New Delhi:
Google on Saturday is celebrating the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall with a doodle. The day marks the historic event of falling of the Iron Curtain and on this day an end to the Cold War was declared at the Malta Summit three weeks later, and hence the reunification of Germany. The Doodle, created by Berlin-based guest artist Max Guther, said he drew inspiration from stories and old photographs of my parents who were in Berlin 30 years ago witnessing the fall of the Berlin Wall.
30th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall
“Tor auf!” (“Open the gate!”) roared the crowds gathered at the Berlin Wall on this evening in 1989. Winds of change were blowing across Europe as new leadership in Russia, Poland, and Hungary had high hopes in East Germany for an end to 28 years of strict travel restrictions, Google explained in its blog post. During a government press conference, an official spokesman’s hasty statement gave reporters and TV viewers the mistaken impression that East Germany would be allowing free travel between East and West Berlin.
Within hours, a massive crowd gathered at the wall, far outnumbering the border crossing guards. Sometime before midnight, the officer in charge of the Bornholmer Street checkpoint defied his superiors and gave the order to open the gate.
Word spread quickly, and over the next few days, 2 million jubilant Germans crossed the border, some singing, dancing, and toasting the start of a new era while others began physically dismantling the wall.
Erected on August 13, 1961, the barbed wire and concrete edifice had long divided East and West Berlin. By the same token, its demolition triggered a series of events that led to the reunion of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic.
