Introduction: Where Is Germany?

Abstract

When the Berlin Wall opened unexpectedly on November 9, 1989, it marked a rupture of global significance in the history of the twentieth century. For Germany’s national history, the event has become—next to the defeat of 1945—the most significant date in collective memory, advancing very quickly to the status of a foundational myth of postwar German identity. An improvised barrier when the East German Central Committee first decided to install it on August 13, 1961, for Cold War Europe, the Berlin Wall represented the architectural incarnation of the Iron Curtain: a symbol of border crisis and of systemic difference and division. Today the Berlin Wall has literally disappeared, dismantled and removed to the realm of museums and commemorative sites. Ironically, this concrete barrier has become now a symbol for the passage of time and the process of change. But it was not only a symbol 50 years ago. It was also a local marker of world significance that linked politics, the public sphere, and the everyday experience of millions of people for the nearly 30 years of its existence. Understanding this central Cold War construct can also point to the possibilities inherent in its demise, both in Germany and within the larger context of European expansion: the fall of the Wall refers to a turning point, an end of one history and a new beginning, that of the post-Wall era.