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30th Anniversary of Berlin Wall's Tumble Prompts Democracy Debate

Jamie Dettmer

   Thirty years ago, the Iron Curtain dividing Europe lifted.

   Next week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel travels to Hungary to
   commemorate the anniversary of a peace protest on the border with
   Austria that helped pave the way for the mass flight of East German
   citizens to the West. The Berlin Wall was torn down three months later,
   and 1989 went down as an era-changing year that ended the
   three-decade-long Soviet occupation of the countries of Central Europe.

   The commemoration on Aug. 19 will include an ecumenical service in the
   Lutheran church of Sopron, and is to be held near where 600 East
   Germans plowed through the border gates to enter the West. Hungarian
   authorities had announced the border would be opened symbolically later
   for three hours, but the crowd was too impatient to wait for freedom --
   and in no mood to receive it as a gift from increasingly superannuated
   Communist bosses.

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