![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Presence of the Past
09/11/2017 11:30 pmBeen so many anniversaries the last few weeks that it is almost impossible to keep up with them all.
It has been one never ending party
The 500th anniversary of the Reformation, The 100th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution - that ended up a bit of a damp squib.
Then of course there was the first anniversary of a certain election from last year.
Forgotten in all this drama because there are no big fat 0s on the end is the fall of the Berlin Wall.
But 28 years is a very big deal indeed. Well it certainly is to this serpent. The inner calendar Nazi noticed a while ago that the western Gregorian calendar generally operates on cycles of 28 years (except those pesky non leap years in 1900, 2100 etc sort of trash the pattern) so that while it is sometimes 6 years, sometimes 5 and sometimes 11 years between dates and days corresponding, after 28 years they will always match. I am convinced that when they match, it is much easier to remember things that happened.
I was living in Germany back in 1989 and even had holidays at the time. Always had a soft spot for Halloween. Trouble was brewing and strange things were happening and when the first brick of the Wall came down, was sitting watching lots of it on TV but was too broke to be able to go over and join in the giant party. I think there was 6 hour traffic jams at the time because half the country wanted to join in
It was a Thursday, just like this year of course. The following year they had the official party on 3rd October. No idea if it was coincidence or some one in the Stasi with a sick and twisted sense of humour, but the original 911 (9th of November) had been long ago claimed by one Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party. He had some beer brawl putsch in Munich on 9 November 1923 and of course the infamous Kristalnacht on the same day in 1938.
So it was just a bit too sensitive and too tasteless to proclaim the date as a national holiday after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Apparently the Berlin of these days bears no resemblance at all to the Berlin of 1989. The Dead Zone of Potsdamer Platz and the mysterious unmarked Fuhrer bunker in the area have no doubt long ago been turned into high rise towers and office blocks
I last visited the Satanic City in 1992. God knows when I will slink back there again
It has been one never ending party
The 500th anniversary of the Reformation, The 100th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution - that ended up a bit of a damp squib.
Then of course there was the first anniversary of a certain election from last year.
Forgotten in all this drama because there are no big fat 0s on the end is the fall of the Berlin Wall.
But 28 years is a very big deal indeed. Well it certainly is to this serpent. The inner calendar Nazi noticed a while ago that the western Gregorian calendar generally operates on cycles of 28 years (except those pesky non leap years in 1900, 2100 etc sort of trash the pattern) so that while it is sometimes 6 years, sometimes 5 and sometimes 11 years between dates and days corresponding, after 28 years they will always match. I am convinced that when they match, it is much easier to remember things that happened.
I was living in Germany back in 1989 and even had holidays at the time. Always had a soft spot for Halloween. Trouble was brewing and strange things were happening and when the first brick of the Wall came down, was sitting watching lots of it on TV but was too broke to be able to go over and join in the giant party. I think there was 6 hour traffic jams at the time because half the country wanted to join in
It was a Thursday, just like this year of course. The following year they had the official party on 3rd October. No idea if it was coincidence or some one in the Stasi with a sick and twisted sense of humour, but the original 911 (9th of November) had been long ago claimed by one Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party. He had some beer brawl putsch in Munich on 9 November 1923 and of course the infamous Kristalnacht on the same day in 1938.
So it was just a bit too sensitive and too tasteless to proclaim the date as a national holiday after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Apparently the Berlin of these days bears no resemblance at all to the Berlin of 1989. The Dead Zone of Potsdamer Platz and the mysterious unmarked Fuhrer bunker in the area have no doubt long ago been turned into high rise towers and office blocks
I last visited the Satanic City in 1992. God knows when I will slink back there again
