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1 " You know what would help?" I asked, not meeting his eyes." Hmm?" " If you turned off this crap music and put on something that came out after the Berlin Wall went down." Dimitri laughted. " Your worst class is history, yet somehow, you know everything about Eastern Europe." " Hey, gotta have material for my jokes, Comrade." Still smiling, he turned the radio dail. To a country station." Hey! This isn't what I had in mind," I exclaimed. I could tell he was on the verge of laughing again." Pick. It's one or the other." I sighed. " Go back to the 1980s stuff." He flipped the dail, and I crossed my arms over my chest as some vaguely European-sounding band sang about how video had killed the radio star. I wished someone would kill this radio. "
2 " The fall of the Berlin Wall on 11/9/89 unleashed forces that ultimately liberated all the captive peoples of the Soviet Empire "
― Thomas L. Friedman , The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
3 " Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, historians have become both more accurate and more honest—fractionally more brave, one might say—about that 'other' cleansing of the regions and peoples that were ground to atoms between the upper and nether millstones of Hitlerism and Stalinism. One of the most objective chroniclers is Professor Timothy Snyder of Yale University. In his view, it is still 'Operation Reinhardt,' or the planned destruction of Polish Jewry, that is to be considered as the centerpiece of what we commonly call the Holocaust, in which of the estimated 5.7 million Jewish dead, 'roughly three million were prewar Polish citizens.' We should not at all allow ourselves to forget the millions of non-Jewish citizens of Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, and other Slav territories who were also massacred. But for me the salient fact remains that anti-Semitism was the regnant, essential, organizing principle of all the other National Socialist race theories. It is thus not to be thought of as just one prejudice among many. "
― Christopher Hitchens , Hitch 22: A Memoir
4 " When I was an undergraduate we were told that history had ended, and we all believed it. When the Berlin Wall fell, what history was made of was over. No more Cold War. No more wars. And yet here it was, and is and all of it falling apart. Endings. Worlds dissolving. Weather systems, baking systems, the careful plans of municipal gardeners. Families, hearts, lives. "
― Helen Macdonald , H is for Hawk
5 " He was a commander in the Russian army at a time when the Russians were our enemies and still part of the Soviet Union . This wasn't very long ago, Alex.The collapse of communism. It was only in 1989 that the Berlin Wall came down." She stopped. " I suppose none of this means very much to you." " Well, it wouldn't," Alex said. " I was only two years old. "
6 " 45,000 sections of reinforced concrete—three tons each.Nearly 300 watchtowers.Over 250 dog runs.Twenty bunkers.Sixty five miles of anti-vehicle trenches—signal wire, barbed wire, beds of nails.Over 11,000 armed guards.A death strip of sand, well-raked to reveal footprints.200 ordinary people shot dead following attempts to escape the communist regime.96 miles of concrete wall.Not your typical holiday destination.JF Kennedy said the Berlin Wall was a better option than a war. In TDTL, the Anglo-German Bishop family from the pebbledashed English suburb of Oaking argue about this—among other—notions while driving to Cold War Berlin, through all the border checks, with a plan to visit both sides of it. "
― Joanna Campbell , Tying Down the Lion
7 " Ronald Reagan will be remembered for leading the United States during a time of tremendous international transition - the demise of the Soviet Union, the Berlin Wall coming down, and the end of the Cold War. "
8 " Predicting has a spotty record in science fiction. I've had some failures. On the other hand, I also predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of fundamentalist Islam... and I'm not happy to be right in all of those cases. "
9 " After the Berlin Wall came down I visited that city and I will never forget it. The abandoned checkpoints. The sense of excitement about the future. The knowledge that a great continent was coming together. Healing those wounds of our history is the central story of the European Union. "
10 " The fall of the Berlin Wall makes for nice pictures. But it all started in the shipyards. "
11 " Look at what has occurred in history. When the Berlin Wall fell, it was not surprising, but it was unexpected. Who predicted the Arab Spring? Nobody expected it, but all the ingredients were there. I think all the ingredients are also there for Quebec to become a country. But when? That's another question. "
