30 years ago, the Berlin Wall was torn down by the people that it had divided for three

decades.

Berliners were euphoric.

They were euphoric because the Berlin Wall was not merely a wall between East and West

Berlin.

It was the wall between East and West, period.

It was the division of humanity into two different camps.

And since names and labels were always changing and morphing, not to mention carrying decades

of emotional baggage, let's reduce it to the most simple, emotionally neutral terms.

On one side of the wall, the eastern side were the collectivists who believed that society

takes precedent over the person.

This collectivism was advertised as new and scientific, but the fact is that collectivism

has been the default condition of humanity since humanity began.

No, the actual newcomer to this clash of visions were the individualists on the western

side.

The first government in history dedicated to the idea of the individual being more

worthier protection than the state had just turned 170 years old when the 40-year conflict

known as the Cold War began.

With the world in ruins after the defeat of Nazi Germany, imperial Japan and fascist Italy,

these two ideologies had come into head-on conflict here in Berlin.

It quickly became evident that Soviet leaders were not interested in the free unified Germany

and were determined to induce or force the western powers to leave Berlin.

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