The Magic Lantern

Garton Ash recalls how the Berlin Wall once dominated the city’s landscape, as it blocked access to the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, colloquially known as West Germany), from the communist German Democratic Republic (GDR, colloquially known as East Germany). A platform facing the wall was the scene of speeches from American presidents of both parties, including Kennedy and Reagan. By November 1989, Garton Ash, along with many others, crossed the wall freely for the first time in decades, and saw the platform taken down, as the wall was no longer a rhetorical or political target of interest. He recalls that many who crossed the wall did so not only to celebrate, as TV news recorded, but simply to buy things, as the West German government provided visitors from East Germany with welcome funds.

Garton Ash notes that the geographic distance he traversed is small, but its ideological and temporal distance is vast—many of those he speaks to have no memory of open travel within all of Germany. Ordinary East Germans felt the “magical, pentecostal quality” of the moment, and pride in their own popular resistance which forced the GDR’s government to allow free movement and stop border enforcement (56).