trapped in a no-win situation. Had he not opened the gate he might very well been lynched by the mob. I can understand why he has spent the last 25 years “denying that he was the man who toppled the Berlin Wall.” He wasn’t. Opening the gate was an act of mere self-preservation (if not outright cowardice), not heroism. He just happened to be there, in the wrong place (for him) but at the right time (for everyone else).