Thread: US senate candidate lauds Eastern Germanys Berlin wall

Originally Posted by Fidei Defensor

True.



To the bigoted, yes.



There's no reason for the article otherwise. Indeed, the fact that he is a candidate of a major political party sure to gain plenty of support (even if not a majority) will ultimately impugn a large number of people who support such draconian measures. Recall the idiotic headlines widely impugning Americans when President Bush won re-election:



Sadly, I've found Germans to be no more open-minded and tolerant than our British friends.

It is rather absurd to turn this into an issue of tolerance, open-mindedness or anti-americanism. And it is equally absurd to tell the Germans to just shut up since it would not concern them.
My german granddad has fled from the GDR as a young guy after the anti-communist uprising in 1953 that was brutally crushed by soviet tanks. He did not take the route via Berlin ( the wall was built only eight years later), he took the route via the border between Thuringia and Bavaria. My granddad had taken part in the unrest and when he was informed that the communist secret police was looking for him he decided to flee with two friends. They hid for two days in the forests along the inner- german border and made an effort to cross over the fence on the third. They were discovered though and eastern german border guards with dogs were approaching and shot at them. But their good fortune was that on the western german side bavarian border police had been observing the incident, interpreted the situation correctly and took their eastern colleagues under fire, forcing them to retreat and thereby gave my granddad and his friends the cover that they needed to climb over the fence. They were also lucky that the death strip was only established a couple of years later. My granddad built a new in Western Germany and raised a family but he was never allowed to see his parents or his brother again in his life, since all of them died before the wall came down.
There are millions of families with similar or worse stories, mine is not extraordinary.
THAT was the effectiveness of the GDR system. And it is a fact, pure and simply that the system would not have had its lauded "effectiveness" without trigger-happy borderguards and many installations in place supposed to kill those who illegally crossed the border (to flee oppression in the GDR), like minefields, automatic weapons etc..
That Mr. Miller did not explicitly mention that does not matter here.
To insist on historical accurracy out of respect for the victims certainly isn´t bigotry. To spice simple campaign rethoric up with a misleading representation of these events for cheap political gains comes closer to the definition of the word.

I think Mexico should build the wall, to keep us out. I think it would work but darn it would keep all those drugs from coming north them Mexico wouldn't have any industry.

It's always enlightening to hear from a Luxembourgian about strategies to secure borders and deter illegal immigration.

Originally Posted by CharlesDavenport

It's always enlightening to hear from a Luxembourgian about strategies to secure borders and deter illegal immigration.

It is always enlightening to actually read a thread ( which I recommend hereby).

Originally Posted by Voland

It is always enlightening to actually read a thread ( which I recommend hereby).

I gonna go ahead and disagree with you there.

Originally Posted by Voland

The US could learn from communist eastern Germanys effectiveness in sealing its western border with deadly force and the Berlin wall to halt illegal migration, according to a candidate for the US senate from Alaska, associated with the "Tea party" movement

US Senate candidate lauds deadly East German border control - The Local

That sounds rather Communist to me....

Originally Posted by Forplay

Great idea, I've said that a long time ago. Hell some countries lock you up and throw the key away.

I am from Berlin. Former West Berlin. My family is partly from the east. If anybody did understand the tragic of such border among foreign nations, it was the americans.

The russians did back East Germany to build that wall, the british wanted that wall and the french have not been so very much against.

(Magret Thatcher did ask Bush Senior to stop reunification in 1989 after Gorbatchov did refuse her...just as an information. Bush was pretty much irritated about that idea...fortunately he was!)


The USA, did not want it. They did support freedom. Of corse they did! Well done!

But now?

To read such opinion coming out from an american is confusing, to say it in a mild way.

Walls and borders do show nothing than those who construct them are helpless, limited and self isolating.

Do such americans who ask for such borders do function that way?


Walls and borders with killing machines? ....how unamerican!

Do such unamericans know what they talk about? I tell you one story, just one what shows the evil spirit of such thinking:

In the 60ties, a 6 years old child of did fall into the Spree River at the Berlin-Berlin Wall Zone. A firemen from West Berlin did refuse all warnings from east german policemen, jumped behind the child and tried to save its life.

To complicate, the child died.

Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer | Die Berliner Mauer | Todesopfer | 1966

Such accidents did happen often.

Accidends? Just accidents? No! Communist border regime.

Is the US going to become such communist border regime?

I cannot believe that.

I am an anti-communist from top to bottom. Very easy to explain why it is that way: I always disliked the need of communism to fight freedom. In my city, freedom was strangulated by that border.

That american politician to me has communist ideas. You should be careful with him.

Originally Posted by Voland

Firstly, the GDR built the Berlin wall and the death strip along its border with western Germany to keep people IN and not OUT. In the decade before 1961 2,7 million people had fled westwards to escape communist oppression. Secondly the GDR border troops were using deadly force not only in theory but also in reality. The precise number of people killed while trying to flee is not completely clear, but it is high enough to constitute a "crime against humanity". In the city of Berlin alone over 136 victims are confirmed, but the total number is considered to be well over one thousand. To laud the eastern german border regime and to recommend it as something for the US to be taken over is either pretty ignorant or pretty outrageous.

the point was effectiveness... not purpose