Reps. Miller, Ball, Barnett, Bauer, Booher, Terry Brown, Caul, Constan, Cushingberry, Dean, Durhal, Geiss, Green, Haase, Hansen, Haugh, Horn, Rick Jones, Robert Jones, Kandrevas, LeBlanc, Leland, Liss, Lori, Marleau, Mayes, Opsommer, Roberts, Segal, Slavens, Slezak, Smith, Switalski, Huckleberry and Walsh offered the following resolution:

            House Resolution No. 181.

A resolution commemorating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the beginning of the peaceful and democratic reunification of Germany.

Whereas, At midnight on August 13, 1961, East Germany, sealed its border with West Berlin and began construction of a 100-mile barrier.  Over the 15 years leading up to this construction, more than 15 percent of East Germany's population had left the country to pursue economic opportunity and political freedom elsewhere.  The "Berlin Wall" included bunkers, watchtowers, searchlights, minefields, barbed wire, concrete walls, and armed guards to prevent further emigration of the people of East Germany; and

Whereas, During the 28 years the Berlin Wall stood, only about 5,000 people successfully fled East Germany, while more than 75,000 were imprisoned for attempting to leave and another 1,200 were killed trying to escape; and

Whereas, The summer of 1989 began a sea of change.  In June, the Solidarity Movement in Poland won in landslide victories.  In August, Hungary opened its border with Austria resulting in tens of thousands of East German refugees fleeing into West Germany through Hungary.  In September 1989, crowds of people began protesting the authoritarian regime of East Germany and demanding freedoms and the end of the Berlin Wall; and

Whereas, On November 4, 1989, more than one million people gather in East Berlin and 40 other cities in East Germany to demand free elections and civil rights such as freedoms of opinion, movement, press and assembly; and

Whereas, On November 9, 1989, East Germany promised free, general, democratic and secret elections and announced that the government would allow "every citizen of the German Democratic Republic to leave the GDR through any of the border crossings"; and

Whereas, Thousands of people in East Berlin immediately flooded the border checkpoints at the Berlin Wall and demanded entry into West Berlin, causing the overwhelmed border guards of East Germany to open the checkpoints to allow people to cross into West Berlin; and

Whereas, In the days following the fall of the Berlin Wall, hundreds of thousands of people from East Germany freely crossed the border in to West Berlin and West Germany for the first time in more than 28 years; and

Whereas, The fall of Berlin Wall was the beginning of the end of communism and the Cold War.  It embodied the end of the division of Europe, the opening of the Iron Curtain and the triumph of democracy over communism.  By October 1990, Germany had peacefully reunified into a democratic state; and

Whereas, On November 9, 2009, the people of Germany celebrated on both sides of the Brandenburg Gate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall with the "Festival of Freedom", now, therefore be it,

Resolved by the House of Representatives, That the members of this legislative body

commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the beginning of the peaceful and democratic reunification of Germany.