Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Berlin Wall (fall) questions

I'm not familiar with the politics of the time, and have a few questions. Mostly, I would like to know what the public reaction was that November? Was it a surprise when it happened? What kind of media coverage did it get? Might Lois have covered anything related to it?

Also, do we now know if other governments (like our own) or intelligence agencies were surprised or somewhat expecting it or what?

I might possibly one day use this in a Scarecrow and Mrs. King/Lois & Clark crossover (well, as a prequel to the crossover, actually), but I'm not sure. Right now I'm trying to avoid the biggest political events time-wise, but I'd still like to get the IFF agents' reactions right in my head.

This is probably not going to help all that much, but...

I wasn't anywhere near Germany - I'm in Canada. But I remember very well when the wall fell. I was in college, studying journalism at the time. We spent hours glued to our TV sets watching the news every day. We couldn't believe it was happening. There was LOTS of media coverage. I remember one night watching the news, my friends and I were sitting on the floor in the living room and clapping and hugging, because it was just such a wonderful thing - full of promise for the future and for peace.

At the end of the school year, we presented our Current Events teacher with a piece of the wall that we bought for him -- this man was a very stern person, never smiled much and never showed much feeling, but he was the best teacher we ever had; he cried when we gave him that as a gift.

Perhaps this can help a little bit more:
Berlin Wall - from Wikipedia

Thanks (especially for the shared memory). Also thanks on affirming lots of media coverage.

I looked at Wikipedia already, but it really didn't tell me what I most wanted to know - how expected or unexpected was this event to the general public (of various countries) and how expected or unexpected was it to the various governments.

I thought it might be less unexpected, because there were (according to wiki and other things I Googled) lots of changes until that point (changing government policy, Austria and Hungary's easing border, etc), but that's still me drawing a conclusion.

Okay, I was six at the time, so trust me not to know too much about politics then.

But I can tell you...

It was a surprise, to all of us, I guess. Whenever I heard of that wall, I thought that it was something undestroyable. It seemed like a menace, the German Democratic Republic (DDR) like a place where you could go to, but never return from. ( Okay, now you know that I grew up in the Western Part of Germany.)And remeber, I was five years old.

One of my school mates escaped when it was possible to leave the DDR via Hungary. She and her parents risked their lives and that was only a few month before the wall actually fell. So yea, it was a surprise. When you see the old films where our foreign mister tells the peolple that everyone is free to travel, you can see the disbelief on his face. The people were overwhelmed.

To the media...Well yes you can see many fils of every step of the process. And see, Germany wasn't independent in that time. We couldn't easily make up our mind and say...We want to reunite. There was a lot of pressure from the people "Wir sind das Volk" - (We are the people) in the eastern part of our country. Germany had to ask the USA, France, England and of course Russia.

It was a party, even though most of us only watched it on TV. I was in college, too, and it was vastly exciting and *very* surprising. The sort of thing to make people laugh and cry at the same time. It seemed like the whole world changed, but in a good way.

Lois is roughly my age, so she'd have been in college then too -- so I can see she'd have *wanted* to go be part of it, but whether she could swing the finances would be the sticking point.

Hey, maybe she schemed her way over there, wrote up a fabulous freelance article, and used that in her interview w/Perry White?

As for the feds/intelligence/IFF types -- I'm pretty sure they were taken completely by surprise. The CIA's gained a fabulous reputation for getting everything wrong. For instance, I remember reading that they were certain the Soviet Union would keep on going strong for another hundred years or so. I don't think you get into espionage if you're the optimistic type. In short -- Lee would be cynical enough to think the wall would be there forever, but Amanda might have seen it coming, just by a little bit.

PJ

I lived in West Germany for 1983-1987, and I would have said that, based on the political climate in Europe at the time, that the wall would never come down. Certainly the West Germans were very keen for reunification.

I was totally taken by surprise when the wall came down. Never saw that coming.

Kathy

I was only around 5 or 6 at the time too, but I'm quite a history and politics buff so I've read a little on the subject. It is a significant event in history as it the wall throughout the Cold War had been a symbol of the the so-called Iron Curtain. For it to have been pulled down it signified I guess the beginning of the end of the communist regime in Eastern Europe. So my guess would be that media coverage would have been quite extensive.

As far as intelligence agencies go we can never know for sure whether they knew about it or not. I think back to the incident of Pearl Harbor in December 1941 now I've heard various rumours that FDR knew of the events that occurred prior to Japan bombing Pearl Harbor, but delibrately kept the knowledge from getting out as a means of forcing congress to enter WWII. Now I think it was possible, but we can never be too sure and also an intelligence records are sealed for years before being declassified so if any of the intelligence agaencies knew of the impending collapse we may never know until those documents are released.

I'm aware that many KGB records were released after the fall of communism in Russia, but even then those details are still rather sketchy. So interms of intelligence agencies knowing of the event I'd leave that up to your own opinion.

I was pretty young at the time, but I do remember that my dad had to go to Berlin on business that year and he brought back a piece of the wall (he didn't have to buy it, he just picked it up from the ground and put it in his pocket ). It stayed on a shelf in our living room for many years to come.

In regard to Lois covering the fall of the wall, I think you could make that work. According to TPvLL she started as a research assistant in '88. She was an international correspondent at some point (remember the gun runner story in the Congo), winning her first Kerth in '91 for a story called "Gulf War: On the Front Lines." (Interesting that that never came up later on, but maybe they just didn't expect fans to spend their free time deciphering the engravings on her statues, so they thought we'd never find out ). I think it's conceivable (or at least fanwankable) that she was covering the fall of the Berlin Wall a year earlier, but it would've been way at the beginning of her career as a journalist.

Thanks so much, everyone, for your replies. I'd love to continue hearing more, if anyone wants to share - I find it very interesting.

Now to work out timezones regarding when the announcement was made, etc. . .

Well, if you want to know something more about the time when the Wall fell, watch "Goodbye, Lenin". It's not as much about the actual event, but on the effects and consequences - and very interesting.

What a great memory you've brought back. I am from Canada, but I can still recall the emotion of the event.

I don't recall any indication at all that it was going to happen. Just one day the wall was there and the next it was coming down. It felt as if the entire world had changed for the better in a single moment of time. Imagine 9/11 - only in reverse.

ML

I, too, was in college at the time. I remember being absolutely stunned. My roommates and I stayed up all night watching the news stations and marveling at how quickly the world could change. Like ML said, it was like 9/11 in reverse.

There's a section of the wall outside of the Imperial War Museum in London and it gave me a thrill, nearly twenty years after the event, just to see it. I tried to impress upon my son the historical importance of it, but he was only 11 at the time. Someday (I comfort myself), he'll look back on this picture and be glad for it.

Back in 1994, my (now) husband and I bought a Eurorail pass and bummed around Europe for a month. We went to Berlin so that I could see what remained of the wall. I was struck by how run down it was, how...hmmmm...how can I say this? Not scary? Not intimidating? Growing up in the US with Ronald Reagan as president, the wall was that dramatic symbol of Communism (with a very capital C), the Enemy (capital E), those people "over there" with the nuclear weapons aimed at us, the people that my mom participated in bomb shelter drills to avoid. Regardless of actual politics or nationalities, or who really had what aimed at whom, I remember the Wall coming down as this life changing event - a sign that we would be safe. Of course, as we've found out, safe is a relative term, and it never lasts forever.

As for Lois reporting on the event, I doubt she would have been there on that dramatic night I remember. But she could have made her way there in a day or two and covered some follow-up stories. The event was big news for quite some time.

Susan (whose 10th grade history teacher, when discussing our school's "duck and cover in case of nuclear attack" policy, dramatically showed us how he would turn toward the window instead and defiantly flip the bird at the world. Ahhh...I'll always remember that guy!)

Sue, I recognized that photo immediately, before I even read your post. IWM is my favorite musuem and London is my favorite city. Can't wait to go back. But I must admit I was a lot more interested in the Women in War, WW1 trench and Holocaust exhibits, along with Churchill's War Rooms at Whitehall, than in the Berlin Wall. I was only ten when the Wall came down, and the significance was lost on me. Of course, I realize it now, but it's now history, and other areas of history interest me a lot more.

So the end result is that I am of no help to Tzigone, so I now return you to your previously scheduled programming.

Oh wait, more comments about other people's comments:

That was during CK's travels, maybe he covered it freelance? Of course, he probably would have led with that in his interview with Perry intead of the gecko story but hey, the great thing about fanfic is that you can rewrite history.

Susan, your comment reminded of my WW2 professor at Florida State - he described the famous photo of St. Paul's Cathedral surrounded by smoke in the Blitz as London flipping the bird at Hitler.

I actually get that same impression from that photo of Winston Churchill making his "V" since all he would have to do is turn his hand around and he'd be giving Hitler the two-fingered salute.

The wall wasn't my favorite part of the IWM, but I was fascinated by it nonetheless. I'd have a hard time picking my favorite.

Back on topic, I do like the idea of an idealistic (and very mobile) Clark going to witness the collapse firsthand. That would make more sense that Lois since he would have been about 23/24 at the time.

Not for me, not for this. I'm one of those people who doesn't like to deviate from canon the slightest bit unless the story is clearly labeled as an AU.

Besides, since I'm using Lois' side as the connection, having Clark there wouldn't do me any good. The prequel era is all SMK stuff to bridge to the actual crossover (my idea have one right after Superman arrives on the scene, one for the Nightfall asteroid, possibly another for Lois' marriage to Lex, one for Lois' "affair" with Superman (mostly just Ellen and Dotty for that one), and then maybe something shortly after series' end.

Oh, I definitely think Lois would have gone after the wall fell… if she could have gotten there.

I remember how joyous family members were that they were able to see family that they hadn’t seen since the wall went up. And how hard would that have been?

I haven’t seen anyone else mention this, but one of the biggest things I remember that led up to the wall falling was the Tear Down This Wall speech by Ronald Reagan... “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” I believe that certainly had a big part in leading to the fall. But the actual fall was a huge surprise. I remember seeing people dancing and hugging and cheering.

When I visited Germany many years ago, it was West Germany that I visited. I’d love to go back now and visit the reunited Germany.

As a couple of folks mentioned, it would have been very easy for Clark to get there and watch the wall fall. All he’d have to do is fly there.

It's been a while since I've seen Scarecrow and Mrs. King (which I loved, by the way). Wasn't "The Agency" (or whatever they called it) just involved in domestic affairs? I don't remember episodes where they went international. But I could easily believe that Lee would know agents who worked in Berlin, or maybe he did an occasional international trip, particularly before he started working with Amanda.

No, international affairs too. It's true that most of the episodes took place in the DC area itself - partly for budgetary reasons, and partly because it wouldn't have been easy to come up with plausible reasons for Amanda to keep flitting off to Europe or whatever. However, there were often mentions of Lee or Francine having just returned from XXXXX country, and there were several episodes in the second season which took place entirely on location in Europe - two in England, two in West Germany and one in Austria.

SMK is another one of my favorite shows - I was online and reading fanfic for this before L&C, and I'd love to see a crossover.

Kathy

Oh yeah, now that you mention it, I seem to recall one in Germany. Lee was so delicious! I never cared much for Francine. For me, Scarecrow and Mrs. King became less successful after their marriage, just like in Remington Steele and Lois and Clark. TV writers seem good at creating sexual tension but fail to capture the rapport of a good marriage. Or is it that married couples are just boring to watch? Gee...put a camera in my house and you'd see my husband and I watching tv for hours on end - FUN!