Fall of Berlin Wall metaphor to realise everything is possible

On this day, August 13, 1961 the government of the German Democratic Republic constructed a wire fence/barrier/wall dividing Berlin in two; separating families, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, and it was done with German thoroughness. Between that day and that famous day in 1989 when the wall came falling down, the GDR authorities built the world's greatest barrier between two States. 

The GDR State called it an antifaschistischer  Schutzwall, an anti-fascist protection barrier. They attempted to tell their people that the purpose of the Wall was to keep western capitalists out of their country, nothing was further from the truth. The lying and nasty behaviour of the government of the GDR gave East Germans the seed to be people with a great sense of humour.

The prestige car of the GDR was the Wartburg, which was called by the people 'The Martin Luther Wagen'.  When Martin Luther broke with the Catholic Church he said: 'here I stand and can go no further'. The Wartburg had the reputation of regularly breaking down. It was built close to the Wartburg castle, where Luther translated the Bible. 

East Berlin was hermetically closed off from West Berlin. GDR authorities were delighted to see old-age pensioners exit the east and remain in West Berlin; it meant they were saved paying them pensions.

West Berlin was not technically part of the Federal Republic of Germany; it attracted large numbers of 'alternative'-style people, artists, writers, painters, probably the homosexual capital of Germany. 

There  was no military conscription in West Berlin, on the other hand there was an obscure a law,  that a person could be shot on sight by military personnel of the four powers, England, US, France, Soviet Union.

I lived in Berlin before the wall came tumbling down; its collapse gave me the courage to appreciate that one must never say something can't be done, that is, provided it is not against the laws of gravity.

United Berlin is one of the world's great cities but old West Berlin had a special character; a great place to live. It was a different place and very different to any city in the Federal Republic. Indeed, East Berlin, the capital city of the GDR had its own charm.