Читать книгу Where in the World is the Berlin Wall? - Группа авторов - Страница 38

ZAGREB CROATIA Location: In front of the Croatian German embassy and Goethe-Institute, Ulica grade Vukovara

The Berlin Wall in front of the German Embassy in Zagreb

Information plaque at the foot of the Wall segment

The 9^th November 2009 marked 20 years since the Fall of the Wall. The Fall of the Wall and the events that took place as a result led to the “Iron Curtain” being opened once and for all and the political, economical and military divisions between East and West being overcome and were also great cause for celebration – Croatia, too, took part in the celebrations. An original section of the Berlin Wall was unveiled in Zagreb by former Croatian President, Stjepan Mesic and former Berlin Mayor Eberhard Diepgen in front of a crowd of 250 Croatian and German guests.

Stjepan Mesić spoke of the significance of the section of the Berlin Wall: “The Fall of the Wall was both a beginning and an end. The beginning of profound changes which would be felt throughout Germany, Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. We felt as though the model we had at this point in time would not survive.”

The political and social revolutions that took place in Eastern Europe in 1989 also affected the multinational state of Yugoslavia. At this time, the states were made up of Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and also Kosovo and Vojvodina – two regions in Serbia. New conflicts arose in Yugoslavia at the end of the Cold War, which, in the crumbling multinational state, led to war between the autonomous republics and cost tens of thousands of lives.

The unveiling of the Wall segment

German businessman, Axel Brauer, donated the 3.6-metre-high and 1.2-metre-wide section of Wall to the German embassy in Zagreb. Croatian graffiti artists Krešimir Golubic and Gordan Orešic had already repainted the section of Wall. The following quote can be seen in German and Croatian:

In 1961, Berlin and Germany were forcefully split in East and West by the GDR government. This original section from the Berlin Wall commemorates the peaceful revolution led by the people of East Germany as well as the overcoming of the German division – the symbol of which was the Fall of the Wall on 9^th November 1989. Germany was reunified on 3^rd October 1990.

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