The Berlin Wall, 2

 
 
 

Vocabulary

alarm	horrible	unification
pinch	further	all the time
last (2)	dream (2)	I pinched myself (2)
crazy	hopefully	Iron Curtain
iron	massive	look back (2)
barbed	separate	flee/fled/fled
guard	deep (2)	run/ran/ran (3)
apart	suppress	tear/tore/torn
Stasi	infamous	secret police
border	right (4)	revolution (2)
escape	power (3)	come to power
reform	forever	put pressure
risk	long live	demonstration
allow	mass (4)	inadvertently
delay	knock (2)	according to
decide	celebrate	pressure (2)
unity	homeland	satisfaction
justice	frustrating	division (2)
prove	spark (2)	lead/led/led

 
 
 
 
 
 

Video: The Berlin Wall, II

 

Transcript

The Fall of the Berlin Wall: a moment in history that changed lives.

Woman, one: “I’ve been living in this house twenty (20) meters away, for the past ten years. And every time I looked out the window to the left, I saw this horrible wall.

That was so frustrating: you knew you simply couldn’t go any further.”

Husband: “We’ve been waiting for twenty-eight years.
Wife: “We thought the Wall would last forever.”

Woman, two: “We’ve been pinching ourselves all the time to see if it’s true — to see if we aren’t dreaming, or crazy.”

Woman, three: “It was really great. Hopefully, it will stay this way.”

For twenty-eight (28) years, the Wall had separated the capitalist West from the communist East.

Let’s look back . . .

In 1961, with more and more people fleeing the East, the leaders of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) decided to build a wall.

The Iron Curtain ran through the middle of Germany. Barbed wire, guards and alarms lined the border.

The Wall tore families apart.

For twenty-eight years, the infamous Stasi secret police suppressed people’s rights. More than one-hundred-thousand (100,000) people risked their lives to flee to the West. More than six-hundred (600) died trying to escape.

 

 

Everything changed when this man came to power in the Soviet Union.

Mikhail Gorbachev

His reforms in the Soviet Union put pressure on the GDR’s leadership. Political and economic dissatisfaction sparked mass demonstrations in East Germany.

East Germans Chanting: “The Wall must go! The Wall must go! The Wall must go!”

Then the unimaginable happened . . .

Asked by a reporter when the GDR’s citizens would be allowed to freely leave the country, an East German leader inadvertently helped knock a hole in the Wall.

Gunter Schabowski, GDR Leadership: “According to my information — immediately. Without any delay.

The news spread quickly via TV and radio.

GDR citizens massed at the border.

GDR border guards then opened the Wall on November 9, 1989.

Helmut Kohl, German Chancellor (1982 – 1998): “This is about unity and justice and freedom. Long live a free German homeland. Long live a free and united Europe.”

 

 

Less than a year later, on October 3, 1990, Germany celebrated its reunification.

 

 

Thirty years later, social and economic divisions between East and West remain deep.

But the fall of the Wall proved that a peaceful revolution can lead to change.

 

 

Questions

1. The Fall of the Berlin Wall was a watershed moment, a turning point, a decisive moment in history. Is this correct or incorrect?

2. Did (East) Germans like, love, dislike, hate or were indifferent towards the Berlin Wall?

3. No one could believe that the Wall had opened and fallen. It was unbelievable, unreal. Is this right or wrong?

4. How did people feel?

5. Why was the Berlin Wall built? Did it serve to protect East Germany from West Germany, and vice versa?

6. Who was Mikhail Gorbachev? Was he German? Was he a radical, liberal, moderate, conservative or reactionary person? What did he do?

7. Was the opening of the Berlin Wall very gradual and carefully planned, or was it almost haphazard and spontaneous?

8. Germany and the rest of Europe have completely unified and been totally integrated. Is this entirely true, mostly true, in the middle, yes-and-no, partly, it depends, largely false or completely false?

 

A. I remember the fall of the Berlin Wall. Yes or no? What was the atmosphere like?

B. Was everyone shocked and surprised by the events?

C. Everything was wonderful and perfect after the fall of the Berlin Wall. What do you think?

D. What could happen in the future?

E. Should people and governments do anything?