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.

I can easily imagine there being a couple hundred thousand families more then willing to exact some revenge at the most inopportune moment.

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.