When the Wall crumbled

The fall of the Berlin Wall symbolizes many things to many people, but for Chattanooga resident Thomas van Loon-Behr, the collapse of the imposing, 96-mile barrier between East and West Germany had a lifelong, meaningful result.

“If the wall hadn’t come down, my wife probably would never had the chance to leave East Germany,” Mr. van Loon-Behr wrote in an e-mail from Germany. “We would probably never have met and wouldn’t live now in the beautiful city of Chattanooga together.”

Mr. van Loon-Behr, who works for Volkswagen in Chattanooga, is from Berlin while his wife, Franziska, was born in Leipzig, East Germany.

Today’s 20th anniversary of fall of the “wall has a very special meaning to us,” he wrote.

Ceremonies will be held today to commemorate the historic events and images of the people who tore down large portions of what was considered a stark symbol of the Iron Curtain.

The wall was erected in 1961 by the Soviet-controlled German Democratic Republic to divide Berlin and slow the flood of refugees migrating to the West. For 28 years, the East Germans withstood political pressure, demonstrations and the exodus of thousands of people to the West.

Chunks of the Berlin Wall are found in locations across the world. Chattanooga resident Tom Ernt never witnessed up close the extended barrier in Berlin Wall, but he has two chunks of concrete from the wall — one representing the East and one the West.

German-American friends gave him the remnants as a constant reminder.

He recounted being in the countryside outside Berlin before the removal of the wall.

“It was a normal countryside except for the barbed wire and guard towers” that stretched for miles aong the border between the East and West Germany, he said.

Cleveland, Tenn., resident Brigitta Höferle grew up Heilbronn, West Germany, about eight hours from Berlin, and remembers her first visit to East Germany.

“For me, as a teenager, it was disturbing, everything was very gray, neglected, the streets had many holes. They were not taken care of through the communists,” she said. “I never thought that the wall would come down, it was just a given that Eastern and Western Germany were divided.”

Major changes occurred rapidly after the wall was removed as travel and commerce began between the East and West.

For Franziska van Loon-Behr, who was 12 at that time, seeing what was available in the West stunned her.

“I still remember how overwhelmed I was the first time I visited West Berlin and saw the variety of products and large shops,” she said. “Due to this ‘revolution,’ done by the people in East Germany, I was now able to travel wherever I wanted, to study what I wanted, and above all, to live in a free and democratic country.”

Mr. van Loon-Behr, who was 14 in 1989, remembers the hundreds of thousands of people who went to the Berlin streets and celebrated.

“When we walked on the Ku’Damm — West Berlin’s largest boulevard, comparable to the Fifth Avenue in New York. It was so full of people that the complete street had to be closed for cars,” he said.

“I still get very emotional when I see the pictures of the demonstrations and the wall coming down,” he said.