World Freedom Day

I lived in Dusseldorf Germany from 1989-1995. It was a fantastic 6 years with many milestones – I learned German, made many many longstanding and deep friends. Relationships I cherish today. I arrived in Germany in January 1989 and was fortunate in February that year to visit what was at the time a divided Berlin. I was at a party in Steglitz in West Berlin and asked my German hosts if they would be interested to go to East Berlin with me the next day. It was a resounding NO by all. Boring, nothing to do, must go through separate check points hard to find you later, takes hours at customs, must change money, food etc. So I went alone and was astounded by the differences. I’m glad I pursued as I was able to observe first hand a very short one day view of life in East Berlin under communism.

I came back in November 1989 a few days after the wall came down and celebrated the fall of the Berlin wall. I also picked up a copy of Neues Deutschland – a publication that has since ceased to exist. I’m putting the scanned in pages in copy if you speak German it’s a very interesting read.

Fast forward to 2001 – November 9th is also something called World Freedom Day and is apparently an annual observance in the United States, first declared in 2001 by then President George W. Bush. It is celebrated on November 9, which marks the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall which was erected in Berlin in 1961 during the Cold War dividing the city into two parts until 1989

It’s a bittersweet day because It’s also the remembrance day of the Reichskristallnacht which occurred The November pogroms of 1938 - based on the night of November 9th to 10th, 1938 also known as the Reichskristallnacht or Kristallnacht , decades later called the Reichspogromnacht - were violent measures against Jews in Germany and Austria organized and directed by the National Socialist regime, the Nazi’s.

So here we are in 2020 – lots to reflect on, freedom does not come for free- we must concentrate on the structures we want and how we want them to serve us and how we need to serve them because if we ignore them, they might not be here tomorrow.

Share your thoughts and memories of your trips to berlin and how you celebrate world freedom day. Be leaderlike, successful by design not by chance . Through conscious responses and not unconscious reactions.

Happy World Freedom day.

Be leaderlike, appreciate your freedom!

Robert