The wall comes down

Vol. 6 | Issue 8 | November 2012

MANDARIN MATTERS

berlin a madhavan

 

The wall comes down

The eventful days leading to the fall of the Berlin Wall and an analysis of post Cold War geo-political issues in Europe

 

‘Something there is that doesn’t love a wall’.

- Robert Frost, ‘ Mending Wall’

 

In a diplomatic career spanning 35 years, I was witness to several momentous events in different countries, but none as significant or engaging as the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989. As India’s ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany, stationed in Bonn, my last post before retirement, I was drawn into an unfolding drama racing to its historic denouement. From the first, the breach in the Wall was recognised as the turnaround or die Wende, as the Germans called it, heralding the end of the Cold War..............READ MORE