Fall of the Berlin Wall on Usenet (1989)
groups.google.com
groups.google.com
The wall more or less went up overnight, it’s no wonder people wanted it down just as fast.
i don't know how many went, but a VW bus can seat a handful of people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Type_2
pictures my friends made looked similar to this:
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/business/2019/11/08/...
While the guards tolerated souvenir hunters, you would definitely not want to make a break for the other side. Although crossing may have been technically legal, it was still under the jurisdiction of the border authorities; just as it's legal to travel from Mexico to the US, but you can't just waltz across anywhere you want. Remember, East and West Germany were still two different countries, each with their own laws about customs and immigration.
The majority of the "wallpeckers" just wanted a souvenir and had no intention (or means) to actually break through steel-reinforced concrete using a hand held pick-axe and hammer. In fact, it took a concentrated effort to breach the wall sufficiently to create an opening you could actually pass through. The initial attempts at grabbing souvenirs (followed by actually removing large sections of the wall with construction equipment) happened at heavily populated areas like Checkpoint Charlie, where the large numbers of people made it harder for the authorities to object to.
Full disclosure: I was there and used a friend's hammer and pick-axe to break off a few pieces of the wall.
up to the 80s asbestos was used almost everywhere in construction because it has many beneficial properties. for example it is fire resistant and strengthens the material it is mixed into.
This eventually led to a situation where thousands of people were standing at the border, wanting to cross, and eventually the border guards saw no other option than to let them pass.
But yes it certainly was surprising, without the benefit of hindsight now.
In this case, it's good that it happened so fast. It could have gone a lot worse.
North Korea (with more population than DDR) survived Soviet collapse but just barely, losing hundreds of thousands in a protracted famine, until landing on client relationship with China. Not a realistic scenario for East Germany.
The lack of a Deng Xiaoping equivalent figure in Germany meant that the old hardline party core, and the favourable to Russia fraction of the population, were never mollified. It was a sharp and abrupt transition for them.
https://unherd.com/thepost/afd-support-surges-in-east-german... https://www.politico.eu/article/german-election-far-right-af... https://www.dw.com/en/why-young-eastern-german-voters-suppor...
etc...
If your genuinely unaware of this phenomena, then I suggest to do some reading.
It's also not a "nostalgia", or regional grievance party in any meaningful sense.
In other words, observations in the parent message that you are vociferously attacking ... are basically valid.
If you're genuinely unaware of these facts, I would suggest you attempt to inform yourself at a level beyond that of a few casual keyword searches.
To be frank, considering the use of a pseudonym and comment history, I'm going to assume whoever is behind this account is intentionally writing in a provocative manner, perhaps to earn karma quickly or some other reason.
Breaking the HN rules and guidelines is quite detrimental when your already starting off with lower credibility.
So you were provided with a necessary correction. To be frank, I'm not sure what other kind of response you were expecting.
One that follows all the HN rules and guidelines.
The majority of passing readers disagree with the alleged reading considering that they have not saw fit to downvote my previous comments.
So I think it's fair to say this is mostly, or entirely, in your own imagination.
To put it in a different way:
Imputing intentions to another HN user can at best cause an account's legitimacy, credibility, veracity, etc., to remain the same.
It's not possible for it to be boosted.
And given the already moderately suspicious nature of a pseudonymous 69 day old account with so much karma, it's far more likely to reduce it.
The "dismantling" itself (which at the outset was more like vandalism and souvenir-grabbing) started happening spontaneously after crowds began to overwhelm the border crossing, and the ensuing carnival atmosphere took over.
I am not sure "vandalism" is the right term, when it comes to damaging a prison wall for a whole nation.
It was a symbol of fear and oppression. People were shot at the wall every year, so sure, not everyone (or maybe only a few) who joined, were freedom fighters or deeply philosophical about the meaning of what they were doing. But it still was a liberating act, doing something that likely would have got you shot, just the day before. No matter if you would have tried it from the western or eastern side.
(even though of course, it was more likely from the eastern side, the western side was already full of graffiti, but actually damaging the wall, also from the western side, would have not been very dangerous. People did do this to help people flee the east on purpose. And some of those helpers did get shot.)
(my first reaction was)
The Russians, invaded twice by Germany in the 20th century, sought to withdraw completely from Germany, if it became a neutral country like Switzerland or Austria. The West Germans continually refused this. By 1961 they through in the towel and the west Berlin enclave was sealed off. After the USSR broke up, Russian and German (and western) documents on this were released, which verified what happened at the time.
When Germany sought to reunite, the Prime Minister of the UK, Thatcher, sought behind closed doors to stop German reunification. So it was Gorbachev removing impediments to reunification and Thatcher seeking to create them.
The inevitable anti-fascist protection barrier. Forced into being by the conniving, obstreperous Western machinations, you see.
At the end of the day - it was still about putting a bullet in the back of anyone who dared to cross.
West German tanks and military vehicles could have driven over the ditches without major issues. They only worked one way - from east to west.
[1] e.g. https://www.siue.edu/GEOGRAPHY/ONLINE/Vogeler/FortifiedFence...
This is entirely correct, however it also hides Soviet intent.
They had tried hard with Germany without result. It wasn’t an invasion, but they were interfering and trying to achieve Revolution.
There is a good book on it by Catherine Merridale: Lenin on the Train
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29847081-lenin-on-the-tr...
Because Hitler later betrayed Stalin, and Russia did by far the most work in defeating Nazi Germany, we have since learned to see Russia as one of the good guys in WW2, but they didn't start out that way; they were initially one of the aggressors, invading Poland, the Baltic states, and Finland.
Ah, the convenience of ignoring Munich Agreement.
>> In 1938, the Soviet Union was allied with France and Czechoslovakia. By September 1939, the Soviets were to all intents and purposes a co-belligerent with Nazi Germany, due to Stalin's fears of a second Munich Agreement with the Soviet Union replacing Czechoslovakia. Thus, the agreement indirectly contributed to the outbreak of war in 1939.[87]
But the whole run up to WW2 definitely shows the folly of appeasing aggressors by rewarding their aggression. A lesson that's definitely relevant today.
There were quite a lot of actions which guided the Soviets up to 1939 and I can't say these were 'misguided appeasement'. It takes a lot to convince someone to work with people whose anthem contains 'Kam'raden, die Rotfront und Reaktion erschossen / Marschier'n im Geist in unser'n Reihen mit.'
Not much, if there is something to gain. Because diplomats did the talking and they are usually disconnected from the goons on the ground doing that singing. And the sovjets had their songs and goons and gulags and NKVD too, as you well know.
And I am not sure if you actually understand that song, because it just says the Nazis think about the spirits of their comrades who were killed by the Rotfront, (german communist) and by the Reaktion, conservative (monarchistic) forces opposing the Nazis. (not the other way around, like you seemed to have understood)
And they were. But of course by that time, way more Rotfront people were murdered by the Nazis and they probably also sang about that, so you likely could have choosen a better song. This song lets one rather question, why the nazis could bring themself to work with the sovjets at all and the answer is the same: because there was something to gain.
Otherwise this discussion sounds to me like a discussion about what is better, plague or cholera?
It was 2 confronting totalitarian empires, with total disregard for human life, unless it happened to be an important party member. And in the use of terror against anyone opposing, they were pretty similar.
Or there was something to lose if remain in the current status quo.
> diplomats did the talking and they are usually disconnected from the goons on the ground doing that singing
Sorry?
>> [...] Goebbels' propaganda created what became one of the Nazi Party's central martyr-figures of their movement. He officially declared Wessel's march, renamed as the "Horst-Wessel-Lied" ("Horst Wessel Song"), to be the Nazi Party anthem [...] The "Horst Wessel Song" was sung by the SA at the funeral, and was thereafter extensively used at party functions, as well as sung by the SA during street parades.
Were the Soviet diplomats deaf?
> because it just says the Nazis think about the spirits of their comrades who were killed by the Rotfront
:rolleyes: Some people pertain the idea what the Soviets were totally clueless about how evil Nazis were[0] or what the Soviets were totally on board with Nazis in their evilness[1]. Sometimes both at the same time.
This song is a clear evidence what both the nazis and the communists were a 'natural enemies', what there is no fucking way the Soviets didn't knew that (see [1] again) and what if you find them working together then for the reasons you should look not at them but for their environment.
[0] rare, but I've seen those folks
[1] this is the default, especially if the history knowledge ends with a parroted response about Molotov-Ribbentrop
Apart from that, of course they were natural enemies. Mein Kampf and many other sources spoke about the concept of conquering land in the east.
And the sowjets wanted the world revolution. Also documented.
So why pick that example then?
Because with that, you could also "proof" that the Nazis were mortal enemies to the conservative forces in germany. Were they? As far as I know, not really and surely not as long as the nazis were successfull.
So I really do suspect, that you were not aware, but cannot admit a misstake now, like you cannot admit any wrongdoing by the sowjets. Sorry, but this is not a base for me for serious debate.
> sought to withdraw completely from Germany, if it became a neutral country like Switzerland or Austria
this bargain didn't work out too well for Czechoslovakia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3qVjwzgC2A
It's in German, doesn't appear to have any translations.
Many individual newsgroups would only have hundreds of active users. The reach was very wide geographically, but the demographics were very narrow and numbers of people were very small. Typically they were in big tech companies, and at academic institutions.
One related but vivid memory: in 1991 I was playing some text based MUD (multi-user dungeon) which I barely remember, but at certain moment, someone broke out of character and mentioned that the US had just invaded Iraq (during the Persian Gulf War). It seemed so bizarre yet foreshadowing of the changes to come, of the ways that our news would be shared on social media.
He submitted the piece at the beginning of November. The paper came out on November 13th.
(Apart from that, I still respect the historian. He might not be the best, but he is a good storyteller.)
Most people in Europe could not imagine a full out war and considered the warnings from the US as merge fear mongering.
Tiananmen Square felt like reality crushing what briefly seemed like an end to a dark period of history.
He submitted the piece at the beginning of November. The paper came out on November 13th. "
Nobody really suspected that the wall would totally come down the way it did, as far as I know. (And I know a bit, because I was there when the demonstrations started, even though I could barely talk at that time)
Tiananmen square massacre in china just happened before and even though russia itself was opening up - east germany was still under tight control of Stalinists, who would have rather shot everyone, than giving up. This was the general sentiment.
So there were lots of demonstrations before and slight optimism that some opening up could be achieved and some democratic reforms could be done, but till the very end, the fear was very real (and warranted) that it all could turn into a bloodbath any moment.
Luckily, it didn't.
For many reasons obviously, but mainly it was that the people in power were way weaker, than everyone believed. You cannot just have people shot, you need soldiers or police doing it. And when enough of those soldiers or police have relatives who joined the demonstrations - then they will eventually refuse. And the usual fall back plan, to use russian troops in this case, was no option anymore as Gorbatschow made clear internally.
One anecdote I know, is that a friend of my family, a fireman, was ordered to use his fire truck against demonstrators. And he refused, saying a fire truck is only for real fire. A brave move, as he also had family and dissent was dangerous (and he would have suffered, if it would have all turned out different). I suspect many such small or bigger insubordinations happened, making the power base of the party finally crumble and then the wall crumbled down as a very visible signal of their weakness and then history happened.
I've heard a similar story about the collapse of Ceaucescu in Romania. The regime didn't just rely on police but on bussing in "counter protestors" (loyalist miners armed with pickaxe handles) to deal with demos. But things turned so quickly once the big speech was booed that everything fell apart - and internal security factions began to turn on one another ..
> Sure, all the politicians in east and west keep telling the opposite, but that's just because they would rather keep things the way they were. For those in power, the status quo was much more comfortable as it is now, where no one really knows what's going to happen. How do they want to motivate further spending on arms when all those bad guys aren't bad any more? Sooner or later (and I believe sooner) the peoples of Europe will be fed up with this (if they aren't already), and what good are those military blocks then?????
> The East bloc obviously start disintegrating, politically and militarily. The West bloc won't survive that; if there is no East bloc, NATO will fall apart quickly. So, what's the problem? I certainly will feel more at ease with _less_ weapons. So will most people, I think. And besides, I think it's time Europe is being run by Europeans, not by Americans and Russians.
Oh, you sweet summer child…
The only reason NATO has remained and still is relevant, is because Russia remained aggressive, so there remained a demand for security from Russian neighbours. But if you look at military spending, former Warsaw Pact members spend a much larger percentage of their GDP than western European countries, which, up to Russia's invasion, still believed in peace with Russia.
To a first approximation no one cares about bugs in some ancient SunOS version lost to history on Usenet. They care about the societal discussions that took place at the time. But a lot of people thought the former was documentation and the latter ephemera.
That said, I most often find myself searching (often in vain) for old posts in the comp hierarchy.
The 90’s kind of feel like the glory days in retrospect to me, but I get how I was one of the Eternal September arrivals for a whole bunch of people that felt that was the end of the heyday.
Reading through the thread it’s a real shame to see the decline in our ability (willingness?) to have civil and thoughtful discourse. I honestly might just spend the evening crawling through 30+ year old usenet threads just to see what conversations people were having casually back then.
If you can read German, I recommend reading the usenet threads of Kim Dotcom (Megaupload founder). They will show you the opposite of thoughtful discourse. :D
I remember seeing his website in the olden times, where he put up pics of cars and parties from Monaco/Cote d'Azur. And when the NZ police raided him on behest of the FBI, it seems he got actual hero status. It makes me wonder if crime does pay after all...
In the early 90’s an employee at AT&T downloaded millions of calling card numbers at work and started distributing them through a worldwide network of invite only bulletin boards (lots of warez trading and other black hat related stuff). The fraud cost AT&T around $18 million and stretched across around 300 conspirators.
As backstory, the US had started cracking down on hackers based in the US in the early 90’s and they were getting long prison sentences. As a result, there was still contract hacking work available, but fewer and fewer people in the US that weren’t serving long sentences who were up for it. As a result much of that work started being offered abroad outside the US. Naively (it was assumed) out of reach of the US authorities.
Around the same time, many telephone networks in Europe started switching their PSTN networks from analogue to digital, rendering system 4 blue boxing dead, and international dialing went back to being prohibitively expensive. Hacking PABX’s with toll free numbers was the only (laborious) option (which Schmitz also sold). Therefore these calling cards quickly became immensely valuable in the scene, for making free calls wherever you wanted to and replacing that lost access.
When the fraud was discovered the US Secret Service got involved. The conspirators were tracked down and rounded up within a coordinated series of worldwide arrests. The US tried to extradite as many as possible. Many however were barely out of their teens, and many countries didn’t want the negative publicity of sending 20 year olds to serve life sentences in the US. The raids included the local serious crimes division, US Secret Service and field office based FBI liaisons. They were pretty annoyed about it and there were a fair few bulletin board owners and card traders that were also hacking US domestic networks, including government agencies, on contract, so they were really enjoying themselves rounding everyone up.
I believe that Schmitz came under BND’s radar at that point and they applied the pressure to turn him. I don’t think it would have been particularly hard to do so. The guy would have sold his grandmother for a couple of Deutschmarks and he fancied himself as some kind of James Bond. I think part of his 2 year suspended sentence deal was the condition that he had to turn agent provocateur within the CCC. That’s why his subsequent actions and self publicity always had an air of being untouchable. So he just grifted whilst setting people in the scene up to keep BND happy and working for the CCC hated lawyer Gravenreuth. Until people in the CCC figured it out and they cut him loose.
The pertinent part of that page translated is as follows:
I see flaming was already a thing back then.
I’ve written that about a million times myself.
It seems quaint in retrospect. Germany is currently making noises about maybe, possibly, rearming. Other countries (France!) seemed ticked they aren’t doing it faster.
East Germany never had nuclear right? Now that might be insurmountable.
That difference was too much.
> Personally, I miss the objectivism debates - Come back Magnus, all is forgiven!
Is this a reference to Magnus Pym, the main character in A Perfect Spy by John le Carré?
No, probably a reference to https://groups.google.com/g/eunet.politics/search?q=magnus%2...
I wasted too much time (not that much, but any time on this topic with a "true believer" like Magnus was completely wasted) arguing objectivism with him as an undergrad...
Everybody else seems to be able to access this. Has it disappeared since this link was posted, or is it somehow region blocked?
People who are used to your shenanigans since the foundation of Prussia, Hans. And I don't know about fear, more like fed up. Germany should have never been allowed to remain a state after helping start two world wars. Dismantle into HRE-like micronations or give it to their neighboring nations.
At one point someone even asks if “Russia” [sic] get to keep the “bits” it stole while collaborating with Hitler.
Of course, those bits now belong to Ukraine.
At one point someone says “Look, Matt, that is the kind of debate we don't need at all in this situation”.
I strongly disagree. Vigorous debates are important. Unified Germany eventually agreed to “cede” the land east of the Oder in 1991.
That’s fine, but if Poland or Germany exit the EU there could be some hard feelings if German residents were deported from Poland.
For its part, Poland is still filled with hard feelings regarding Germany’s WWII conduct. If agreeing to give Poland the land east of the Oder was meant to smooth things over, it failed.
Germany is much better at remembering what needs to be remembered, and forgetting what needs to be forgotten. Maybe a bit too good.
No, but we had B1FF D00DZ1!!1