Vor zwanzig Jahre fiel die Mauer

Twenty years ago the Wall fell. I think it's hard for many of us to truly understand the devastation caused by the erection of the Berlin Wall. For starters, I encourage you to watch this six-minute documentary:



To get a better idea of communism's impact in Germany, I recommend checking out two movies: Das Leben Der Anderen (The Lives of Others) and Good Bye Lenin! The former is a drama and the latter a comedy, and you can get both through Netflix.

I celebrated the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall by enjoying a glass of my homebrewed Leipziger Gose (as Leipzig was in the East) and following that with a bottle of Einsiedler Doppel Bock (from Chemnitz in the East). The Einsiedler was particularly appropriate as its history reflects the tumult caused by the rise and fall of East Germany.

I realize that twenty years later, there are still cultural rifts that have yet to heal, but here's hoping that twenty more years of freedom brings prosperity, both economic and cultural, to the former DDR.