Transcripts For DW To The Point 20240713

The berlin wall what happens to the euphoria. Of thanks very much for joining us and with me in the studio today i have courts linda fear eka who grew up in the former g. D. R. And was 7 years old when the wall came down today she works as a reporter here at d. W. And just completed a documentary about the full of the war and linda says its only now 3 decades after the wall came down that we realize how radical the change was for people in the us also with us is anglofrench Catherine Nicholson shes European Affairs editor with the broadcast of france 24 and believes that permanent euphoria is unrealistic its boring portal to learn lessons from the past she says under a warm welcome to support. Freelance journalist only patterson who witnessed the fall of the wall 1st round he points out the 30 years on from the fall of the wall the far right is winning a worrying amount of support in the once communist east. Thank you once again all 3 for being with me today id like to begin with you sir you know if its too late because you were there what do you remember most i remember most. Listening or watching television and hearing reports coming in that there was some movement at the crossing points in the in wall and so we got into a car and drove flat out to a crossing point at the wall called the Bornholmer Strasse and people were walking towards us as we drove along this wide blue thought and we thought i would this must be just west berliners have gone to have a look and now walking back into west berlin as we got closer and closer more and more people started coming through and it was a maelstrom of people by the time we actually managed to walk there and the mood was just incredible it was there were people crying hugging each other. You know when i think about it today it almost makes me cry cause we speculated for so long about this happening and people would always ask themselves you know do you think its going to happen in our lifetime and then suddenly my sense is that it came right out of the blue inserts that are you experienced absolutely nobody who i speak to now says oh it was inevitable it would happen and it was absolutely a shock and a wonderful shock as well. A wonderful shock catherine you were talked up in but it was a bad think i was about 8 years old. My my father had been to germany just a few weeks before i think it was that temba quite placed you know the parts of. The south and hed taken fate has that changed the watchtowers and so just like guns really scary when youre you know so we knew what the berlin wall was my brother and i and on the night my mom came up as she called us thats come downstairs. Watch this on t. V. This is historic and i dont even really remember her explaining what was going on we just watched and sort of drank its in and you know obviously much harder to get the feeling than if you were actually there like you were but you know you grew up knowing about knowing about the berlin wall and having had that experience of my dad telling us about it it seemed like you say what this huge scary thing is i find its god what is this and today you are with friends 24 and i wonder from the french perspective when you look burkas there are those great days in once you know its you knowing how much of a of a triumph for liberty was it from the french perspective was there something scarier going on yeah i think you know in the in the maimane of the berlin wall coming down i think as you say the program that was euphoria quite generalized around the west part of your referendum show behind the iron curtain as well that there was a say there was fear in france than many people i mean even today there is that ambivalence for a certain part of the population when it comes to the idea of a big strong germany and of course the idea that the 2 geminis might come back together was a worry so all the more important perhaps there was such a peaceful revolution exactly yeah sometimes actually when we talk about the problems of reunification whether we forget some whats actually what a miracle it was that it was peaceful you know this death zone that people was on the allowed to come up say not a shot fired nobody killed on that lie so the following days as people pass through the wall. And of course people with suddenly into the business of working out what was going on and things that perhaps that past everybody by a little bit but i do think it is worth remembering it was a peaceful revelation of simply must bring linder and linda you were born in 1982 in the city of Brandenburg West of berlin. How happy was your childhood when you look back because after all we do describe we just heard about you know the forgiving images of eastern germany where it was a dictatorship. I was growing up in a dictatorship i mean i was really young and so i would say i had a perfectly happy childhood my grandparents lived in the countryside so we went there to you know what kids do we climb trees and you know we we have our friends and i didnt exist i didnt i never felt like i was in the i was living in a teacher ship thats not a word that would have appeared at my knee being 7 years old but still i mean i remember that night and i remember that from my parents it was kind of like a liberation yeah i mean where and. Suffering much in the g. D. R. But they still felt unfree and we had family in that you know in west berlin we had family and western parts of germany so you know of course that was the most happy moment of their lives as well and like for me you know feeling afterwards that it has so much to do with it with me i always you know i shiver when you talk about that night because i always think like a man i wish i were would have been older or so i would have gone there and my mother was a teacher big ben and. Weve been watching it on t. V. And she was saying like ok should we go and have to work tomorrow. And they didnt go generally the syndrome dangle about and also came to me because she was working going to extend. Well as weve already seen linda has made a very thought provoking documentary thats being broadcast here on b. W. To mark the fall of the wall its all about 3 generations of one family the family the family over again or the brand who was a very popular politician in these 2 sadly post away 18 years ago now lets hear from each of those 3 generations and for belinda again. I think im on to the new you home School Spirit as being well we felt like wed been imprisoned for the moment. But we tried to keep the wall out of our thoughts someone hung on to tell the children that inner freedom is what counts is why i came here so you can make anything you want of it and gain from it someone whos given an interest and im caught in my mind the west was different in berlin weve been near the wall many times by the church of reconciliation and had peeked over the wall it looked more colorful and vibrant mere booklet hymns time but when i was 12 i stood in front of the mirror and swore i would not settle for saying i would get out of a stoplight does it make you standing up monument just imagine this was actually the death strip and one wall was here and another wall was there and now we can just walk across we can dance and make music how beautiful it is that were all here and dancing together all human another time. Interesting stuff wonder if the grandfather of the 3 year he says we will wolf didnt we were imprisoned but its the freedom that counts thomas moore i mean he and his wife they actually they lived in so this is where the wall was you know was built so they really experienced how cruel this this whole. Divide of germany was really they saw it with their own eyes but they decided to stay in the east which was you know people didnt do that reeking ahead of ones own brother he went to the west you know so it was really a family that said ok we dont want the regime to when i was over you know so that was i think something that not a lot of people did and they of course there were part of the church back then so there you know they had a little word world of freedom where they could also talk about other. They were also you know like. The watched by the stasi so you know but it was a family that always you know they didnt. They were still heads up you know in the system they still live their life as they wish to interest them there what about the granddaughter cecilia we also heard from her she says that these days you know people can and do go and actually dance and poncy and hang out on the form of death strip how much of how typical is that lightness in that op to missing for her generation i think its you know this is perlin you know i mean you can see and this is 3 every day i mean i dont know i cross every day from west to west berlin to east berlin and its just really normal and for them as well i think theyre really benefiting from a reunited germany and this this generation i mean they feel that there are still differences but also in bergen i think a lot of the things are complete it. Youre not being about the Younger Generation benefiting from the from the economic developments of recent years but theyre all you know there are many problems out there in this and theres great inequality absolutely yes i mean the stede of reunification perhaps was necessary in some senses if it was going to be done maybe it does have to be done that quickly but it was quite a brutal process was met with the toy and the privatizations of all these businesses and all those people made on employees was it 3000000 within just a couple of years i think i dont think the 5 percent of people lost their jobs in the in the ninetys that was totally traumatic yeah and when you think about i mean when theyve been periods of mass unemployment in the u. K. Its never been on that scale and thats left scars for such a long time for those generations and so i think it is interesting what you say about the new generations have only named a unified germany i think that they will have a you know theyll be coming at it from a different point of view and some if they skulls wont be as present for them perhaps i think thats very true i mean i know people in their thirtys who live in berlin now germans and they speak only english among themselves because theyve grown together a whole community of young people of their age from croatia from all over europe and they have english as a common language and the book has just gone for them its really is history. Books when we talk about the younger gen will be told about these germans in general when we mention the inequalities that you were just describing how outrageous is it that people are told these germans are told constantly and of over a long period of time now that they are ungrateful and they moan sue you dont. I mean yeah yeah i mean if i talk about the young generation and that the differences are not there so much anymore im talking about berlin you know when you leave just isnt it you know i wouldnt say that germany is united fully big because we can see i mean we can see the different. Paychecks we we see differences on you know where people are represented the difference is still there and i think hearing for 30 years that you know this isnt that bad thats what my parents also heard you know you just wait and its everythings going to be why you can see your parents in the 99 to say well my father like many others lost his job he was working in the steel factory that was gone afterwards and. It was just you know there was not a lot of jobs you could get into and its also he was same age like me now 36 but he never got back on his feet and this is something it was a it was a brutal change and i think a lot of people around all my friends have different stories to tell so you know and just realizing how brutal and how you know not only using a job but also the values that are in the system you know that changed everything changed you know people went to the west 3. People were chilling and steeples so you know social network also was gone in a way so i think we just only beginning now to really fully understand that and also kind of like understand the people because really something that you always heard was your come on its only about its only about money you know its not only about money its about learning a whole new system in a really really short amount of time and i think there was a lot too much for and i think something is interesting that we spoke about before the program. It was about how the people in west germany that life didnt really change you know there was this sense that perhaps they were paying. And all of that but in times of day to day life things went changing in the same way they were for the east germans with this as you say an entirely different system of democracy is capitalism a completely different way of thinking about yourself in the world because the case and i think that it was really with hindsight a complete western taken east and west and was still occupied good to have been avoided should have been avoided this takeover as you describe it well i think if you have a situation that you had in 1909 that the majority of east germans were screaming for the mark i think wanted you read if occasion really badly as a pair of free weeks earlier there was screaming for democratic social yes but it that something happened its noble very very quickly realized i think as soon as they went over and got as have called greeting money they got to get a 100. Each and they soon realized that thats new get them anywhere so they wanted to reunification very very quickly in the zone people consequence of it was that it would be a western take of them because they had the cash to do it well they have the numbers as well they had a number of case in difference and i think we looked at it a lot back then market wise which i understand in the context and it was also nobody knew how long we would have to bring in you reunify it was an alternative logic that was the problem to the market logic yes appeared but you know i mean i think i agree with the take over because you know what would have been nice looking back 30 years is looking at what are things that we might could take over from one system to the other to help us all together to bring you know bring our germany forward and i think they never did that i mean there was. You know theres also its about solidarity and i think we lost that and nobody looking at it from a market point of view. Well internationally angle americal has been far and away the most visible former east german of hope its a different story though the question is why. From the outside until americans rises the 1st eastern german woman to become chancellor of a reunified germany sounds like a Success Story American Business magazine forbes named her the worlds most powerful woman 7 years in a row. U. S. President obama honored with the president ial medal of freedom americas highest civilian award partly because of her efforts for freedom in east germany. After the unpredictable Donald Trump Took Office many turned to america to be the leader of the free world. In germany chancellor merkel often encounters hostility bordering on hatred when she appears especially in the east. Beat it many reject a refugee policies and chant we are the people. Protesters feel angry and disappointed with the women from the east many of them feel that she doesnt represent their interests america is being worn down by political bickering at home. As chancellor merkel only divided germany. Well its an interesting question but the one i would really like to us linder is why is an american such a red rock for so many people in eastern germany. Difficult question but i think one thing as you know she never did like really east german identity never came through really and so you know people dont see her as an east german petition but as a politician you know working for the system as they call it or shes one of the others and shes playing and really well shes really successful within the system but i think. Many of these germans or especially the ones voting for rather populist parties like you know they they dont identify with her and her politics so this is why this is my explanation so no youre very interested in the rise of the populist right in your. I wonder whether you find then to find a special eastern german and go on that narrative well i think its very much this feeling that people in the east feel that they left behind because but plays back into this whole thing the west and take over which it was and i think people are beginning to realize that it was that now and a lot of people dont feel represented they feel that theres an elite up there its like bricks in britain theres an elite up there which tells them all what to do and theyre not the elite is not telling them what they want to hear they dont want to be told that theyve got refugees coming to live next door to them and they say who lost this and it it all comes together if you have a right wing Political Party that can pull in all these arguments and vocalize them then youve got Something Like the f. T. And thats why its making such such begin really concerns kathy wanted to go to. The marginal ois left behind absolutely i think there are parallels in so many parts of the western world for much better was you know in france the movement i really struck me what you said about young people in cities in germany feel that unifications happened well similarly in paris there is a big Movement Even if thats where a lot of demonstrations happen its people who live in the countryside. Having fewer of your g. P. S. And shops and even you know the bakeries are closing down which is really symbolic an important thing for us you know it means that there isnt life in these places a mole is if you like it when youre looking like a king in paris sort of directing without knowing about that life so i feel like here in germany its a different its a ration of quite a similar phenomenon to do here in germany about the 57 percent are very strong german people people in eastern germany who study very feel like 2nd class citizens i mean its not just another poll that says 57 percent i think peoples lives do need to be paid attention to 0 sense of self your sense of pride your sense of purpose whats going to matter to sorry to interrupt you but thats the pressing question why im going to merkel not addressed and why is she not establish that dialogue perhaps its easier to just say its its. When youve got a country that 2nd normally stable and prosperous although i think perhaps the downturn thats being full cost is coming in on a controversy is that could be a massive test i think its the theres a lot of things you can do i mean if there if theres differences you can see on the paycheck 30 years off the wall came down we have to equalize equal it but then i think the people in the west will say thats so unfair because the cost of living in these threads somewhat heavy doesnt exist you know it doesnt make up for it and i always say you know the narrative were saying is you know you people in the east you do you didnt pay the same amount of money the best in people and its not you i mean somebody decided to draw a lie to you to build a wall but it wasnt the people in the east so you know if you start the story to tell the story from there you know you get. You distance yourself a little bit from the whose fault it is that the people who are there are there and i think 30 years of the war why does my mother was a teacher for 43 years why yes you have to earn less than a teacher in the us i dont get it wrong angry as you get about these things i get really angry now you know im not 53 of the percent of the populations are really unsatisfied and you know not all of them vote for the a 50 but you know i think it is a problem if theyre not represented thats from you thats the most pressing issue if you dont if youre not and thats figures 1. 7 percent of the east germans are in leading position top positions only only 1. 7 percent of them are east germans so if you are going to show that in fact the other day and some of the eastern german universities and colleges of Higher Education about how many there are several dozen at least all of the heads of all of these institutions indeed is just from the from the from the worst that we have to say this is something you have to change and there you are you know if you dont feel well i think if this is look at look at case in across the board i mean east germany has profited enormously since the fall of the believability and people are not richard job in this instance. Ford completely but i think now we got to the stage where people are beginning to realize really what happened and looking back properly at history and saying well what really happened to me and what all of these peoples concerns but its taken a really long time for that to happen and i think that young generation that you would say ok about is probably a really big part of the k. Part of the solution to this because you know people who do not have that mental will the people who before the fall of the wall talk about you know they theyve grown up with unified germany cyberspace if that generation can feel a desire to stay in east germany to start businesses that to start their families that has been the big brain drain as well population transfer you know if the new generation of east germans can feel east german and feel hopeful about east germany just explain to that i mean there are more people going back to east germany now than there are leaving so thats a tough times but so many have gone already i think theres a small percentage of them thats true but if you look at the numbers and in the last elections to ring yeah it was actually people. Younger than 30 that also voted for a large percentage for the a 50 story is you know viewers want to watch. Of course your insanity is problematic i mean i think it has a lot to do with like cities and like really areas where theres not much structure theres not much jobs high paying jobs you feel left out i think thats really a big yeah because also in the east we have great cities that are functioning that dont vote for the that much money and you know its thats a big part of the problem and its also what i said about representation of you know part of the system you know you dont you know vote for the system and b. If he claims to be an Antiestablishment Party and thats where they come in and. Tony would become with you what happens to the euphoria what became of the euphoria well i think you fought you for years sort of given way to reality and i think that what happened is that people have realized how much theyve actually sort of lost out and that now have to really really stablished their own identities not only in east germany look at countries like poland like your colleagues reported you know people thought oh its the end of history in 1009 everybodys going to be nice liberal theyre not i mean people are trying to find out who they really are through right movements but that will change things are changing in hungary i think last month obamas party lost in budapest budapest is no longer controlled by will be spotty so its moving in the opposite direction and brics it has not been decided. To. Go for it how long is it going to take for east and west to Grow Together its good question isnt there well i think that this issue of euphoria way as they go and it only gets you safe is a constant process isnt it historys happening all the time say you know perhaps that end point people full saw in 1909 will never happen that germanys going to get them around ok linda if you got a one sentence message of optimism yes im pretty optimistic i think theres. It will take maybe a little more but. 2 or 3 generations shes very hungry for she said it with a sluggish atmosphere lovely for you thats pretty much for joining us here on to the point if youve enjoyed the show as much as i have to combatants wait until im sure sparked by. The bum of a. Clue. To. What keeps us in shape what makes us see and how. My name is dr constantly i talk to medical experts. Watch them at work. And i discuss what you can do to improve your health. States. And lets all try to stay in touch it and 30 minutes till. Its time to take one step further. And face. Time youre just such the a nothing and find for the troops a play time to overcome boundaries and connect some of the time for. The ws coming up ahead. Minds. He wanted to smash the berlin wall and long before it finally found. A lazy also issued a new old state you know linda but hes actually better known as the legend of german rock music. Lets find them all mums amazing man mr. Hans 21. This week on. Love. Playing. After the fall of the berlin wall when the monarch. Touch. The bunny. The tube. This is d w news live from by late today hong kong preexisted dies of his injuries are safe forwarding a from a building means he 1st Student Deaths since the start of the antigovernment town paid prodemocracy activists vow to escalate their protests also coming up to us sections states maicon pay or calls on democracies to walk together visiting but end on the illegal be 30th anniversary of the fall of the wall he talks of the need to say hold one freedoms. And is part of us