26 - The Berlin Wall

Building a wall dividing a city. Can't see how this will be a mistake.

Episode Transcript

(00:08):
Hold them back to Mistakes for Me, a podcast about mistakes made in history,
hosted by a real life middle schoolhistory teacher, me Bobby Smithy.
I am teaching my two friends,Robert Bacon, come on, mistakes.
I'm Robert Bacon and I'm Mike Kaufman, and these guys probably failed middle school

(00:32):
history, so I'm getting them backup to speed. Prove it. It
doesn't matter. It doesn't. Youstill need to go to high school.
Yeah. True, I failed everything. They just passed me on every time.
It's got to fail forward. That'sall right. No one tells you
that grade school doesn't county, butthat's a fact. It's a fact.
It doesn't matter. Hey, kids, you listen to this, grade school
doesn't count quit. You're the onegrade school kidd's being forced to listen to

(00:58):
this by someone. Oh, Ihope some of them, some lazy grade
school history teachers like oh, justput out an episode of Mistakes for May
and uh, take a nap inmy chair. Yeah, they're swearing,
but whatever, some light swearing willbe right. Yeah, right, So
tonight, Um, I thought wewould we would tackle something here. I

(01:22):
think it's interesting. There's a littlebit of history before we get to the
mistake. Um, but I thinkthe mistake is kind of near the end
here. But I want to talkabout something. So how did World War
two end? For Germany? Notgood? Well, it depends on yeah,
for them, not well? Forus? Great? Yeah, talk

(01:46):
to me. Talk to me aboutwhat happened at the end of At the
end of World War two? Howdid it all shake out with the Allies?
What happened? Oh boy, canyou want to take sure I got
this one an army man? Yeah, Oh god, damn you. Hitler
took a few cyanide pills and shothimself in the head and his bunker Mussolians

(02:07):
redundant was Mussolini caught before Hitler anddragged through the streets. So we had
him and then uh, then wewe nuked Japan twice, knuked him once,
and we didn't really give him thatmuch time. No, we didn't.
We did that, but we gavehim some time. And then we
nuked him again. And then they'relike, okay, nope, we're done.

(02:30):
Ye, that's enough. We readmore like they had two bombs that
we really had to use them.They were kind of burning a hole RP.
Yeah. We're like, oh,the first one was so cool.
Uh, and then after that,I'm pretty sure everything was pretty much smooth
sailing after that. I don't remembera World War three, So so do
you remember what happened in Berlin?What the Allies chose to do with Berlin?

(02:53):
Oh, they split it in half, split it up, build a
wall, they did, They didintact, they did both of those things,
and it worked out perfect. Heworked out perfectly. Yeah, that's
actually what we're gonna talk about tonight, is them splitting Berlin up and the
Berlin Wall and exactly kind of whathappened near the end. Are you gonna
tell us how they like what howthey picked the streets? Well, they

(03:15):
you know, the street picking.I don't, I don't really know.
I know that when the war endedand World War two ended, they divided
up the uh Berlin into four parts. Actually there was a I got it
already, already, have it already, have it? I know this one.
It's uh, you are either agriffindor Slytherin. He sorted in those

(03:39):
German four houses on raven Cruel Ginorff. Did you say Gryffindorff? But yeah,
yeah, just yeah, yeah,Yeah, that's that's German and that's
the evil one. Oh Man.East Germany has definitely slytherin about that.

(04:03):
How did they split up these fourplaces, Well, they gave one kind
of quadrant to each ally, soRussia had one, the US had one,
uh, Great Britain got one,and France got one as well.
Wow, this is it's wow,yep, yep, you're gonna say what
I was thinking, which is thisis risk. It's just the game of

(04:25):
risk. Or it's still like becauseit's it's still so weird to think of,
like because back in the day,if you won a war, you
got the land, and we slowlyworked away from that. And to think
like they just get this land,it's crazy to make. And they had
learned their World War One lessons andthey were not ready for a war War

(04:46):
three, and so they were goingto keep Germany divided. Wow, and
this this was their plan. Ohboy. Now of course, uh,
Great Britain and France kind of veryquickly seeded their um uh you know sections
to America an American stewardship there,so it really just became an East German

(05:06):
East Berlin and a West Berlin.Now, of course, the city is
completely encased because Russia took over umin addition to you know, half a
Berlin, a lot of Germany,so it's really encased in this entire Soviet
block of countries there, and there'sthis little teeny tiny dot of capitalism.

(05:29):
And so predictably, uh, youknow, thousands of engineers and scientists and
doctors who wanted to get paid andlive a free life managed to escape to
West Germany, sorry, West WestBerlin. How'd they do that? If
there was a wall? Well,there wasn't a wall, and they just
defined up should have thought about that. And they were kind of on you

(05:53):
know, friendly terms about it fora little while, for a couple of
years. Uh, and then wait, they were there was a time where
they were I did not know this, I mean like really immediately after the
war ended. And then three yearslater it was a complete crisis because Russia
hated this and they already were sufferinga number of defections through West Germany and

(06:16):
they closed the borders. They saidthat we're going to say that's it.
No people can get in, nopeople can get out, and they had
a blockade. Now famously, weum, we got around the blockade.
How we wait, I'm sorry,I gotta keep giving you guys opportunities to
get in there. How did so? How did the US get around the
blockade of West Berlin the Room ofRequirement? Yeah, we'll just keep yep.

(06:47):
Yeah. Did they go around Denmark? It was completely encased by the
Soviet block there there was Wow,there was no land accents. Oh well,
then they dropped stuff in air?They did, Yeah, they did.
They It was the Berlin Airlift innineteen forty eight, all the way
to nineteen forty nine. I actuallysaw a documentary on this. It was

(07:08):
called Operation Dumbo Drop. Yeah,yeah, Danny Glover. Yep. They
ate those elephants elephant delicious. Ohman. Um fun fact and by fun
fact, I mean not fun.The first bomb dropped on Germany, UH
in World War Two, landed inthe Berlin Zoo and killed their only elephant.

(07:30):
Oh, mistakes were made, allright, Well that's been mistakes,
Thank you so much. Wow,dude, So we're gonna learn about that,
I know. That's that's that's allthere is to learn about it.
Talking was the entire fact. It'sthe fact is done. No reason for
a forty minute episode on it.What a sad zoo only has one elephant.

(07:54):
It must have been a lonely died. They died of loneliness. It's
the opposite of Noah's ark. Wekilled two of them, are it's but
it's World War two era zoos,so like, come on the awful living
because it conditions. I think itwas just straight up cages like the cartoons.
Yes, those cartoons were based onthings, and that was really how

(08:16):
animals were camped for a long time. But the Berlin Airlift in nineteen forty
eight to nineteen forty nine, theylifted a two point three million tons of
food, fuel, and other goodsinto West Berlin. Were any of those
those pizza lunchables pizza? I assumemost of them were pizza lind I used

(08:37):
to love pizza pizza lunchables. Ipicked one up the other day and they
are awful. Oh they're real gross. It's disgusting. We just lost a
sponsor. Oh no, lunchables pizzalunchables? Oh man, sorry, large
cracker and piece of pepperoni? Yeah, and and cheese question mark. Yeah,

(09:00):
Hey, this ritz is huge?What's going on? I forgot my
daughter's lunch should going to school theother day, and I was like,
oh no, when I ran tothe store and I did buy a lunchables
like ham and Swiss that she doesn'tlike Ham. I did the like the
chicken nugget lunchable, which would havebeen good room temperature chicken nugget lunchables.

(09:20):
I don't know there was an oreoin there. I think she'll be all
right, I'm turning you into childprotective services. That's it, got it?
You should sorry, keep distracting us. What's going on? They're dropping
food, dropping in a ton ofThe Soviets eventually called off the blockade in
nineteen forty nine. They said,we're losing. This is stupid. They're
just dropping things in. Any way, we'll call it into it and people

(09:43):
kept defecting into West Berlin became aproblem. They lost thousands and thousands of
people, including in June of nineteensixty one, they say over nineteen thousand
people left the the GDR through Berlin. I'm sorry, the GDR is confusingly,

(10:03):
um the let me get this right. It's the Great Democratic Ruse.
You got one one of three correct, Okay, So I'm gonna go off
that. I'm gonna say they arethe sequel band to CCR NO as it

(10:24):
comes later in the alphabet. No, it's just the German Democratic Republic,
which of course was communist. Confusinglyenough, Wow, okay, yeah,
words mean nothing, okay, yeah, but anything about history nothing. So
in um on August twelfth of nineteensixty one, two thousand, four hundred

(10:48):
people left in a single day.So this is a huge brain drain through
the entire Soviet block. Right,if you're a doctor, if you're a
lawyer, if you're anybody with aneducation and you want to get paid,
you can get out. And youwant to get out through West Berlin.
Yeah, especially if you're in hell, get out at the moment. Like
they weren't stopped. They were,they just decided to not stop them.

(11:09):
Yeah. So, I mean therewas there was a border between them,
but it was not you know,very it was not terribly well monitored.
Right, you still need papers toget across. But you could. You
know, this is a city kindof divided in half, right, you
could sneak through a building, youcould, you know, go down a
back alley, you could. Therewere a lot of places you could get
through. I don't know what itwould be like to live in a city
that's divided in half social commentary.It's a problem, go ahead. Uh.

(11:39):
The in nineteen sixty one they decidedfinally to build this wall, and
virtually overnight they put up barbed wireand armed guards, and then over the
coming years it just grew and grewup accordingly, what do you call a
guard who isn't armed? Is heeven really a guard? I don't know.

(12:01):
I guess an observer. I don'tknow where you go, where you
go, where youre going? Hey, don't just walk by me. Hey
that's a bouncer. Yeah, weboth get an unarmed guard as a bouncer.
Um. So we called the BerlinWall, but it was really two
walls. There was a twelve foottall, four foot wide, massive reinforced

(12:24):
concrete topped with an enormous steel pipeto make climbing over it difficult. Wait
wait wait wait why? Uh?It was just she had like magnets in
your pocket, a big stick toit. Yeah, you couldn't get like
a grappling hook over a big smooth, round surface. Oh challenging. I
watch America Ninja Warrior. They musthave had Berlin Ninja Warrior. Yeah,

(12:48):
this is when it started, Iguess. Uh. Then there was one
hundred or so feet called the deathstrip, a gauntlet of soft sand to
show footprints, not soft sand.No, it's so soft on my skin.
We've come so far, sir.It looks like they've laced the ground
with soft sand. It's lately exfoliatingme. It is. Well, it

(13:16):
was only there to slow you down, so the vicious dogs h machine guns
could cut you down. Oh okay, all right, never mind run run
yep, it's hard to run insoft sand. Never mind running on the
beach when it's a little soft brandon the beach and it is not fun.
Wow. Uh so see the dogsand guns coming, No one ever

(13:41):
does. They're just like, ohthe sand is so soft. Yeahs down,
Yeah, I got a chair.It's like a little beach shretch in
the middle of Berlin. This isgreat, man. So um. People
understandably they hated they hated the wall. Why they used to be able to

(14:01):
go back and forth. People wouldwork on one side and have family on
the other, and they, youknow, could commute back and forth.
And now you really couldn't. Soand that happened, you said, basically
overnight. So if you did havefamily that was separated at that point,
year stuck that's right, and familiesdid family That was one of the the
big you know things people would sayabout getting rid of the walls, and

(14:24):
like, I haven't seen my familyin years. I haven't been able to
get over there. And you know, twenty years or something, building separating
families. I mean, it's agood thing. All this is in the
past. So yeah, exactly,Oh political commentary. What I didn't know
what you're talking about? What youchecked out a book and then you can't

(14:46):
the late feast? Oh no,no, no, I couldn't get back
to the day. Feels like nothinguntil it's twenty thirty years of it.
You got you have to understand.I couldn't get back. There was soft
sand. I took one step doit, and I'm like, I'm staying.
Oh man, So despite all thesesafety uh safety uh security features,

(15:07):
the safety features, that's sand betterbe soft guys. People. Wow,
Wow, what a pr move.If they called these safety measures the dog
dogs and the sound of safety measures, you have a safe Yeah. So
when you get shot to fall downand it's softer than hot concrete to see

(15:28):
you, oh god. All right, So over over the time here that
the burling wall was wash and runningUm, how many people do you think
managed to escape through or over thewall? Through or over? Yeah,
and you can't go around because there'sthere's there's no there's no real around and

(15:48):
there's no around. Um, Ithink a ton, I think. Man,
that's a long time too. Yeah, well, I don't know.
Man, You're you're talking about Russia, right right. Russia's manning these people
like manning the wall. The Russiahas so many people, so many soldiers,
so many troops, so many ammon, so many guards with arms.

(16:11):
Yeah, so many. I'm notgonna say a lot, man, I'm
gonna say like fifty How long Isay like twelve hundred? Ooh, yeah,
it's it's a little bit, alittle bit more than that. About
five thousand managed to escape. Whoa, that's a lot. That's a lot
more. Though. That means alot of people are trying, doesn't do
we know how many people died?A lot of people died. About one

(16:33):
hundred and seventy some odd people died. They got shot or they got they
felt from a great height trying toget over the wall and didn't didn't make
it. What about the sand,Oh, the sand wasn't soft enough.
It was it was a late edition. Safety feature was the soft sand.
They should have made a quicksand likethe car. Oh yeah, it'd be

(16:55):
great. Um. So there werelots of different um, a lot of
different ways people got across the theborder. They hid in secret compartments of
cars. Oh totally, that's whatI'll go in the trunk. They'll never
Joe who checks trunks these days.They dug secret tunnels, They crawled through
the sewers um some would. Therewere some areas where a wall um was

(17:17):
up, but you know you couldalmost kind of see over it between buildings,
and they like did uh you know, some people jumped simple trust different
things, just how parkour started.Uh yeah, yeah, theh I imagine
there were so many buildings on theborder that were like, yeah, let's
do it. Let's put a tunnelon the basement. Oh yeah yeah,
just oh it's safe to live onthe border. Yeah, or be profitable,

(17:42):
you know what I mean? Oh, I guess people. Yeah.
Would they charge people for going.I mean I'm sure they would. I'm
sure because you couldn't run it forvery long before the Russians would find you
and disappear you. And that's nota fun um. But there were.
There were some spectacular escapes that Iwant to mention. Yes, one ended

(18:02):
tragically, but three were very successful. I want to talk about the three
Bethkey brothers. I hope I'm sayingthat right. B e th hk E
Bethkey. I'm gonna go with that. Let's go. We all got left
the Yeah, the eldest brother,Ingo Ingo, that's me I naingo eyah
baby. He escaped in nineteen seventyfive by floating over the Elbe River in

(18:26):
an inflatable mattress. No, no, no, himself over on an inflatable
mattress. What are you talking aboutexplaining yourself? I don't know any I
know anything other than that. Iwish, I wish I knew more.
I don't know if he was going. It must have gone gone at night
and staying load to the ground underthe barbed wire and the mattress. I
don't know what something like that.So would he fill it with helium?

(18:48):
I know he wasn't floating. Itwasn't like a magic carpet. No,
yeah, it was. I wason water. I'm sorry. I thought
it was a zeppelin. I thoughtit was like floating over it. And
I was so confused. That explainsa lot more that I missed the river
park. Also weird choice of likevessel. Eight years later, in nineteen

(19:10):
eighty three, his brother Holger,that's me. I'm the Beth brother We're
the Bethkey brothers. Oh, thislisp was just terrible for the poor Bethkey
brand good better Beth. He wentover the wall on a steel cable.
He fired with a bow and arrowto another. I did what Yes,

(19:34):
So this is where, like allthe Avengers get all the ideas from stealing
from history, man Italian, It'sall been done before. This is madness.
In nineteen eighty nine, the twobrothers brother flew back in an ultra
light plane over the wall and topick up their brother Egbert. Hold On,
there was a lot there. Youjust threw a lot at us.

(19:57):
Did you say that They're brother's nameis Eggbert. We had to go back
for Eggbert. We can't go backfor Eggbert. He's dead. He's dead
to me. He may not bethe best, but he's a good one.
He's not. He's a cartoonist.He makes those drawings of that man
and that dog, Dilbert. Butimagine what he could be if we got

(20:18):
him on the other side of thewall. He can be something I don't
think though. I look, Ihave a tiny plane. It's not a
big plane, but it's just bigen. It's very light. It's a
very light plane, A light planethat could hold three grown men. Enough,
all right, I have constructed apaper airplane, just big enough.

(20:44):
This is fucking madness. Okay,I love it. I love the dedication
that they saved their brother. Allright. So this this takes us to
nineteen eighty nine when spoiler alert,the wall comes down? What this was
going so? Well? I knowall the chaff tear downs wall. Yeah,
that's that's a big speech. Youcan. There was a good Reagan

(21:04):
impersonation. Thank you. Yep.The of the elementary student listening to that
is gonna where am I? What'sgoing on? Oh? That was later
for those of you. For thosethose kids listening, that's a that's Ronald
Reagan. That is not the mayorfrom Doug Funny to see you know that

(21:25):
is not the mayor on the mayorboth for me, he gets beat by
Missus dink In in an episode.Sorry, what's going on talking? So
in nineteen eighty nine, the Sovietleader is Michael Oh I know him.
Yeah, you've heard, you've heardof him. Yeah, he's got that
weird birthmark. Yeah yeah, MickeyGobs. Yeah, we call him Mickey

(21:48):
Gobs around here. Yea heroic leader. Everyone remembers him for the giant birthmark
on his head. But yes,that is that is who you're talking about.
Well, he had a weird birthmarkon his head. He was the
first to kind of put in placesome social reforms in the Soviet Union that
kind of let that kind of easedup travel in the in Eastern Europe.
He made things a little bit easierfor folks. He loosened up some of

(22:11):
the really brutal restrictions. So thehardline harden the sand. He did,
he did, he softened up thatsand even more. Oh wow, yeah,
but then I put it in thevolleyball net. So the leaders in
East Germany, they weren't sure whatto do because like Kilchof is, you
know, kind of getting some popularsupport and easing up some of these restrictions.

(22:34):
So they decide to announce that they'regonna uh loosen up some of the
travel restrictions as well. All right, they're in East Germany and they wait,
hold on. I sorry, thisis after the wall went down.
No, I'm sorry, this iswhy the wall went down. So talking
about it, there's still a wall. You still go through. You can

(22:55):
travel through the checkpoints, but it'sreally complicated. It takes months and months,
if not years, of approvals togo through. They can still reject
you for any reason. So allthese guys are sitting around a big table
thrown out ideas. How do wemake it easier to get from one end
of the city to the other.God, I don't know, I got
nothing. What if? What if? What if we manufactured tiny planes?

(23:17):
Oooh, I like it really likeplane? Second old three grown men.
Yes, I have a better idea, an air mattress field with helium.
Oh, I'm thinking of a Zeppelinpun but I can't play. Oh I
know Operation Dumbo drop. Sorry,all right. In nineteen eighty nine,

(23:37):
on November ninth, All right,they were going to make an announcement,
all right, So they called itan international news conference, which happened from
time to time. This was notlike a huge deal, and they announced
that they gave the report to theirkind of press conference guy whose name was
Gunter Schwabowski. Oh, this istheir version of the Big Lebowski. Yes,

(24:02):
yeah, yeah, he's the dudein this situation and everybody. So
the dude Gunter did not read thepress release before time. He knew he
had to make a bunch of theseall the time. He knew it was
no big deal. I got sohe just got up there in front of
all the cameras and started reading it. Now, I've taken I've taken level
one, improvised a class. Igot it, I got this. I

(24:26):
am Gunter's got things to do.So the reading did not go well.
He garbled it a little bit,and when he asked, they asked some
follow up chewing gum the entire timeto see him just like casually, he
was just eating a big sloppy burritothe entire time. It was that was
where the sall came from. Sohe's making this this speech and he gets

(24:49):
done with it, and nobody hasheard anything revolutionary, and a couple of
reporters asked some follow up questions.Um they say, he said it would
be possible for every citizen to umUh to travel across the border. Now,
and you know, a couple ofreporters say, you know, when
will this take effect? And helooks down at the paper, and he
looks back at them. He looksdown to the paper and doesn't see an

(25:11):
answer, and he goes, uh, right away immediately. Wow. And
so they all go running out andreport on TV that all the restrictions on
travel are going away right away immediately. Wow. Okay. First of all,
I like how he looked didn't seean answer, and then so he
went he went with the only optionthat you can't reverse like, he didn't

(25:34):
go with like tomorrow. At leastthat gives him twenty four hours to figure
this out. He goes, right, now, do we never see Gunter
again? We're not going to comeback to Gunter? Sadly, some people
say, still eating a burrito.Yeah, he's sleeping on some soft sorry.

(25:56):
So predictably, on the nightly newsthey say all travel restrictions are taken
away immediately. What do you thinkhappens? Wow? I think a lot
of plans are made, probably alot of sitting and talking, probably a
lot of all right, so whenwe get over there, this is what
we're gonna do. No, theyleft immediately, Yes, yes, thousands

(26:18):
and thousands of people came to thewall expecting to get through okay, now
the previous let me back, letme back it up. A month earlier,
there was a huge protest at thewall where the Soviets had started to
plan a like Tianamen Square style,cracked down on the protesters. They started
to like roll out the tags andload the guns, and then some big

(26:41):
wigs said, this will be adisaster. We can't so this. So
when this other huge crowd came up, they were being held off at all.
There were three gates. There's checkpointAlpha, checkpoint Bravo, and checkpoint
Charlie. Oh, I thought thethird one was going to be a twist
now and Chuck yeah, check oneAlpha, check on Bravo and Doug and

(27:03):
Doug and Charlie. Yeah, gostraight to Doug. Um. So,
the guy who was in charge ofone of the checkpoints here, his name
was Harold Yeager. The maister.He was, he was, he was
an officer, he was, hewas the officer in charge of one of
these. I don't I don't remember. A fan of bombs, big fan
of bombs. Assume Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's do it. Yeah,

(27:26):
drop him sorry, go ahead,now, that's all right, that's
all right. That's if you twoaren't done or not, but you can
keep going. I'd like to geton with the history lesson teach. So
he was there and he knew thatthey had backed down when this mob was
there before uh, And he calledhis superiors. He said, there's huge

(27:48):
numbers of people coming and what shouldI do? And they didn't believe him.
They said they called him a delusionalcoward. What wow, Okay,
delusional I could see, but whycoward? You know, I don't know
I thrown coward on there, butthey did. Wow. He also was
anxiously awaiting the results of a cancerscreen at cancer test that he had gone
in for. Oh god, solike he was frightened and nervous and worried

(28:11):
about his life. And he justsaid the hell of it, and he
let the crowds in. He lethim through, and he said he told
all his officers to stand down,and before you know it, that was
a chain reaction throughout the entire wall. And of course people when they were
on top of the wall and goingthrough either side, they grabbed pickaxes and
bulldozers and just started going to town. And that was the question. Yeah,

(28:36):
that's what happened with the cancer.Yes, no, oh, you
know, I didn't. I wastrying to finally answer that and I don't
know. Oh man, I don'tknow. Please let us know somehow.
Yeah, yeah, I mean ifhe you know, if he if he
did, if he did die soonafter that, what a what a way
to go, What a great choiceto make. It's also just like,
ah, you know what, Ijust got called a bunch of names by

(29:00):
my superiors. I might have cancer. This wall is stupid, but bring
them in. Yeah. Yeah,I didn't get the rays I wanted.
This is so oh that's exactly whatthis was actually about. Yeah. So
a couple of other additional facts aboutthe Berlin Wall and about this kind of
time here that I'll go into andthen if you guys have any questions,

(29:21):
we'll go over there. You uhuh. They erected the wall originally,
of course, like you know alot of governments do, they lie about
its actual purpose. They called thewall. The East Germans called the wall
an anti fascist bulwark. They wantedto they were trying to keep out those
fascists who wanted to come into EastGermany, which of course was not really

(29:44):
accurate. Yeah, do we knowhow many people died trying to get in
oh zero zero, there might havebeen one who like tripped, yeah or
something. I think I think yougot like a fruit basket if you came
from West German. Thank you somuch. Strap there not even in season.

(30:07):
The leader of East Germany, anEast German leader at the time,
claimed, we have sealed the cracksin the fabric of our house and closed
the holes through which the worst enemiesof the German people could creep. Yeah.
Not well let me yeah, well, let me let me tell you,
even from from my experience in mynew apartment, you still you're still
gonna have flies. You just can'tget them out of there. They're gonna

(30:30):
I don't know where they're coming from, but they're there. They're there.
I think they're uh. Some otherfacts. Official demolition of the Berlin Wall
began in the summer of nineteen ninetyum more huge numbers of wall sections were
cycled into building materials. Um buta few hundreds of crystal clear PEPSI.
Yeah, yeah, that's what thejets yet crystal This is the story of

(30:52):
the mistake of crystal Clear. It'sall it's all round about. Oh,
I would like to know more aboutthat. If either of you know I
can tell you about that at theend. Oh god, m A couple
of segments were preserved, obviously forlike museums and things. Some are just
sold off. There's a huge globeand the made of it from the in

(31:18):
the Vatican gardens. Uh. There'sa huge slab of it in the men's
room of a Las Vegas casino.What there are urinals mounted on it.
Wow. Some giant sections of itwere um. Uh. You know how
like in baseball cards today, they'llthey'll take a like a game war in
Jersey and cut it into a millionpieces, and like they'll they'll they'll put

(31:42):
like a teeny tiny scrap of alike real game war in Jersey in in
the baseball cards now as an adas an ad bonus. They did that
delicious delicious gum. Yeah, thegum, Oh god, the gum.
I can still two on that Jersey. It'll probably taste Oh god, I
don't know that this was a thing, but okay, they did that.
They did that with the wall.They did that with the wall. They

(32:05):
broke it up into thousands of littlepieces and you could buy it as mementos
and you I'm sure you can stillebate it and find it. Some asshole
has a rock garden with the show. Probably my mom bought a piece of
it, really, but yeah,but she still thought that she thought that
those Russians probably did something to thewall to make it like radioactive or something.

(32:27):
So she keeps it in the garageand refuses to bring it in the
house hold on she Oh God,that is adorable and frustrating at the same
time. I love it and hateit. Well, I sure hope a
spider doesn't find it in the garage, because then we're all and we're done.
Your mom sounds fantastic. It's likea character. We are not having

(32:52):
a podcast about my mom. Thatis a total separate and that's a total
we come to visit if we couldsomehow see that pieces in Boston. That
being all right, I'll take outit's up in New Hampshire. I'll figure
it out. Oh she's up,okay, all right, my my.
My last fact is that the verylast fatality from someone who died trying to

(33:15):
cross the wall was a young EastGerman attempting to go over it in a
hot air balloon and he crashed intoup power lines. Ah yeah, and
how do we know how many daysbefore the wall came down. That happened
about six six months or so.It was March of God day before.
Yeah, but still, hey,buddy, just weighed a half a year.

(33:37):
Okay, it's tough. I'm sureit felt like it was never gonna
change. Yeah, that's how itfor that guy. Yeah, and I'll
read one last quote here. Okay, mister, go up a job,
thank you for this year and all. That's what I'd say every time I

(33:58):
there. Oh my god, that'sgood idea too, because then you don't
pee on the urnal. You peeon the wall to be like fuck you.
Yeah, take that German wall.U uh. So this is one
of the dissidents who was inside EastBerlin and you know, championing for her
rights. Um. She said thatWesterners believe it was the opening of the

(34:21):
wall that brought us our freedom.M Rather, it was the other way
around. First we fought for ourfreedom, and then because of that the
wall fell. That's a great one. Yeah, wow, I like that
really good. And then of course, if it weren't for one man misreading
and not preparing for a news conference, Gunter, this is why improv is

(34:45):
bad, because bad bad, Iwould say mistakes were gentlemen, mistakes were
made. Questions do we have anyquestions? Questions? I have a question
about Kristin Claire pepsi. How doesthat? How does that then become a
thing from it? It's very technical. It's what happens when you pour a

(35:06):
pepsi through all the gravel of thewalls, the radiation. My mom believes
is I also love that like sheshe I think she kind of believes it,
but like not enough because if shewas that scared, she'd get rid

(35:28):
of it. And then also shewould like, can't you get what is
it a Geiger counter? Can't yougo get a Geiger counter or right one
like a lead box or something.Yeah, you know, what if there's
some other kind of like you know, chem trail style nonsense going on?
What if Giger counter? Yeah?Okay, um uh. But I do

(35:50):
remember reading something about how pepsi firstum like expanded into Russia. Um they
trade it. There was something withlike they at the time, Russia wasn't
going to like give them money forit, so they were like, why
don't we trade? And they endedup trading vodka for pepsi, and that's
how pepsi first went into Russia.And it was, and I believe that's

(36:13):
how we got a Stoly vodka inAmerica for the first time. I would
I believe that trade. I thinkthat's a fair trade. Both. I
don't. I don't enjoy either ofthose things. Yeah, well, definitely
not. Again, my question is, do you think that if all those
protesters decided to go down there,even without this newscast thing, and they

(36:37):
were storming the wall and that guyjust happened to be there and the same
cancer thing, do you think hewould have let him through then? Or
do you I do Yeah, whatdo you think? I think so?
I think so if he didn't knowwhat happened, I mean, you know,
because it's enough people. I thinkit was just safety in numbers that
they had enough people and at thetime, because information spread slow or than

(37:00):
it does now, I think thatwas helpful. Yeah. Wow. Also,
so this guy who was picked stumblyMike eating burrito pants? Um?
Why why this man? Why didn'ta competent person read this letter? I
don't know. I don't know.I don't know the rest of Gunter Schubowski's

(37:22):
work. Um, but I know, maybe he just had one bad day,
you know what I mean? Iwant to watch a movie about his
bad day. Where is that?Is that? UM press conference? Can
we find that on YouTube? Idon't know. I was trying, actually
was trying to, so I wastrying to actually watch it, UM,

(37:43):
but I couldn't love to see themoment where that dude decides to wear it.
I want to. I want tosay I've seen it, because I've
I've watched a special on this,and I want to say I've seen it,
but I'm not sure. I'm gonnawatch a bunch of videos of the
Berlin Wall getting taken down. Yeah, that is actually powerful to watch people
who are justly celebrating that moment,people just going at it. Well,
we were all a lot. Yeah, I don't remember any of it.

(38:07):
I was too young, No,I don't. It's too complicated to understand
any of this stuff when you're ten, yeah, or or now yeah.
Yeah, Oh, I see Isee the pipe. I'm looking at the
pipe. People are calling over itthough. I see the pipe. I
see though, because the pipe comesout and then it's hard to grip around.

(38:27):
Okay, all right, you thinkyou could have designed a better wall
that would have been harder to spike. He's on top Yeah, why not
just some spikies. Now, thespikes, you end up people end up
being able to catch things on it, like a rap or something. Yeah,
actually helps you get up there,and I get all the spices the
deal. Well, I don't haveany other questions. Do you have any
questions? But I don't. That'sthat's beautiful, Bobby, Thank you,

(38:50):
Thank you. Mistakes are made,Mistakes were made. Drink to the perfect
count be pocket tiptoe to the perfectcomet pocket