Fall of the Berlin Wall - 9 November 1989

At least some media organizations are noting this anniversary. Berlin commemorates fall of Berlin Wall 36 years ago

Berlin, the once-divided city that epitomized the Cold War, commemorated the fall of the wall 36 years ago on Sunday with a memorial ceremony on Bernauer Strasse, a street that was split in two when the Berlin Wall was erected in 1961.

I don't think people recognize what that meant. I know the younger generations don't understand the cold war, or the evil that is communism.

The official name in East Germany/the Warsaw Pact countries was "Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart," or "Antifaschistischer Schutzwall" in German. The propaganda was that it was to protect the people of East Germany from the evil capitalists that wanted to prevent them from creating a communist/socialist utopia. It is an abject lesson in the idea that you are not "anti-fascist" just because you say you are. The East Germans, and the Stasi in particular, were some of the biggest, meanest, evilest fascists in history. (Look up the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit.)

The wall stood for 28 years, from 1961 to 1989. It has been longer than 28 years since it was torn down.

While the fall of the Berlin Wall, didn't mark the end of the Cold War, it was definitely the beginning of the end. And while the threat of thermonuclear annihilation has not dropped to zero, I believe the risks are substantially less than they were in my youth.

While some media outlets are remembering the day, The Washington Post, The NY Times, The LA Times, The Chicago Sun Times, and The Chicago Tribune have apparently ignored the day. To be fair, a couple of them did notice that this is the anniversary of Kristallnacht, which a lot of people mark as the start of the Holocaust.