With all of the celebrations commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9 — from pop stars to DJs to massive performance art — it is easy to forget that what is being remembered is not only the end of tyranny, but also the sadness and terror that had existed in the decades before then.

The celebratory concert at the monumental, domed Berlin Cathedral had a special symbolism for the convergence of the formerly divided city. This was the first time that the Berlin’s Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir, which had been under the GDR, played together with German Symphony Orchestra and Choir, which had been established by the U.S. and even played a role in the Berlin Airlift.

Video courtesy of YouTube user Mr1971christian

The concert was wide-ranging, with pieces by Schubert and Mendelssohn, a section of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, an early Schoenberg choral piece, and even Wagner’s Die Meistersinger vom Nurnberg, which was used by Leni Reifenstall in the The Triumph of the Will. And indeed, the presenters noted that Nov. 9 was also the date of Kristallnacht, urging the audience not to forget the dark side of German history.

I had the fortune of spending yesterday evening with my father, Peter Loewenberg, who was there to see the Wall erected in 1961, as a student at the Free University. My father, who went on to be a professor of Modern European History at UCLA, remembered the fear he felt when the barrier went up that summer.

“I really thought this was going to be World War III,” he said.

Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate. Photo: Sam Loewenberg

After the concert, we wandered through the drizzly fog-shrouded night down to the Brandenburg Gate, where spectators were beginning to clear out. John Bon Jovi, DJ Paul van Dyk, and Daniel Barenboim had performed. A line of 1,000 giant foam dominoes painted by 15,000 young people had been pushed over by Lech Walesa, and now the last stragglers were hanging around picking fights with the police.

There was little real tension though, with the usual black-clad provocateurs massively outnumbered by the green-uniformed Berlin cops, who are well-used to the antics of angry Berliners. One of them was loudly complaining about what he saw as authoritarian tactics. A police officer responded by suggesting the man write a letter to the city government. “Try to make it funny,” he said. “It’ll attract more attention.”

“German unification is not complete,” Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters on Monday. Despite all of last night’s celebrations, everybody in Germany knows that while the country has torn down its barriers, the East and the West are still highly unequal. Unemployment in the former Communist regions are double what they are in the West, and social services and infrastructure are poor.

- Sam Loewenberg

As a reporter, Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff hitchhiked overnight to Berlin to cover the story. He is now the senior director at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Many residents relive their glee over the end of the hated division between East and West Germany. But there is also a growing contingent who remember the positive aspects of the socialist society in the east, including state-sponsored health care, education, and housing.  They speak with nostalgia and admiration about the lost collectivist values of East Germany.

Mike Kraus, a freelance video journalist, reports from Berlin.

Ivette Feliciano translated the following blog posts from Venezuela and Cuba:

From Profeballa, a Venezuelan blogger: “It’s been 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, when will Venezuela’s wall come down? As I’ve said before, it will fall once more Venezuelans become aware of their rights and knock it down. When they destroy the mental wall that keeps us underdeveloped…”

From Elías Amor Bravo, an anti-communist political writer: “The fall of the Berlin wall 20 years ago is a very important event for all Cubans. We shared in their optimism and were happy to see how families were reunited after decades of communism that separated them. The fall also forced the Cuban government to make changes it never intended to make, due to the absence of political, ideological, and financial resources that formerly came to the Island from the USSR. The period after the fall of the wall allowed for the free circulation of money, the authorization of private activity, although it was under rigorous control, foreign investment, and tourism…It also allowed for Cubans on the island to have more contact with family members abroad, and in turn mobilized many to organize themselves as dissidents and opposed to the government, something formerly unheard of….”

A Berlin Wall commemorative stamp.

The Argentinian website INFOBAE makes note of the Cuban government’s reaction to the date: “The official press in Cuba will ignore the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. They only recognized and celebrated the 92nd anniversary of the October Lenin revolution…”

Gizem Yarbil notes an interesting story from The Wall Street Journal about a red deer called Ahornia refusing to cross the old Iron Curtain. Ahornia inhabits the area along the border that once separated West Germany from Czechoslovakia. This area is now part of Europe’s biggest nature preserve thriving with a lively combination of wild animals that roam freely across the once fortified border. But according to the article, Ahornia is the only species that stops and turns back once it reaches the barrier zone where once an electrified fence and barbed wire used to stand. It quotes a German producer of nature films who has worked in the area says, “The wall in the head is still there.”

Contributing blogger Vadim Nikitin writes about where nostalgia is the strongest for the former Soviet Union — the Global South. Read the full post here:

According to a BBC poll published on the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, “Opinion about the disintegration of the Soviet Union is sharply divided. Europeans overwhelmingly say it was a good thing: 79% in Germany, 76% in Britain and 74% in France feel that way. But outside the developed West it is a different picture. Almost seven in 10 Egyptians say the end of the Soviet Union was a bad thing and views are sharply divided in India, Kenya and Indonesia”.

This despite the fact that India and Indonesia, as well as Russia, have experienced unprecedented levels of economic growth since 1991.

What could explain such nostalgia? One factor might be a general disenchantment with free-market capitalism:

“More than 29,000 people in 27 countries were questioned. In only two countries, the United States and Pakistan, did more than one in five people feel that capitalism works well as it stands. Almost a quarter - 23% of those who responded - feel it is fatally flawed. That is the view of 43% in France, 38% in Mexico and 35% in Brazil”.

Much of the global dissatisfaction with capitalism, the report suggests, stems from that system’s production and exacerbation of income inequality. While economies based on high growth models may produce more wealth as a whole, its distribution is skewed overwhelmingly in favor of a small minority.

Remains of the Berlin Wall Photo: via flickr by riotcitygirl

SOUTH KOREA: As Germany celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall’s fall, South Koreans reflect on their own version of the wall, which represents the last Cold War frontier - with communist North Korea. Editorials in South Korean newspapers urge the country to contemplate their own division and be seriously prepared for a possible re-unification of the Koreas.

CHINA: China blocked a website that displays twitter messages with thoughts on the fall of the Berlin Wall after nearly 2000 Chinese web users in the country posted their tweets on the site. The Berlin Twitterwall is supported by Reporters without Borders and has displayed more than 6000 messages so far.

JAPAN: President Barack Obama will visit Japan, Singapore, China and South Korea later this month.

SUDAN: Sudanese President Omar al Bashir will not attend the Organization of the Islamic Conference meeting held in Turkey on Monday. Turkey was experiencing pressure from the European Union over its decision to invite Bashir to the conference with an warrant out for his arrest for war crimes in Darfur.

SOMALIA: Two Kenyans working at a printing business in Somalia were kidnapped on Sunday in the capital Mogadishu. The kidnappers are now demanding a ransom.

ZIMBABWE: A top aide to Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai went on trial on Monday on charges of terrorism. Roy Bennett’s case has caused serious friction within Zimbabwe’s unity government with Tsvangirai saying the case is politically motivated.

UK: Britain is taking new steps to create eco-friendly public transportation. An airport bus at East Midlands Airport will be run on fuel produced from decomposing organic waste.

Gordon Brown apologized to the mother of a soldier who was killed in Afghanistan to whom he had sent a handwritten condolence note on which he misspelled both the family name and her son’s first name.

GERMANY: As the world marks the 20th year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, many Berlin residents celebrated the event. Yet others marked the 71st anniversary of Kristallnacht, known as the Night of Broken Glass, during which Jewish business were ransacked in 1938.

EL SALVADOR: Mudslides in El Salvador have left 124 dead and dozens missing.

VENEZUELA: President Hugo Chavez has warned the Venezuelan military to be prepared for a possible war with Colombia.

LEBANON:Lebanon’s opposition has agreed to a proposed national unity government, paving the way for Prime-Minister designate Saad al-Hariri to form a government.

SAUDI ARABIA: Saudi Arabia announced that its forces regained control of territory seized last week by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

SYRIA: During Monday’s meeting in Istanbul of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Syrian President Bashar Assad warned that the failure of the Middle East peace negotiations will lead Arabs to turn to resistance as an “alternative solution.”

IRAN: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is also in Istanbul for a one-day Islamic summit, while international pressure is increasing on Iran to agree to United Nations agreement on its nuclear program.

ISRAEL: US President Barack Obama will meet with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the Israeli leader’s trip to Washington amid growing tension over the stalled peace process and Israeli settlement policy.

PALESTINE: Hundreds of Palestinians took to the streets of Ramallah marching towards the Palestinian presidential compound in an attempt to persuade President Mahmoud Abbas to reconsider running for reelection. Also, Palestinian protesters managed to remove a segment of the Israeli-built wall in the West Bank village of Qalandiya today.

In Ukraine, today’s political realities and yesterday’s revolutionary dreams may not be in line, and progress has come slowly.

In Poland, the anti-Soviet Polish Solidarity movement has reinvented itself in a democratic and economically strong Poland.

In the Czech Republic, the younger generation knows little about the Russian invasion and subsequent demonstrations that took place 40 years ago, and the country has problems discussing its past.

In Hungary, people still commemorate 1956 revolution — when approximately 200,000 Hungarians gathered in front of the country’s Parliament to demand an end to Soviet rule. Even as they move forward, Hungarians never quite leave the past behind.

Correspondent Dave Marash reports in a Worldfocus signature series: After the Fall.

Ukraine achieved independence in 1991 and again in 2004, when pro-Western forces peacefully took control of the country in what was dubbed the Orange Revolution.

Worldfocus special correspondent Dave Marash reports on today’s political realities and yesterday’s revolutionary dreams in Ukraine — where political progress has come slowly.

Correspondent Dave Marash travels to the shipyards of Gdansk, Poland, where the movement was born in 1980.

Worldfocus also explores the post-Soviet Czech Republic and Hungary in our signature series: After the Fall.

Today, the younger generation of Czech citizens know little about the invasion and subsequent demonstrations. It poses a problem for schools and families to talk about their country’s political past.

Worldfocus correspondent Dave Marash reports on the forgotten history of the 1960s in present-day Czech Republic.