English Section

UPDATE: Polish president marks three decades since fall of Berlin Wall

09.11.2019 12:25
Polish President Andrzej Duda on Saturday took part in ceremonies in Germany commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall 30 years ago, a moment that symbolised the crumbling of communism in Europe.
Andrzej Duda in Berlin
Andrzej Duda in Berlin Photo: PAP/Leszek Szymański

Duda said the Berlin Wall would not have collapsed if not for historic changes that had started earlier in Poland, putting the country on the road to freedom from totalitarian rule.

Alongside Duda, the presidents of Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia attended the commemorations in Berlin. All four countries languished for decades behind the Iron Curtain.

Duda placed a wreath in front of a monument in the German capital commemorating the role of the four nations in overcoming communism.

The Berlin Wall was a physical marker of the ideological divide between the repressive communist regimes in the East and the democratic capitalist West.


Czech President Miloš Zeman, Slovak President Zuzana Čaputová, Polish President Andrzej Duda, Hungarian President János Áder and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall Czech President Miloš Zeman, Slovak President Zuzana Čaputová, Polish President Andrzej Duda, Hungarian President János Áder and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Photo: EPA/CLEMENS BILAN

It was built in 1961 to stop East Germans fleeing to the West. It fell on November 9, 1989.

Domino effect 

Five months before the wall collapsed, Poland had already held its first partially-free elections after World War II.

The Solidarity pro-democracy movement scored a resounding victory in the June 4, 1989 ballot, winning all the seats available to it in the lower house of Poland’s parliament and all but one seat in the freely contested Senate, the upper chamber.

The vote precipitated a domino effect across the region, culminating in the fall of the Berlin Wall in November that year.

While in Germany on Saturday, President Duda also visited the Sachsenhausen Memorial and Museum near Berlin.

Sachsenhausen was the site of one of Nazi Germany’s first concentration camps. More than 200,000 people were interned there, including political prisoners.

Duda paid tribute to university professors from the southern Polish city of Kraków who were taken to the Sachsenhausen camp after being arrested in November 1939.

Nazi Germany attacked Poland on 1 September 1939, leading to the outbreak of World War II.

(pk)