The Berlin Wall Debrief: Germany Marks Historic Anniversary
NOBILO: One of the most famous moments in modern history happened 30 years ago this weekend. East Germany's communist government ended it ban on travel to West Germany and within minutes jubilant Germans were dismantling a wall that divided East and West Berlin. The demise of the wall led to the collapse of the East German government and the Germany's political reunification. Our Fred Pleitgen takes a look back.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The line of demarcation in the cold war lies in Berlin.</s>FRED PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: For 28 years the Berlin Wall symbolized the struggle between capitalism and communism and the cruel division between the people of East and West Berlin.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.</s>PLEITGEN: So here at CNN we actually own our own CNN car. This was the epitome of communist East German Automotive Engineering. For the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall we're going to do, is we're going to take this car and take a drive back into history. That is if I fit into the car because it's small, and I'm big. Ugh, ready to go. The remnants of the wall are a tourist attraction nowadays, but this deadly barrier with border guards, observation tower and barb wires struck fear into the Berliners it divided. I stop and pick up Peter Bieber. The Wall it needed to keep people from fleeing into the West.</s>PETER BEIBER, ESCAPED EAST GERMAN: You looked and saw the wall. You know? You know it's the end. The end of the world you can go where you want.</s>PLEITGEN: As a young man, Peter Beiber attempted to flee East Germany several times until he finally succeeded in the 1972. He then helped others get out as well until he was betrayed and arrested by East Germany's secret police and spent five years in jail there.</s>BEIBER: It was a little - psychological--</s>PLEITGEN: Psychological terror.</s>BEIBER: Yes. I sit in a little room. Not so light. Then one month, two months, nobody came and said anything.</s>PLEITGEN: The West German government eventually paid East Germany to release Peter Beiber but many others who tried to get away paid with their lives more than 100 of them in Berlin. In 1989, East Germans had had enough after a wave of mass protests the regime opened the wall, leading to mass celebrations as people all over the world joins in to literally tear down the wall.</s>BEIBER: I think about the freedom that's for me the highest point was--</s>PLEITGEN: The highest good that people can have is freedom.</s>BEIBER: Yes.</s>PLEITGEN: 30 years later, a united Berlin is thriving, having shed the shackles of communism and dismantled the wall many thought could never be breached. Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Berlin.</s>NOBILO: Joining me now for a debrief on the Berlin Wall is Professor Matt Qvortrup of Coventry University. He is an expert on European politics. He has also written a book about German Chancellor Angela Merkel who grew up in East Germany before German reunification. It's called "Angela Merkel Europe's Missed Influential Leader". I now have a copy.</s>NOBILO: Thank you very much. So the wall has now gone, but how many divisions between East and West Berlin remain and what are they?</s>MATT QVORTRUP, PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, COVENTRY UNIVERSITY: Well, the main division that is there is a political division. If you look at the political parties that get elect in the Former East Germany, they are party to the very far left or to the very far right. In the most recent election, the former communist party, the party that ruled East Germany, the successor party won that election and the second party was AFD which is very far right party. Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats were only third. Those political socializations haven't quite happened. There's also quite a lot of poverty there. Anybody with aspiration from East Germany would go to the west. So it's very visible. Of course it's not as poor as it used to be, but probably more visible than any of the other former states in the former communist bloc.</s>NOBILO: There has been a lot of focus on pockets of the rise of the far right in Europe. What is it about structural and cultural remnants of how things used to be that make AFD appealing in that part of Berlin?</s>QVORTRUP: I think it's all of East Germany. You have to remember, that this is what used to be cross checked, this is Frederick the great's country. This is a place where they of course had Hitler. Than after the Second World War there was no attempt to de-radicalize. The communist party even incorporated part of Nazi party in its political system. So there's never been a Democratic socialization and that is what's really so obvious now especially with the southern parts for Former East Germany.</s>NOBILO: And of those divisions between East and West Germany impacted the current leadership, specifically Angela Merkel?</s>QVORTRUP: Well, Angela is interesting because her family moved from Hamburg to East Germany. She grew up in the system. She wanted to be a doctor originally but she wasn't allowed to be a doctor. So she's the first leader and only leader so far with an East Germany. The night the Berlin wall came down she tells the story she went out for one beer, and then went back home so she could go off and be a quantum physicist in the morning. But of course for her she wasn't allowed to be political before and fall of the Berlin wall within one year made her a Cabinet Minister from absolutely--</s>NOBILO: You mentioned the fact that Angela Merkel couldn't be a doctor. I'm not sure exactly why that is? Perhaps you could explain. But the experience women had in East Germany was different as well on the delineation of East and West Germany is so different to this day.</s>QVORTRUP: Yes, and I suppose one of the things that in East Germany it wasn't possible for women to have careers I mean, she had a doctorate. He parents actually complained when she was 13 she couldn't accomplish anything. She was over 30 when she got her doctorate. She was able to have a career because her father was a Vicar, and therefore a Christian in an atheist state it wouldn't allow her to have such a prominent profession as being a doctor and therefore physics was a safe option because you couldn't be political about the laws of nature.</s>NOBILO: Matt Qvortrup, thank you very much for joining us. Appreciate it. When THE BRIEF returns, how scientists are trying to flood the Rhino market with a fake horn. We'll explain coming up next.