The next few months mark the 20th anniversaries of the greatest events in Europe since the end of World War Two in 1945. They include the fall of the Berlin Wall, the overthrow of Communism in Eastern Europe, the reunification of Germany and the end of the Cold War. The collapse of the Soviet Union was to follow not long afterwards. Taken together, they were a political earthquake whose tremors are still being felt.
They were heady days, as nation after nation in Eastern Europe threw out their Communist rulers and rejoined the mainstream of European democracy. The barbed wire which ran through the centre of Europe was rolled up, and Hungarians, Czechs and Poles emerged almost dazed into the daylight of a new world.
The Berlin Wall represented everything that was evil about communism and the tyranny which was its trademark. I recall watching television in my office in No 10 Downing Street in disbelief at pictures of people pouring across the Wall. It was a day we longed to see but never quite believed would happen. I remember, too, Margaret Thatcher's sense of elation, tempered with wise caution. It was not only a joyful moment, but a dangerous one. No one knew how the Soviet Union would react, particularly if the popular mood in East Germany led to incidents involving Soviet forces.
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