GWU Prof on German views of Reagan vis-a-vis the fall of the wall: They think he had no role

[BurtWorm]

The host of Washington Journal, introducing a segment with Hope Harrison, who's in Berlin to write a book on post-wall German history, showed a photo of Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate on the day of his "tear down this wall" speech and asked how Germans viewed Reagan's role. The professor said, "They see Reagan having no role. Their hero is Michael Gorbachev. It was his policies that made it all possible."

Of course wingers are now flocking to Washington Journal to protest (tea bag?) that the Germans don't know how they actually feel about Reagan and Gorbachev. :eyes:

[FSogol]

1. No role sound right. n/t

[rurallib]

2. Good story on this on NPR's On The Media this weekend

And their conclusion was exactly the same. Well actually, IIRC many Germans were afraid that Saint Ronnie was going to start WW3.
http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2009/11/06/09
It is @ 9.5 minutes long

[BolivarianHero]

3. 57% of East Germans miss the old days...

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,634122,00.html

[Bitwit1234]

4. The only role Reagan

had at the time was the one in played in Washington DC in the White HOuse as being A President...he could read his lines well. The main one was tear down this wall. Who ever wrote that script for him, should get the credit.

The reason the wall came down was economics, pure and simple. At that time the Russians needed trade etc with the rest of the world. Tearing down the wall helped.

[unblock]

8. yup. someone on his team saw the sun rising in the east and figured reagan should take credit.

it was pretty obvious that the ussr was going through major changes and that the old regime was unsustainable.
the wall coming down was an easy prediction.

reagan's "demand" or "challenge" was posturing designed solely to take credit for when it actually happens.
anyone who thinks that gorbachev did it in response to reagan's speech is a complete idiot.

[eShirl]

5. a German exchange student I knew in 87-88 told me Reagan was viewed as

stupid and nutty, and that we (the people of the United States) were the same for putting the world in danger by electing and reelecting him our president.

[BolivarianHero]

6. We're better off that he's gone...

Good riddance...He's rotting away with Strom thurmond somewhere.

[rurallib]

7. And to prove we were right, we did the same to George W.

[KharmaTrain]

9. He's Spot On...

Not long after the fall of the Berlin Wall, I met a fascinating man...a journalist who spent much of the 80s traveling throughout Eastern Europe and had contacts with many of the internal human rights groups like Charter 77 and Solidarity. I interviewed him about what he thought cause the collapse of the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe and the ultimate fall of the Soviet Union. He had a far different take than most "historians".

The first person he credits is Pope John Paul...who emboldened many opposition groups and provided an underground network to fund and communicate between groups. He also gave credit to Gorbachev but as a matter of political reality...the Soviet system had gone morally and politically bankrupt...Gorbachev tried to keep a crumbling deck of cards together and was forced to allow reforms and only embraced them when he saw his own power diminishing. Many Russians still have very negative opinions of him.

What also had a key role was technology. Just as casstte tapes of Ayatollah Khomeni that were snuck into Iran helped fuel that revolution, the influx of new technology in the 80s destroyed the system's total control on information. Fax Machines, Satellite TV and cellphones made it easier for groups to coordinate and pass along information that discredited many of the regimes.

As you notice, no mention of Raygun. The soviet system would have collapsed with or without him...and the revolutions were done internally without any assistance of the "great expectorator".

[brendan120678]

13. I'd absolutely agree that the Pope had a bigger role...

than Raygun did in the collapse of the Soviet system.

[Brickbat]

10. The latest Economist has a bunch of articles about E/W Germany in 1989, and Reagan is mentioned in

them not at all.

[UTUSN]

11. K&R #10!1 n/t

[eppur_se_muova]

12. Reagan was a figurehead ...

carved of wood and riddled with shipworms, but he made the creaky old scow of conservatism seem photogenic.

[Vidar]

14. Reagan gets the credit for what Gorbachev & John Paul II did.