November 9th, 2009 marked 20 years since the fall of the Berlin wall. For 28 years the wall stood, dividing the German city in two. On the east of the wall was the communist, Soviet-controlled DDR and on the west was the British/French/American state. After weeks of civil unrest, on the 9th of November, 1989 after an announcement from the DDR, thousands of German people started chipping away at the wall with screwdrivers, picks or anything else they could get their hands on. This paved the way for the reunification of east and west Germany, which became official on October 3, 1990.
To mark the anniversary, a 1.5km domino wall was set up to symbolise the falling of the wall.
Image from jrliebl via flickr
20 years on, east Berlin is still rebuilding. Even so long after the reunification, the east still has double the unemployment rate of west Berlin and the German people are still paying (through taxes) to rebuild the formerly communist east. These are a few photos I found on flickr, but I’ll post up some of my own photos once I get home.
Photo by Frankinho via flickr
Photo by Christian Heindel via flickr