Which Way Did Berlin Wall Fall?

Twenty years ago, few Germans were willing to rejoice at the fall of the Wall and the end of the first Workers' and Peasants' State on German soil. Most had made their peace with East Germany's existence. For the right wing, East Germany was a buffer zone between the free world and the Evil Empire, a bit of the homeland under foreign administration, waiting to be liberated sometime in the distant future—the way two parallel lines meet at infinity. But maintaining the status quo was more important. That's why West Germany kept East Germany alive with credits and subsidies. For every political prisoner released to West Germany, the West German government paid around 90,000 deutsche marks to the government of East Germany. What looked like a humanitarian gesture was in fact an incentive for the East German security apparatus to arrest as many "dissidents" as possible and sell them to the West. Without material support from the West, East Germany might have collapsed much sooner.