Reunification

Twenty-eight years ago today, the former German Democratic Republic, part of the then Warsaw Pact, and the Federal Republic of Germany, part of NATO, were reunited. The two states were formed out of the wreckage of the Third Reich, ruled by Adolf Hitler. After the Berlin Wall came down on 9 November 1989, reunification followed a year later. When I visited the former East Germany in 1995, the vestiges of communist rule were still present around Eberswalde, 40 miles northeast of Berlin. I'll never forget the extreme cynicism of the name of an orphanage, Anne Frank House, at nearby Chorin. To describe it as an orphanage was also cynical. It housed children that had been taken from their parents for being dissidents to the communist rule. Remember Erich Honecker? Instead, remember the poor souls that were killed for trying to leave his communist paradise. In the 1980s, I sometimes listened to East German radio on 188 kHz longwave, giving out weather reports for socialist resorts across Europe and Russia. Sochi, Zakopane... Much has changed since then, the world is unrecognisable since 30 years ago.