Archive for the ‘This Day in History’ Category

Fake friends act like shadows

Thursday, June 7th, 2018

Fake friends behave like shadows. They stick around during your brightest moments and disappear during your darkest hours. True friends are like stars. You don’t always see them, but they are always there.

— Habeeb Akande

Fake friends behave like shadows. Photo © J. Elke Ertle, 2018. www.walled-in-berlin.com

Fake friends behave like shadows. Photo © J. Elke Ertle, 2018. www.walled-in-berlin.com

 

For a sneak peek at the first 20+ pages of my memoir, Walled-In: A West Berlin Girl’s Journey to Freedom, click “Download a free excerpt” on my home page and feel free to follow my blog about anything German: historic and current events, people, places and food.

Walled-In is my story of growing up in Berlin during the Cold War. Juxtaposing the events that engulfed Berlin during the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Airlift, the Berlin Wall and Kennedy’s Berlin visit with the struggle against my equally insurmountable parental walls, Walled-In is about freedom vs. conformity, conflict vs. harmony, domination vs. submission, loyalty vs. betrayal.

 

The Earth has Music

Thursday, May 17th, 2018

The earth has music for those who listen.

— George Santayana

The earth has music for those who listen. Photo © J. Elke Ertle, 2018. www.walled-in-berlin.com

The earth has music for those who listen. Photo © J. Elke Ertle, 2018. www.walled-in-berlin.com

 

For a sneak peek at the first 20+ pages of my memoir, Walled-In: A West Berlin Girl’s Journey to Freedom, click “Download a free excerpt” on my home page.

Walled-In is my story of growing up in Berlin during the Cold War. Juxtaposing the events that engulfed Berlin during the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Airlift, the Berlin Wall and Kennedy’s Berlin visit with the struggle against my equally insurmountable parental walls, Walled-In is about freedom vs. conformity, conflict vs. harmony, domination vs. submission, loyalty vs. betrayal.

 

A Very Small Man Can Cast a Very Large Shadow

Thursday, December 14th, 2017

 

A very small man can cast a very large shadow.

— Lord Varys

A very small man can cast a very large shadow. Photo © J. Elke Ertle, 2017. www.walled-in-berlin.com

A very small man can cast a very large shadow. Photo © J. Elke Ertle, 2017. www.walled-in-berlin.com

 

For a sneak peek at the first 20+ pages of my memoir, Walled-In: A West Berlin Girl’s Journey to Freedom, click “Download a free excerpt” on my home page and feel free to follow my blog about anything German: historic and current events, people, places and food.

Walled-In is my story of growing up in Berlin during the Cold War. Juxtaposing the events that engulfed Berlin during the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Airlift, the Berlin Wall and Kennedy’s Berlin visit with the struggle against my equally insurmountable parental walls, Walled-In is about freedom vs. conformity, conflict vs. harmony, domination vs. submission, loyalty vs. betrayal.

 

On Setting Work Objectives

Thursday, September 28th, 2017

Work for a cause not for applause. Live life to express not to impress. Don’t strive to make your presence noticed. Just make your absence felt.

–Anonymous

Work for a cause not for applause. www.walled-in-berlin.com

Work for a cause not for applause. www.walled-in-berlin.com

 

For a sneak peek at the first 20+ pages of my memoir, Walled-In: A West Berlin Girl’s Journey to Freedom, click “Download a free excerpt” on the home page of http://www.walled-in-berlin.com Walled-In is my story of growing up in Berlin during the Cold War.

 

mow-and-blow gardeners

Thursday, May 11th, 2017

Mow-and-blow gardeners must be the Marxists of the gardening world because they tend to put all their efforts into curb appeal and none into weeding.

— J. Elke Ertle

 

Weeds and the personal touch. www.walled-in-berlin.com

Weeds and the personal touch. www.walled-in-berlin.com

 

For a sneak peek at the first 20+ pages of my memoir, “Walled-In: A West Berlin Girl’s Journey to Freedom,” click “Download a free excerpt” on the home page of http://www.walled-in-berlin.com

Your dog – your biggest admirer

Thursday, May 4th, 2017

Don’t accept your dog’s admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.

— Ann Landers

Complete devotion - Photo © Sonja Brzostowicz, www.walled-in-berlin.com

Complete devotion – Photo © Sonja Brzostowicz, www.walled-in-berlin.com

 

For a sneak peek at the first 20+ pages of my memoir, Walled-In: A West Berlin Girl’s Journey to Freedom, click “Download a free excerpt” on my home page and feel free to follow my blog about anything German: historic or current events, people, places or food.

Walled-In is my story of growing up in Berlin during the Cold War. Juxtaposing the events that engulfed Berlin during the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Airlift, the Berlin Wall and Kennedy’s Berlin visit with the struggle against my equally insurmountable parental walls, Walled-In is about freedom vs. conformity, conflict vs. harmony, domination vs. submission, loyalty vs. betrayal.

  

Unlocking our Potential

Thursday, April 6th, 2017

Continuous effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to unlocking our potential.

— Sir Winston Churchill

 

Stalin Note

Thursday, March 20th, 2014

The Stalin note was a diplomatic paper. On March 10, 1952, Joseph Stalin’s deputy foreign minister, Andrei Gromyko, delivered three identical documents to his postwar Allies–the United States, France and Great Britain. The Stalin note was the first of four pieces of correspondence on the same subject, all initiated by Marshal Stalin. The paper proposed a peace treaty between the four Allies and the East- and West-occupied Germanys to end the country’s artificial division.

Content of the Stalin Note

In this diplomatic note, Stalin proposed German reunification but attached several stipulations. Aside from other requirements, he proposed reunification of East and West Germany, providing that the occupying powers withdraw their armed forces and liquidate all of their bases in Germany. He further demanded that once reunited, Germany would be required to forfeit her right to enter into a military alliance with any power, that had taken part in WWII. Stalin suggested a four-power conference to act on his proposal by signing a peace treaty with Germany.

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_cold_war_studies/summary/v013/13.4.ruggenthaler.html

Four-power conference

The conference never took place. Germany and the three Western Allies feared that a peace treaty of this nature could result in the reunited Germany’s inability to protect her borders. They also recognized that signing this peace treaty would mean that the reunited Germany would be barred from aligning herself with the Western powers. As history shows those interpretations prevailed. The Cold War continued to heat up over the next three decades, and East and West became more firmly entrenched in their respective blocs. Germany remained divided until the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) collapsed in 1990.

The question remains

Historians have been divided ever since on the intent of the Stalin note. The questions remain (1) Did the West German, Western European, and American leaders miss a much earlier opportunity for German reunification? (2) Were the Soviets offering a sincere path toward German reunification in 1952 or was the Stalin Note a ploy to facilitate the incorporation of Germany into the Eastern bloc? Opinions differ to this day.

 

For a sneak peek at the first 20+ pages of my memoir, Walled-In: A West Berlin Girl’s Journey to Freedom, click “Download a free excerpt” on my home page and feel free to follow my blog about anything German: historic and current events, people, places and food.

Walled-In is my story of growing up in Berlin during the Cold War. Juxtaposing the events that engulfed Berlin during the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Airlift, the Berlin Wall and Kennedy’s Berlin visit with the struggle against my equally insurmountable parental walls, Walled-In is about freedom vs. conformity, conflict vs. harmony, domination vs. submission, loyalty vs. betrayal.

 

Did Churchill coin “Iron Curtain”?

Thursday, March 6th, 2014

In the United States it is often erroneously believed that Sir Winston Churchill coined the phrase “iron curtain,” when he travelled to Fulton, Missouri, on 5 March 1946. It had been a mere ten months since World War II had ended in Europe. Only one of the three signatories of the Potsdam Agreement was still in power: Soviet Union’s Marshal Joseph Stalin. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had passed away and been replaced by Harry. S. Truman. Sir Winston Churchill had lost the British election to Clement Atlee. At this point in time, the U.S. and Great Britain were mainly concerned with the state of their own post-war economies and remained grateful to Russia that she had taken a prominent role in ending the war.

“The Sinews of Peace” Speech by Churchill

On this day in early March 5, Churchill gave an address at Westminster College in Fulton. His speech was entitled, “The Sinews of Peace.” He began by speaking of his admiration for the Soviet Union and by welcoming her into the circle of leading nations. He expressed understanding for Russia’s need for security on her western frontiers. But then he cautioned, “A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory. Nobody knows what Soviet Russia and its Communist international organization intends to do in the immediate future, or what are the limits, if any, to their expansive and proselytizing tendencies.” He went on to say, “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow.”

Following the speech, the phrase “iron curtain” became widely known. To hear Churchill’s speech in its entirety, visit https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/speeches/1946-1963-elder-statesman/the-sinews-of-peace/

 

“Iron Curtain” became a household word. Although it is still widely held that Churchill coined the term “iron curtain” during his 1946 The Sinews of Peace speech, that belief is inaccurate. He had used the term for decades already. The phrase was first used in 1920 by British author and suffragette Ethel Snowden in her book Through Bolshevik Russia. In 1945, Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels used the term in his 25 February 1945 speech entitled The Year 2000. http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/goeb49.htm But after Churchill’s post-war speech in Fulton, the phrase became synonymous with the way the West viewed the East. The phrase became so popular that I, a post-war child growing up in Berlin, Germany, remember it as one of the givens in my vocabulary. To me at that young age, “iron curtain” meant Cold War, and I was convinced that Sir Winston Churchill had coined it.

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Sir Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Churchill

Churchill’s view on the Berlin situation

Sir Winston Churchill also foreshadowed what, indeed, ended up happening in Berlin a couple of years later when the Russians blockaded all ground access routes to West Berlin. In his speech, Churchill said, “An attempt is being made by the Russians in Berlin to build up a quasi-Communist party in their zone of Occupied Germany by showing special favors to groups of left-wing German leaders. At the end of the fighting last June, the American and British Armies withdrew westwards, in accordance with an earlier agreement, to a depth at some points of 150 miles upon a front of nearly four hundred miles, in order to allow our Russian allies to occupy this vast expanse of territory, which the Western Democracies had conquered. If now the Soviet Government tries, by separate action, to build up a pro-Communist Germany in their areas, this will cause new serious difficulties in the British and American zones.”

 

 

For a sneak peek at the first 20+ pages of my memoir, Walled-In: A West Berlin Girl’s Journey to Freedom, click “Download a free excerpt” on my home page and feel free to follow my blog about anything German: historic and current events, people, places and food.

Walled-In is my story of growing up in Berlin during the Cold War. Juxtaposing the events that engulfed Berlin during the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Airlift, the Berlin Wall and Kennedy’s Berlin visit with the struggle against my equally insurmountable parental walls, Walled-In is about freedom vs. conformity, conflict vs. harmony, domination vs. submission, loyalty vs. betrayal.

 

Destruction of Dresden

Thursday, February 13th, 2014

The destruction of Dresden occurred toward the end of WWII. The city, with a population of 350,000, was a cultural landmark in Northern Germany with many world famous museums and historic buildings. Its town center was of little to no military significance. Sixty-nine years ago today, most of the people living in the city center perished.

What happened

During the night of February 13 to February 14,1945, British Lancaster bombers dropped a barrage of high explosive and incendiary bombs on the city center. They did so in two waves. The attacks occurred three hours apart. Then, during the middle of the second day, American B-17 Flying Fortresses bombed Dresden again. Together, the Allies dropped 3,300 tons of bombs on the city within a 24-hr period. The resulting firestorm reached temperatures of 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit. The incendiary bombs burned for two days. The heat caused the surface of the roads to melt, and peoples’ feet burned as they tried to run away.

The death toll is difficult to estimate. It ranges between 25,000 and 135,000. The reason for the variation is that 25,000 bodies were located. But Dresden also served as a temporary refuge for the people running from the advancing Russian Army, making it impossible to accurately estimate the number of people who perished. In addition, many could not be buried that quickly and were burned instead. Those numbers are also difficult to assess. http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/world-war-two/the-bombing-campaign-of-world-war-two/the-bombing-of-dresden/

Why it happened

Opinions differ sharply on the reason for the destruction of Dresden. Although the city center was of little to no military significance, some scholars maintain that Dresden was located in Nazi Germany. The Allies were at war with Nazi Germany. That alone represents sufficient justification.

Others believe that Britain and the United States feared Russia might wish to turn its back on Allied postwar agreements regarding Germany. They believe that the western Allies hoped that a demonstration of power would act as a deterrent.

Still others maintain that Dresden was a legitimate target because of its rail base which could be used to transport troops to the front lines and fight against Russia.

Dresden post-WWII

When Germany was divided following WWII, Dresden ended up in the Russian sector. Their Communist occupiers rebuilt the city in the 1950s and spared no effort in restoring the cultural landmark to its pre-WWII charm. You may also wish to read about Dresden’s Zwinger Dresden’s Frauenkirche , Dresden’s Semper Opera House , and Green Vault .

A commemorative plaque reminds visitors today who it was that destroyed the city and who it was that restored the city to its old splendor.

A Commemorative plaque, installed during the Communist era, reminds the visitor that Anglo-American bombers destroyed Dresden in 1945

A Commemorative plaque, installed during the Communist era, reminds visitors that Anglo-American bombers destroyed Dresden in 1945

 

For a sneak peek at the first 20+ pages of my memoir, Walled-In: A West Berlin Girl’s Journey to Freedom, click “Download a free excerpt” on my home page and feel free to follow my blog about anything German: historic and current events, people, places and food.

Walled-In is my story of growing up in Berlin during the Cold War. Juxtaposing the events that engulfed Berlin during the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Airlift, the Berlin Wall and Kennedy’s Berlin visit with the struggle against my equally insurmountable parental walls, Walled-In is about freedom vs. conformity, conflict vs. harmony, domination vs. submission, loyalty vs. betrayal.