Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley available to discuss Berlin Wall anniversary

EXPERT ALERT

David Ruth
713-348-6327
david@rice.edu

Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley available to discuss Berlin Wall anniversary

HOUSTON – (Oct. 27, 2014) – Rice University presidential historian and editor of “The Reagan Diaries” Douglas Brinkley is available for news media interviews to discuss the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The wall fell Nov. 9, 1989.

Powell, Dumas, Meckel, Genscher and Baker posed in 2009 in front of a section of the Berlin Wall outside the Baker Institute. Photo by Tommy LaVergne/Rice University

The German Democratic Republic (GDR or East Germany) began construction on the Berlin Wall Aug. 13, 1961. Officially, the GDR said the wall was needed to keep Westerners out of the socialist-controlled country and its portion of Berlin, which was divided at the end of World War II. In reality, the wall was built to stop East Germans from emigrating to the west after thousands had fled the country. .

“The tearing down of the Berlin Wall was the signature event of the end of the Cold War,” Brinkley said. “1989 was a year of global revolution. The wall coming down was the opening salvo to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the liberation of Eastern Europe.”

Brinkley, who is a professor of history and fellow in history at Rice’s University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, is currently in Austin, Texas, and available for phone interviews or broadcast interviews via satellite at PACSAT. To schedule an interview with Brinkley, contact David Ruth, director of national media relations at Rice, at david@rice.edu or 713-348-6327.

Rice’s Baker Institute has a section of the Berlin Wall on display. Rice University and James A. Baker III, who is the Baker Institute’s honorary chairman and was U.S. secretary of state under President Ronald Reagan during the reunification of Germany, dedicated the monument during a ceremony Nov. 10, 2000.

In 2009, Brinkley moderated a Baker Institute panel on the German reunification. Along with Baker, leaders from that era participated in the panel discussion. They included former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas, former German Federal Republic Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, former German Democratic Republic Foreign Minister Markus Meckel and Charles Powell, who served as private secretary to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Former Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze spoke to the audience via a satellite uplink from the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. A webcast of the 2009 panel can be viewed here.

Berlin plans to hold various events to commemorate the anniversary, including “a special light installation set up along the former course of the wall as a ‘symbol of hope for a world without walls.'”

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