The Soviet Bloc Unwinds: Crash Course European History #46

John, I was 14 when the Berlin Wall went up. I never expected to live to see it come down. On the evening of 9 November 1989, I was at work when my wife called me. She said, 'You'll never believe what's happening!' She held the phone up to the TV so I could hear the audio. Tears came to my eyes. Soon, my desk was surrounded by co-workers as I relayed what I was hearing. It was an amazing night.

Crash Course Punk Rock History when? I'm throwing my vote behind that right now.

“Hey we should cut taxes on the rich so they can innovate more” “Ok so what should we cut” “Oh education. The thing that gets learning people to innovate”

You sounded so sad when you said you needed to leave musical history and get back to European history. Maybe make a Crash Course music history series soon? :)

This is a very VERY dense topic, but I do wish you guys would have mentioned the Baltic Way or Baltic Chain also known as Chain of Freedom.

John, every time you mispronounce something polish you do so in a new and exiting way I never hear anyone done before. I salute you my friend, this is a true talent :D

One interesting detail in the opening of the wall was, that it happened by mistake. The Spoke person for the East German government was giving a press conference, and they handed him a note saying the government is exploring ways to make travel to the west possible. However, it read as if this was a decision, not a discussion so he announced it as if the borders are open. And when asked when he looked at the note didn't find a date and said, "that must be now...." And little did he know how this opened the border.

"Nothing is permanent in history." That's deep!

Thank you for mentioning Polish women. They are often neglected in our own narrative, while the textile worker strike was one of the biggest at the time, and countless women worked for Solidarity.

Punks in the church.😂 This killed me

I so appreciated this little excursion to East German punk rock. 🤘🏼

It's been years since I watched these in high school, but I have to say. The quality has gone up a lot since then!

You forgot to include the greatest West German hero: David Hasselhoff, who played a concert while the Berlin Wall was falling and is still popular in Germany because of it

I didn't realize Gorbachev was still alive.

Some of that Russian music right before the dissolution was a jam. It’s got such a doomer atmosphere to it, I love it

It's hard to overstate how unfathomable the breakup of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall were right up until they both happened. It's not that there were no signs but the signs weren't so different from the Prague Spring and such that had gone before and ultimately were crushed. I guess in some ways the "I can't believe this is really happening" factor wasn't so different from some of the things we're going through now, except the fall of Communism was quite a bit more removed from my day-to-day and seemed to reach a denouement quite a bit more quickly. Though come to think of it, the more removed-ness in those days might be why it seemed to be over more quickly. Perhaps those living under Communist regimes experienced those changes much the same way I'm experiencing our situation now. In any case, the end of the Cold War was really a relief for those of us living with the constant threat of nuclear annihilation and it was in the best sense of the words, interesting times.

If you love music history so much, perhaps do a series about it! There's an idea.

I'm watching this just a few days after Gorbachev's passing. Do svidaniya, Gospodin Gorbachev.

I was born in September 1991, and so it never fails to awe me that something like the dissolution of the USSR happened as I lay in my new nursery. My mom gave birth to me and then held me as history unfolded around her. It always gives me chills

I was a freshman in college when the Berlin Wall fell. I remember my American history professor saying this was a dangerous time because no one knew the rules anymore, and had a general decided to use their military to stop the fall of communism, it could have gone nuclear. The reason the Berlin Wall fell as fast as it did was because of a miscommunication. An East German spokesman went on TV that night to announce new travel regulations that were supposed to be effective the next day, but they never told him the last part. When a reporter asked when the new regulations would be effective, he said immediately. Everyone then rushed the border checkpoints to find the guards, who still had shoot-to-kill orders for anyone trying to cross the border, literally hadn't got the memo. The guards tried to call their bosses to see what to do, but couldn't reach them because they were at a play. The guards decided that the crowd was too massive, so they just opened the gates and let everyone through.