35th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall: Trump and Putin need to learn from Gorbachev
Click here to watch The Wall Museum Trailer
BERLIN - Germany was divided up between the allies as punishment for World War II, and the Berlin Wall was constructed in 1961 to stop all those fleeing communist oppression - just a few days after East German leader Walter Ulbricht announced “nobody has any intention of building a wall”.
Between 1961 and 1989 at least 140 people died trying to flee across the wall and death zone, all cases are documented in The Wall Museum in Berlin (link). Billions could have died: The world was on the verge of nuclear extinction several times, exemplified by the tank confrontation at Checkpoint Charlie, the Cuban missile crisis, or Stanislav Petrov in 1983 - whom the Cinema for Peace honoured for not starting a nuclear counterattack against the US after a false alarm at our 25th anniversary celebrations of the Fall of the Wall, together with our partner of The First World Forum in 2014, Mikhail Gorbachev. We honoured Gorbachev as “Man of the Century” for ending the Cold War and enabling the biggest peaceful revolution in the history of humankind, making Berlin the city of change and freedom. A freedom which the American voters might have put at risk this week, possibly forgetting that liberal democracy is not about woke culture and a few people calling themselves “they” or a few men claiming the right to wear women’s clothes and compete in women’s sports, but the freedom of choice, thought and expression. Unfortunately, only the people denied these freedoms seem to understand their true value. Most people can appreciate these values only after losing them - and it is no longer possible to regain them.
On November 9th, 1989, unlike Putin today, Gorbachev chose to “leave the tanks in the garage” and “went to sleep,” enabling the peaceful fall of the Berlin Wall. When West German TV News reported mistakenly of a press conference in East Berlin with Günter Schabowski allegedly saying, unintentionally provoked by a question from an Italian journalist, that East Germans can travel as they wish and no longer require special permission, hundreds of thousands of East Berliners who had illegally watched West German “Tagesthemen” with Hajo Friedrichs pushed to the borders, starting at Bornholmer Brücke in Berlin. The officer in charge, Harald Jäger, decided to open the gate instead of shooting at the pushing masses. After he opened the gate, leading to “the fall of the wall”, he started crying - but not tears of joy like everyone else in the happiest moment of humankind, but because of the failure to protect his socialist border, the embodiment of his life mission. For not executing the order to shoot, even though it was his protocol, we also honoured him alongside Arpad Bella, the Hungarian border officer who turned a blind eye, along with his fellow officers, at the border between Sopron and Austria, when East German refugees fled to freedom—risking their lives and making the Iron Curtain history on August 19, 1989. This courageous act contributed to the collapse of communist oppression that had held billions hostage across the globe.
On August 25 1989, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher reached a historic agreement with Hungary's Foreign Minister Gyula Horn and Head of State Miklós Németh—a moment Nemeth and Genscher personally recounted to me years later. By September 1989, as the CDU was planning a coup against Chancellor Kohl, led by figures like Heiner Geißler and “Cleverle” Lothar Späth, Kohl made a groundbreaking announcement: German refugees would be allowed to cross the Hungarian border into freedom. This bold move solidified his legacy as the "Kanzler der Einheit" (Chancellor of Unity), who united Germany. The mastermind behind this diplomatic triumph was "die Spinne im Netz" (the Spider in the Web), Hans-Dietrich Genscher, who had fled East Germany with his mother 40 years prior and dedicated his life to reunifying his homeland. Even as a heart attack patient, he tirelessly travelled across the globe, including to the UN in New York in 1989, carrying a defibrillator in his hand luggage (alongside his revolver for protection after RAF terrorists had assassinated his closest diplomat, Gerold von Braunmühl, in front of his home and family).
When I met Hans-Dietrich Genscher regularly at his home near Bonn in 2013 and 2014, he didn't just share remarkable stories from his past. He also took action, like personally calling Putin to secure the release of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and members of Pussy Riot. In our discussions about global affairs, I made the point that Russia could only have successful Olympic Games if there were no political prisoners. I knew that figures like Angela Merkel and Guido Westerwelle often reached out to the retired, 87-year-old Genscher during my workshops with him, who always concerned about privacy (“Sie haben auch sicher keine Tonaufnahme auf Ihrem Computer laufen?”). But I had no idea that Genscher had morning calls with Putin after their swimming sessions at home. When Khodorkovsky finally arrived in freedom in Berlin, it was on the plane of Genscher’s friend, Ulrich Bettermann—the same plane that had once flown Raisa Gorbacheva to Germany in a sadly unsuccessful attempt to save her life from cancer. Watching the TV news, I saw who greeted Khodorkovsky at the airport: our “Genschman,” as the Germans affectionately called him after the fall of the Berlin Wall, acknowledging his incredible, heroic work behind the scenes.
A few days later, members of Pussy Riot made their first public appearance in Europe at the Cinema for Peace event in Berlin in 2014, just before I traveled with them to the Olympics in Sochi for a film screening of the documentary which we had honored in Berlin by the legendary, 100-times Oscar-nominated Sony Classics co-founder, Michael Barker. The screening was halted by the FSB, and the girls were attacked by Cossacks. Just after all the chaos ended and we had all Pussy Riot members safe, my phone rang unexpectedly. It was “Genschman” himself: “Mr. Bizilj, how do you enjoy the Olympic Games in Sochi?”
This was the caliber of diplomats who enabled the biggest peaceful revolution in world history. We may never fully know who spoke with whom behind closed doors, but we remember Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze’s chilling words on the night of November 9-10, 1989, amidst 500,000 soldiers around the Berlin Wall and four nuclear powers at the brink: “One shot, and we have World War III.”
To celebrate his monumental achievements, we hosted Mikhail Gorbachev for the 20th and 25th anniversaries of the fall of the Berlin Wall in Berlin with Cinema for Peace and travelled with German President Wulf and a delegation to Moscow for the 30th anniversary as he could not travel anymore. At our annual Cinema for Peace Gala in 2009, we also introduced a "Green Oscar" with Gorbachev and Leonardo DiCaprio, honoring efforts toward environmental sustainability by filmmakers.
Together with Mikhail Gorbachev, we created The Wall Museum in Berlin (link), located on the former death strip in a building where border guards once shot at refugees trying to cross the Wall. Gorbachev announced the opening of the museum on November 9, 2024, at Checkpoint Charlie. We invited the people of Berlin via radio to come and express their gratitude to Gorbachev, and they responded in the thousands, turning the event into a powerful moment of remembrance and celebration. The Cinema for Peace Foundation with Mikhail Gorbachev also launched the School Film Catalogue and Screenings program, aimed at educating young generations about historical and humanitarian issues through film.
Additionally, we are in the process of creating a monument in Berlin dedicated to both Gorbachev and Reagan, commemorating their pivotal role in ending the Cold War. The monument may feature Reagan’s iconic words: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
We started The First World Forum with Gorbachev at the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, its second edition this year included contributions by Pope Francis, President Biden, Hillary Clinton, Ban Ki-moon, Bob Geldof and Sharon Stone as well as heads of states and Nobel laureates, discussing the future of humanity, AI and democracy (link). The next edition on 18th - 19th March 2025 will include honoring US President Bill Clinton as the peacemaker of the century and discussions with the likes of war historian and the world’s bestselling philosopher Yuval Noah Harari if AI will lead to the extinction of humanity. When I asked a humanoid robot this year when humans will merge as cyborgs, she looked at me with surprise and conscious awareness, stating that this process has already been underway for years using digital prostheses and heart pacemakers.
We are producing a feature film about Gorbachev with Russell Crowe with director David Slade (Black Mirror, Hannibal, Twilight) based on a script I wrote in meetings in Moscow with Gorbachev and later with Andrew Knight (Hacksaw Ridge). The film starts at the moment the old guard arrested Gorbachev in Crimea and tries to turn back time to restore the old Soviet Union by force, just as the people were enjoying freedom for the first time in 1000 years and decided to prefer to live on their own - as in Ukraine. The independence of Ukraine and the war today are rooted in what happened in 1991. To stop the wars and ideological divides to regain freedom again, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump will need to become an apprentice of Perestroika and Glasnost: the world needs a new Gorbachev and an end to the new Cold War if it intends to live in freedom and peace.
