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On the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Chancellor of Germany, Olaf Scholz, remembered the courageous Europeans who made it possible, and called on the people of Europe to unite today in the face of new challenges.
He said this in his greeting to fellow citizens on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the events that changed Europe, Ukrinform reports.
"Through their revolution 35 years ago, the peaceful revolutionaries achieved something very big: a united Europe - free and democratic. Especially now, when the global political situation is so complicated - whether it is in Ukraine or the Middle East, whether it is about climate protection or the economy - it is now that we, Europeans, have to stick together," emphasized the head of the German government.
He noted that 35 years ago, in the fall of 1989, courageous citizens destroyed the iron curtain, this "inhuman border" that had divided Europe into East and West for decades.
Scholz mentioned the peoples of other countries of Central and Eastern Europe, without whom the peaceful revolution in the GDR might not have happened or would have happened later. Among them is Hungary, which became a "pioneer of the great coup". Already in the spring of 1989, the Hungarians had the courage to cut the barbed wire and dismantle their border fortifications in the west, and during the unforgettable "pan-European picnic" in the summer of 1989, when the border with Austria was open for a few hours, hundreds of GDR citizens managed to escape.
Other important countries in the process of historical changes were Poland and trade union activists "Solidarity", Czechoslovakia. The chancellor also paid tribute to the "singing revolutionaries" in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. And, of course, "to the Monday demonstrators (because they held demonstrations on Mondays) in Leipzig and many other places in the GDR, who had the courage to shout: 'We are the people' and then 'We are one people.'
"The victory of freedom in the fall of 1989 was a pan-European victory. The fall of the Berlin Wall 35 years ago was a happy culmination of pan-European development. Our common history in the fall of 1989 shows us how we can achieve our goals by uniting - for peace and freedom, for security and prosperity, for the rule of law and democracy," Scholz emphasized.
He called November 9 a happy day, for which Germans are grateful to this day, and Europeans are happy, because today they live together by these values.
"But today it is clear that such a situation is not a given. Therefore, the message of the Freedom Revolution of 1989 is more relevant today than ever: Courage, confidence and solidarity pay off! We won't achieve anything against each other, only together we are strong!", said the German leader.
It will be recalled that on the evening of November 9, 1989, during a press conference in Berlin, the spokesman of the East German government, Günter Schabowski, having misunderstood the decision of his party chief, Egon Krenz, announced on live television that from this moment on, East Germans could cross the border without obstacles. That same evening and night, thousands of East Berliners went to West Berlin, and the soldiers, who had not been given any orders, did not dare to shoot people. Thus fell the symbol of the "Cold War", which divided Berlin into 2 parts for more than 28 years and became the place of death of hundreds of East Germans who tried to escape from the GDR.
Photo: Olga Tanasiychuk / Ukrinform
