Move underway to rescue East Germany from anti-communist historians Move underway to rescue East Germany from anti-communist historians May 10, 2021 Erasing East Germany: The ship named "Berlin Capital of the DDR" has the initials of the German Democratic Republic painted over at a shipyard in Hamburg in September 1990. (Photo: Christian Eggers) A full generation has elapsed since the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) collapsed in late 1991. Two years earlier, in 1989, the socialist states of Eastern Europe gave way to a capitalism that forced its way in – the first salvo came when Hungary opened its border with Austria. Three months later, on the 15th of June, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev told the press in Bonn (West Germany) that the Berlin Wall “could disappear when the preconditions which brought it about cease to exist.” He did not list the preconditions, but he said, “Nothing is permanent under the Moon.” On the 9th of November, 1989, the Berlin Wall was indeed opened under orders of the German Democratic Republic’s (East Germany’s – GDR’s) ruling party, the Socialist Unity Party.