And the Wall Came Tumbling Down: Berlin 1989

Release date: November 17, 2009 |

Goucher College will commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago with a lecture by Christoph Eichhorn, head of the Political Department at the German Embassy in Washington D.C. Titled “And the Wall Came Tumbling Down: Berlin 1989,” this lecture will be held Tuesday, November 17, at 7:30 p.m. in Buchner Hall of the college’s Alumnae/i House.

This event is free and open to the public and will include a presentation of short DVD about the fall of the wall, followed by a presentation by Eichhorn about why this historic moment—which signified the end of the Cold War era—is still relevant today. 

Eichhorn is the minister and head of the Political Department of the German Embassy in Washington D.C. The Political Department informs the German government about developments in American foreign and domestic policy and explains to its American partners the political situation in Germany, particularly regarding foreign-policy issues.

He has also been a member of the senior foreign service since August 2008. Before that, Eichhorn was the office director for the United States and Canada in the German Foreign Office, Berlin, from 2004 to 2008. He served in Washington from 1998 to 2004, first as an exchange diplomat at the U.S. Department of State, later as political counselor for congressional and U.S. domestic affairs and deputy head of the Political Department at the German Embassy.

On November 9, 1989, the world watched as jubilant crowds gathered on both sides of the Berlin Wall around midnight to celebrate the opening of the border crossings between the eastern and western parts of the city. A peaceful revolution in East Germany had finally cracked this grim symbol of Cold War and political oppression. It signaled the beginning of the end of Germany’s postwar division, and national unity came less than a year later on October 3, 1990.

Erected on August 13, 1961 by the communist regime in East Germany, the wall divided Berlin for 28 years. It cut through the heart of the city, halting vital traffic links and separating families and friends. Minefields and border police with shoot-to-kill orders thwarted any further attempts by East Germans to look for a better future in the West. While the communists tightened their grip on people’s lives in East Berlin, the western part of the city became a walled-in outpost of freedom and democracy.

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, its vestiges are proof that peaceful change is possible, even when it seems most unlikely.