Fall of the Berlin Wall – 20th Anniversary – links for 03 Nov 2009

Fall of the Berlin Wall – 20th Anniversary – links for 03 Nov 2009

Here are links for 03 November 2009 concerning that very important moment in German History (and world history), the fall of the Berlin Wall. The 20th anniversary of that momentous event is coming up in just six days, on 09 November 2009.

If you missed them, consider reviewing other recent entries containing links regarding the anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall. And don’t forget our special page dedicated wholly to Fall of the Berlin Wall Resources.

And now to today’s links:

  • Deutsche Welle shows us “What’s Left of the Berlin Wall”.  Though it’s a fairly simple slide show featuring 16 photos, it has quickly become one of my favorites because of the excellent descriptions (in English) of each photo.  Very, very interesting, particularly the parts about cemeteries being affected by the border fortifications.
  • “I have never had such a gifted pupil since,” says German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s former teacher, according to an interesting article at the Independent which gives not only a brief biographical sketch of Chancellor Merkel, but also a glimpse at the town in which she grew up in East Germany.

Unfortunately, today’s video is not “embed-able” in my page, so you’ll have to head on over to the BBC to watch it.  It’s part of native German Franz Strasser’s trip through the areas of his former country, East Germany.  In this episode, Strasser talks with German students who belong to the first generation that grew up during reunification.  Interesting!

I hope you enjoyed today’s links.  Keep coming back for more!

Until next time,

Bill Dawson

P.S. Chancellor Merkel is right at the top of the list of the world’s most powerful women. She’s very modest in public and comes across as a bit of an intellectual (which she is); words like “dynamic”, which we often like to ascribe to leaders, don’t necessarily apply to her. But this makes her no less of an extraordinary woman, one who has a very interesting biography, as that Independent article suggests.

There are English-language biographies of this “Power-Frau“, such as the one I’ve highlighted here. Check it out!


Photo Credit

The lead photo accompanying this blog post shows German Chancellor Angela Merkel and comes from Wikimedia Commons, where it was graciously made available by Jacques Grießmayer under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 license.

About the Author

Bill Dawson is an American citizen who, having married an Austrian, lives and works in Vienna, Austria. A programmer by trade, he studied history as an undergraduate at the University of California, Berkeley.