James Shuter - Over The Wall

 

So, I was 23 when I first traveled overseas. My buddy Gavin and I were in Berlin and we were staying with a bunch of German students. This particular night, we were playing cards, and having a few beers and we were listening to the radio. Suddenly, the Germans started yelling at each other and started yelling at the radio and jumping up and down. Gavin and I were looking at each other going, “Is this just like a German thing? What's going on?” They started yelling out, “die Mauer. die Mauer.” And we're going, “die Mauer. What's die Mauer?” And they said, “The wall. Thew wall” I'm looking around, “What's wrong with walls?” I do have to admit that my geopolitical knowledge of the European situation at the time wasn't brilliant. [audience laughter]

 

Anyway, eventually, they managed to explain to the ignorant Australian that the east and West German governments had just come to an agreement to open the border and that the Berlin Wall, which was five minutes away, was open. So, we went downstairs and joined the throngs of people, flooding towards the closest border crossing, which happened to be Checkpoint Charlie. Most of you have probably seen some of the vision from that night. It was just incredible. It was the little Trabant cars coming across from East Germany. They made of plastic, and they were all the same color and they were just jammed with the happiest people that you could ever imagine seeing. 

 

There were people coming across on bicycles, in trams, walking. There were people who had their dressing gowns on. It was the middle of winter. They had just dropped everything and walked out of their houses in East Berlin to come across to West Berlin. It was incredible that night. We stayed up all night. We danced, we drank, we laughed. It was amazing. Woke up, didn't wake up, because we were still awake. [audience laughter] 

 

When the sun came up the next day, we walked along the West German side of the Wall and we came across bunches of people who were just smashing that Wall with anything that they could get. They had hammers, they had picks, they had their hands, whatever they could use, they were trying to destroy this symbol of oppression. The gaps in the wall were getting bigger and bigger as went further along. You could see no man's land through there and you could see the fence on the East German side with the barbed wire on it. We made our way to the center of Berlin to the crossing at the Brandenburg Gate. There were thousands of people up on top of the Wall. This was one of the only places you could actually climb the Wall. 

 

So, we managed to get up on top of the Wall, wiggled our way through the crowd and sat on the edge of the Wall looking over towards East Germany. There was a line of a couple of hundred East German soldiers in front of us. They were all well-armed. There's 100 meters of no man's land, and then there was the other fence. Everyone was chanting and singing on the Wall. It was this amazing feeling of happiness. And then, there was a bit of a commotion as someone from the East German side climbed the fence and started running towards West. The soldiers reacted almost instantly and they ran straight to this guy. 

 

The silence of those thousands of people watching, this was the loudest thing that I've ever heard. He was surrounded by soldiers. And then, an officer came out of the guard tower at the Brandenburg Gate, walked over, spoke briefly to this man, and then took his hand and walked him over to the West German side of the Wall. The officer then put his hands like this and cupped them and helped the man up into the arms of all of the people waiting on the Wall. Again, the eruption of emotion and ecstasy that happened from that crowd is the most amazing thing that I've ever heard. I really don't think that the world needs borders. Thank you.