My family had planned a trip to Europe in 1989 for Christmas—something we had never done before. The itinerary did not originally include Germany, but at the last minute we decided that a trip to Berlin was necessary in light of the historic developments occurring there.

We arrived in the early evening on Dec. 22, 1989. It was cold and wet, with a consistent drizzle. In other words, not a very good night to be outside. But to our surprise, when we arrived at our hotel near the Kurfurstendamm, the main thoroughfare in Berlin, thousands of people were on the streets. When we went inside to check in, the beaming concierge asked us if we were “going to the ceremony.”

We quickly learned that we had gotten very lucky with our timing, and that a ceremony was occurring about a mile away, at the Brandenburg Gate, where the wall was being opened there for the first time. West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl was walking through the gate to be greeted by East German Prime Minister Hans Modrow.
Tens of thousands of people were on hand to celebrate the historic moment and that historic handshake.
We immediately headed over to the gate, and shortly arrived to a scene not to be forgotten. Thousands and thousands of wet, cold, but very happy people were everywhere. Remarkably, they were largely silent, presumably in awe at the historic developments taking place before them.

We worked our way through the crowd to the wall, doing our best to stay close together. For a while we simply watched in awe as Germans of all ages hacked away at the top of the wall with sledgehammers. There were East German soldiers and West Berlin police officers everywhere, but none of them intervened—they simply watched, some with barely hidden smiles, as the sledgehammers smashed against the wall.

A couple of young Germans then heard us speaking English and asked if we were Americans. On hearing that we were, they insisted on hoisting us up to the top of the wall. We climbed up over some bedsprings that had been laid against the side of the wall. I remember being stunned by how high, hard, cold and slippery it was—it was an adventure in and of itself getting on top of it.

Once on top of the wall, I paused for a moment to take in the scene and reflect. I had been to the wall once before, back in 1982, during the Cold War. My family had hosted a West German exchange student during high school, and after graduation his family said thank you by sending the two of us on a trip to Berlin. We had traveled to East Berlin and taken pictures on both sides of the wall, lamenting the fact that only the citizens of West Germany were free to travel back and forth. I remembered vividly the glares of the East German soldiers at Checkpoint Charlie and the other border crossing points. Now, seven years later, I was standing on top of the wall with a large piece of metal, getting ready to take a whack at it under the eyes of, perhaps, some of those same soldiers.

We all then took our turns hacking at the wall. The surface was incredibly tough and hard, but we broke off some tiny pieces that we collected and later had framed. Appropriately, a man who had brought a trumpet to the scene played a beautiful rendition of “Amazing Grace.”

When we were finished attacking the wall, a young East German soldier in civilian clothes approached us. Speaking excellent English, he told us that he had never before been on the Western side of the Wall—he described the day as his “first day in freedom”—and had never before met Americans. My parents, to their everlasting credit, decided to make this a memorable occasion for him on both counts. They invited him to join us for a late dinner at a fine steak house in West Berlin. Soaking wet, but deliriously happy, we then ate and drank and shared stories with him until the early hours of the morning. I remember him being awed by the night lights of West Berlin—very different from what he was used to in East Berlin, and also by the steak. I think he also developed a quick crush on my younger sister, who was roughly his age, but that's another story. We never saw him again, but we have always hoped that his first taste of freedom was a success.

It was an incredible evening and an amazing experience. As a fan of Winston Churchill, it was marvelous to have played a role, even as a bit player, in helping to take down the Iron Curtain and in bridging new relationships with some of the people who had been trapped behind it for so long.

Doug Chalmers practices at FSB Legal in the area of federal and state political law. He joined FSB from McKenna Long & Aldridge, where he was a partner in the political law and litigation practice groups and a member of the Public-Private Partnership (P3) team. He received his undergraduate and law degrees from Duke University. He clerked for Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals

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