Andrew Vine: Writing’s on wall in the search for road to freedom

The lights will trace the route of the Berlin Wall to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the moment when that most chilling monument of the Cold War began to fall as thousands of people clambered onto it and began hacking away with hammers and pickaxes.

Sunday’s anniversary is a chance to reflect on how rich in symbolism that November night was. As the images flashed around the world of the wall being torn down piece by piece, we were watching the old Communist order that had dominated so much of Europe since the end of the Second World War crumbling as well.

The commemorations also offer an opportunity to reflect on what the lessons of that night have to teach us about the nature of the conflicts in which we find ourselves caught up today.

It is easy now to forget – and perhaps, for those who have grow up since then, difficult to comprehend – how the wall and all it represented was a constant reminder of the dangers that underpinned all our lives in the years after work began to build it in 1961.

The wall – or in the stodgy officialese of Communist East Germany, the “Anti Fascist Protection Rampart” – became emblematic of cruelty. Its “death strip” of sand raked smooth so that the guards in the watchtowers could spot the footprints of any would-be escapers became a killing zone, where those desperate enough to try to cross it were shot. Those not killed outright were left to bleed to death as a warning to others.

Every killing was a reminder of what awaited if the delicate balance of power swung the way of the Soviets and their tanks began to roll westwards. The wall’s very existence was a warning to us all. Less than a decade before it fell, leaflets entitled Protect and Survive were being delivered to every home in Britain, containing advice on what to do in the event of a nuclear attack.

In hindsight, what was advised was so futile that it would have been laughable had the subject matter not been so serious. Families should shelter under the kitchen table, or remove a couple of internal doors and lean them against a wall, then sandbag them, thus creating an alcove in which to take refuge.

Whether the advice was taken seriously or snorted at, the leaflets were studied in every household. That was the reality of how close the threat of a global conflict between east and west felt.

At about the same time, the existence of a series of public information films to be shown if the prospect of war between east and west loomed was revealed. Their existence had been kept quiet, an easier matter for official secrets in that pre-internet age.

The films, in cartoon form, illustrated the Protect and Survive message, and were narrated by actor Patrick Allen, best known to the public for being the face and voice of a long-running series of television advertisements for Barratt Homes.

That surreal touch only added to the nervousness. Put ITV on, and there he was, smilingly selling new houses. Over on BBC News, the same voice warned those who might buy them to stay put once the missiles had hit and await help from the authorities.

We were, thankfully, spared the school lessons common in the United States about what the population should do in the event of nuclear attack. But snatches of the spine-chilling films that the American children were shown occasionally found their way onto television, of the blinding flash of an explosion, then homes – and the people in them – obliterated by the blast a fraction of a second later.

And then the Soviet Bloc started to crumble. The Protect and Survive leaflets were consigned to the bin, but the Berlin Wall still stood until that winter night in 1989 when amid political turmoil the East German government realised its grip on a people yearning to be free had been lost.

It was a moment of joy and optimism to savour. The nightmare of nuclear war that had haunted every generation since 1945 seemed to recede as the oppressed people who had lived under cruel Communist rule for so long rose up in their demand for peace, reconciliation and democracy.

Yet the anniversary reminds us that our world is hardly less dangerous for the ending of the Cold War. The threat posed by rival nuclear superpowers with massive armies has been replaced by that of countries falling prey to nihilistic terrorist fanatics.

The focus of conflict has shifted from Europe to the Middle East, and the fall of the Berlin Wall offers twin lessons, one hopeful, the other sobering.

The first is that the desire for freedom amongst oppressed people is the most powerful weapon we have against tyranny. The second is that throwing off the shackles of totalitarianism, whether militaristic or quasi-religious, can take generations.