Time Travels with Truffle: Dateline November 9th, 1989 – Berlin, Germany

 

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Time Travels with Truffle: Dateline November 9^th, 1989 – Berlin, Germany

 

The night air over Berlin was cold on November 9, 1989, but nobody seemed to notice.

People were pouring into the streets. Cars sounded their horns. Strangers called to one another from sidewalks and apartment windows. All across the divided city, rumors were spreading that something impossible was happening.

And racing along between hundreds of pairs of shoes was a very small reddish-orange Pomeranian named Truffle.

Truffle had no passport. Truffle had no exit visa. And Truffle certainly had waited for this day for a long time.  She was a long foe of Communism, but it’s collapse caught her, like everyone else, by surprise. 

But Truffle knew one thing very well,  She knew excitement when she saw it.

And tonight, Berlin was electric.

For twenty-eight years, the Berlin Wall had divided the city. Families and friends had been separated by concrete barriers, guarded crossings, and a political frontier that had become one of the most recognizable symbols of the Cold War.

But throughout 1989, the communist government of East Germany had been losing its grip. A peaceful revolution was underway, and political change was sweeping across Eastern Europe.

Then, on the evening of November 9, came the mistake that helped change history.

East German official Günter Schabowski appeared at a televised press conference and announced new travel regulations. When asked when the regulations would take effect, Günter Schabowski gave an answer that created the impression that the new policy was effective immediately.

The news spread rapidly.

East Berliners began heading toward the border.

That was when Truffle noticed everyone going in the same direction.

Naturally, Truffle followed.

The crowd grew larger with every street. People arrived at the checkpoints expecting to be allowed through. The border guards had received no clear instructions for handling the enormous numbers gathering before them.

At Bornholmer Straße, the pressure became overwhelming.

The barriers were finally raised at about 10:30 that night, making Bornholmer Straße the first of Berlin's border crossings to open.

Suddenly, the human tide surged forward.

Truffle disappeared into a forest of legs.

"Watch the dog!" someone called.

A pair of hands reached down and lifted the little Pomeranian above the crowd.

Truffle could suddenly see everything.

Thousands of people were moving across a border that, hours earlier, had appeared immovable. The Berlin Wall Foundation records that approximately 20,000 people crossed over the Bösebrücke bridge without checks during the following hour.

Truffle's ears stood straight up.

Whatever was happening, this was clearly bigger than an ordinary evening walk.

As the night continued, Berlin became a gigantic celebration.

People embraced strangers. Cars jammed the streets. Bottles were opened and passed around. Crowds gathered along the Wall.

Eventually, Truffle arrived near the great concrete barrier itself.

Someone had brought a hammer.

WHACK!

The hammer struck the concrete.

Dust flew.

Truffle jumped backward.

Another person began hammering farther down.

WHACK! WHACK!

Small fragments of concrete broke loose.

For nearly three decades, this structure had divided a city.

Tonight people were climbing onto it.

Someone scrambled to the top and reached downward.

"Give me the dog!"

Truffle was lifted from one pair of hands to another.

Up Truffle went.

And suddenly, four tiny paws landed upon one of the most infamous structures of the twentieth century.

Truffle stood on top of the Berlin Wall.

Behind the little reddish-orange Pomeranian rose the illuminated Brandenburg Gate. Below, people stretched their hands upward. Hammers struck concrete on either side. Flags appeared among the crowd.

Someone shouted something from below.

Truffle barked.

The crowd responded.

Truffle barked again.

Another cheer went up.

Within moments, it appeared that Truffle had assumed command of the revolution.

A person beside Truffle swung a hammer against the Wall.

Concrete crumbled away.

For decades, the message of the Wall had been brutally simple: You cannot cross.

Yet now people from both sides were standing together upon the very structure designed to keep them apart.

The Wall was still physically there.

But its power was disappearing before Truffle's eyes.

That was what made the night extraordinary.

Nobody had planned the scene unfolding across Berlin. There had been no military assault on the Wall. No tanks had smashed through it. Ordinary people had simply arrived at the border in such numbers that the system could no longer contain them.

And once the gates opened, there was no putting the night back together.

Somewhere in the crowd below, someone produced perhaps the only thing capable of distracting Truffle from the collapse of European communism.

Sausage.

Truffle immediately began looking for a way down.

Before descending, however, Truffle paused.

The little Pomeranian looked across the crowd, across the Wall and toward the Brandenburg Gate.

The political story was not finished. Germany itself would not reunify until the following year. And communism certainly did not disappear from the entire world that night.

But the opening of the Berlin Wall became one of the defining moments in the collapse of communist rule across Eastern Europe. The Berlin Wall Foundation describes November 9 as the night when the peaceful revolution in East Germany and political changes across Eastern Europe succeeded in opening the Wall.

A barrier that had seemed permanent suddenly wasn't.

A symbol of fear became a platform for celebration.

And right in the middle of it all stood a tiny reddish-orange Pomeranian.

Someone finally lifted Truffle down from the Wall.

The little dog vanished into the celebrating crowd, tail held high, while the sound of hammers continued through the Berlin night.

WHACK.

Another piece of concrete fell.

WHACK.

Another disappeared into somebody's pocket as a souvenir.

The Wall had taken years to build, decades to defend and only one extraordinary night to lose its power.

History would remember the politicians, the crowds, the border guards, and the people who had spent years demanding freedom.

But Truffle would remember something else.

Thousands of people had arrived divided by a wall.

By morning, they were celebrating together.

And somewhere among them wandered a dusty little reddish-orange Pomeranian, looking for another piece of sausage and wondering what all the fuss had been about.

 

And once again, History is gently guided by a tiny paw.