Erstellt am: 7. 11. 2014 - 21:00 Uhr

Ich bin ein Berliner

25 years post-Mauerfall. Blitz-Reise to Berlin. Generous guests and their personal stories. Berlin totally rocks.

Berlin is set to take center-stage when it comes to where the biggest European party is likely to be this weekend. Sunday the 9th of November marks 25 years since the Berlin Wall came tumbling down.

: Kay Nietfeld/dpa

Balloons mark the course of where the berlin wall used to stand, in preparation for 25 Mauerfall celebrations...

I took a Blitz-Reise to Berlin on Monday and Tuesday and spoke with people who not only remember the events of Nov. 9, 1989 but people who are shaping the vibrant future of the city.

Reality Check's celebration of 25 years of a united Berlin, will feature: Daniel Haaksman , Jim Avignon , Ziska Riemann , Matze Hielscher , Haluk Mantas, Michael Neuber, Kathi Gormasz, Anna Sylvester, and a taxi-driver who is called Bernd. The show guests were so generous with their time and their stories and they really personified what Berlin is to me: chilled, forward-thinking, respectful of the past, tolerant, friendly, helpful, creative, humorous, and totally up for a good time.

Riem Higazi

Berlin Wall Memorial Center, the rods used to hold up the concrete that was The Wall.

For people 25 years old and younger, the Berlin Wall and how it felt to live in front of and behind it, that's a second-hand experience but thanks to artists and authors and historians and journalists, many forms of documentation remain. The Berlin Wall Memorial Center is fascinating if you ever visit the almost four million strong city.

Riem Higazi

Hakesche Höfe, behind the Café Cinema, Berlin

Berlin has been drawing creative, free-spirited, experimentally-inclined people to it for many years, well before the fall of the Wall of course but since 1989, there has been a real wave of Berlin-Zuwanderer. It should be said that the world's largest population of Turks living outside of Turkey find themselves in Berlin. There's a considerable Austro-community in Berlin too. This isn't a scientifically proven thing but I'm pretty sure that one Berliner in ten is either just a DJ or a combination of any of these disciplines: DJ/Designer/Musician/Filmmaker/Artist. Creatives. They are EVERYWHERE in Berlin.

Riem Higazi

United Forever, sweatshirt seen in Berlin

There is so much to say about the significance of what happened in Berlin 25 years ago. The one thing I'd like to say for sure is that Berlin, today, totally rocks. Every time I leave the city, I think, hey, I look forward to seeing you again, Berlin. Soon.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:KarleHorn

Berlin wall, August 1985. Foto by KarleHorn, CC by-SA 3.0

On November 9th, thousands of illuminated balloons along the course of where the Berlin Wall used to stand will mark the 25th anniversary of the day that wall came down. FM4's Reality Check will celebrate not just this historic moment on November 8th at 12 midday, we will salute the movers and shakers of the vibrant city of Berlin and how they are shaping its future.

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