Word: germanism
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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When the great breach finally came, it started undramatically. At a press conference last Thursday, Schabowski announced almost offhandedly that starting at midnight, East Germans would be free to leave at any point along the country's borders, including the crossing points through the Wall in Berlin, without special permission, for a few hours, a day or forever. Word spread rapidly through both parts of the divided city, to the 2 million people in the West and the 1.3 million in the East. At Checkpoint Charlie, in West Berlin's American sector, a crowd gathered well before midnight. Many...
...stroke of midnight, East Berliners began coming through, some waving their blue ID cards in the air. West Berliners embraced them, offered them champagne and even handed them deutsche mark notes to finance a celebration (the East German mark, a nonconvertible currency, is almost worthless outside the country). "I just can't believe it!" exclaimed Angelika Wache, 34, the first visitor to cross at Checkpoint Charlie. "I don't feel like I'm in prison anymore!" shouted one young man. Torsten Ryl, 24, was one of many who came over just to see what the West was like. "Finally...
Gorbachev in fact may have done more than merely support the East German opening. It was no coincidence that Honecker resigned shortly after the Soviet President visited East Berlin, and that the pace of reform picked up sharply after Krenz returned from conferring with Gorbachev in Moscow two weeks ago. In pursuing perestroika -- in his eyes not to be limited to the U.S.S.R. -- and preaching reform, Gorbachev has made it clear that Moscow will tolerate almost any political or economic system among its allies, so long as they remain in the Warsaw Pact and do nothing detrimental to Soviet security...
...Developments are now unforeseeable," said West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who interrupted a six-day official visit to Poland to fly to West Berlin for a celebration. "I have no doubt that unity will eventually be achieved. The wheel of history is turning faster now." At the square in front of the Schoneberg town hall, where John F. Kennedy had proclaimed in 1963 that "Ich bin ein Berliner," West Berlin Mayor Walter Momper declared, "The Germans are the happiest people in the world today." Willy Brandt, who had been mayor when the Wall went up and later, as federal Chancellor...
Thus West German leaders' advice to their compatriots from the East was an odd amalgam: We love you, and if you come, we will welcome you with open arms -- but really, we wish you would stay home. "Anyone who wants can come," said Mayor Momper, but added, "Please, even with all the understandable joy you must feel being able to come to the West, please do it tomorrow, do it the day after tomorrow. We are having trouble dealing with this." In Bonn, Interior Minister Wolfgang Schauble warned would-be refugees that with a cold winter coming on, the country...