McConnell on the fall of the Berlin Wall

The events leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall had a profound event on history--as well as my personal life. Had the Iron Curtain remained in place, I would not have been able to meet the future Mrs. Marathon Pundit--she was born in the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic and emigrated to America in 1991. Nor would have been Little Marathon Pundit.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) made the below comments today on the floor of the Senate about the fall of what Winston Churcill called "the wall of shame."

Today marks a very important day in the cause of freedom. On this day 20 years ago, the Berlin Wall, which for decades had divided the free people of West Berlin from the captive Germans in Soviet-controlled East Berlin, finally came down.

In anticipation of this anniversary we had the rare honor last Tuesday of hearing the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, address a joint session of Congress. She was the first German chancellor to do so in more than 50 years. Chancellor Merkel spoke about the experience of growing up with millions of others behind the Iron Curtain. She spoke of how it was impossible for herself or anyone else she knew to travel to America.

And yet even as a child, she knew that tyranny was wrong — and that the answer to tyranny could be found across the ocean in America.

Now, decades later, Chancellor Merkel's country has gained that freedom, and a little girl who grew up under a repressive regime is the freely elected leader of a united Germany.

Here is what Chancellor Merkel had to say about what made that extraordinary journey possible:

Twenty years have passed since we were given this incredible gift of freedom. But there is still nothing that inspires me more, nothing that spurs me on more, nothing that fills me more with positive feelings than the power of freedom.

Chancellor Merkel also spoke very graciously of her gratitude, of Germany's gratitude, to America. "I know, we Germans know," she said, "how much we owe to you our American friends." She recalled President Kennedy’s trip to Berlin shortly after the construction of the Berlin Wall, when he declared his solidarity with the people of Germany with the famous words "Ich bin ein Berliner." And she recalled President Reagan’s 1987 trip to Berlin, when he made a clear and direct appeal to the Soviet premier for openness, with the equally famous words, "Tear down this wall."\

Freedom has its own imperatives. It demanded that the Berlin Wall come down. And 20 years ago it did. It was a remarkable time. After decades of oppression, which the United States met with a sustained strategy of containment, the world witnessed the relatively peaceful liberation of a continent.

But for most of us the most memorable moment from those days was the moment that we saw one of the most potent symbols of the communist era, the Berlin Wall, come down, piece by piece. We celebrate this great anniversary with all the free peoples of the world, mindful of those who still yearn for the same freedom that Chancellor Merkel dreamed of as a young girl. May they all one day know the freedom that is the birthright of every man and woman.

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