Poll: Twenty years later public reacts to the fall of the Berlin Wall

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Twenty years have passed since the wall came crumbling down.

As the world reflects on today’s anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall some recent polling suggests that two decades on the importance of the event has not faded from the minds of most Americans. Elsewhere around the world however opinions are mixed on the impact of the falling of the wall and the state of capitalist ideas largely responsible for the history-shaping event.

Rasmussen Reports indicates near universal acknowledgement of Americans towards the importance of the fall of the Berlin Wall twenty years ago. 70% of the public considers the tearing down of he wall and subsequent collapse of communism in Eastern Europe to be a “very” important event in world history. An additional 23% consider it at least somewhat important, with just one in twenty-five Americans of the opinion that the events in Germany two decades ago are not very important or not important at all.

More conservatives (78%) consider the fall of the Berlin Wall very important than liberals (59%), but both ends of the political spectrum consider the importance of the event by overwhelming numbers. Younger voters aged 18-29 are not surprisingly less likely to rate the fall of the wall as an important historical event than their elders. 84% of all adults meanwhile correctly identify President Ronald Reagan’s famous declaration “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” issued in June of 1987. Current President Barack Obama meanwhile was given positive remarks by 55% of Americans for his highly publicized speech in Berlin during last year’s campaign.

Americans it seems are far more united than Germany and many other countries in their embrace for the events that brought down the Berlin Wall and then communism two decades ago.

A German newspaper the Daily Leipziger Volkszeitung recent polled over 1,000 of its country’s citizens and found that one in eight actually want to see the wall rebuilt. The survey also noted that nearly equal numbers of formerly East and West German citizens were of this opinion. The BBC also recently commissioned a poll through Globescan in an attempt to track worldwide views on the collapse of communism from that region. 29,000 people from 27 countries were gathered. The United States and once Soviet dominated Poland showed the highest numbers (both over 80%) of those considering the collapse of the Soviet Union to be a “mainly good thing”.

German citizens (79%) were also high in the percentage of their population considering the fall of the USSR to be a positive moment in world history. 76% in Great Britain and 74% in France agreed with that sentiment according to the BBC poll. Many other countries are less than thrilled looking back and a number of individuals claim a current lack of faith in their capitalist structured societies in the midst of the global economic downturn of recent years.

60% of Russian citizens consider it a bad day when the wall fell and communism was vanquished. Half of Ukrainians are in agreement as are nearly 70% of those in Egypt, the highest total of negative responses recorded from any country.

Focusing back on Germany a Forsa survey in conjuction with a leading German newspaper polled 2,000 residents of Berlin and surrounding areas of the city back in 2005. Their results showed even greater negativity amongst German citizens than the previously mentioned Leipziger Volkszeitungpoll. With the economic struggles of the formerly East Germany many of that country’s citizens had expressed a desire for a return of the infamous Berlin Wall. 24% of western Germans polled were in favor of bringing the wall back that stood for some 28-years and 12% of those residing in the eastern party of the country agreed.

Photo Credit: Associated Press / Marcus Schreiber