CNN iReport

My first name Dorrie is German, or so I've read over the years.  The fall of the Berlin Wall meant so much to me as a young person. I was very much into music. In 1985 I became a big fan of the Austrian singer Falco, you may  remember that he had a song titled "Rock Me Amadeus," and another single titled "Vienna Calling."  In early 1986 I purchased his entire album which was titled "Falco 3."  I remembered the singer from a song which was released in the early 1980s' titled "Der Kommisar" by the group After The Fire but it was really Falco who performed this early 1980's hit single.

I really liked all of the songs on the Falco 3 album especially the songs "Munich Girls" and the song "Macho Macho."  It was the story like song "Jeanny" that made me buy his 1987 album to hear the song "Jeanny 2."  If you visit iTunes there is a ton of new Falco stuff out remixed and unreleased tracks.

While listening to German music all night and all day between 1985 and 1988 because I had both of the Falco albums and I was still listening to Duran Duran.  I became fascinated with German history and bought a Berlitz German book and learned how to speak German.  German is the best language on the earth. I  took French in junior high and I took two years of Spanish in high school so I speak German, French and Spanish.  German is still my favorite language.  While reading about German history I became so fascinated with the history of the German people.

I must admit, my current fiance is of German descent.  German is our language of love.

Learning about Germany in the mid to late 1980s I felt compelled to clear the reputation of the German people.  For some reason, because of World War 2 and the actions of Hitler and the Nazi party, so many people had a life long hate for the country of German.  After much research in Encyclopedia and library books I learned about the conflict between East Berlin and West Berlin.  Based on my young school girl thought, it seemed like East Berlin was the side that people were blaming for the continued hiding of members related to the Nazi party and West Berlin was trying to break free from the rule of East Berlin.  The division that split East Berlin and West Berlin was the historic Berlin Wall.  I used to always wonder if it was true that people tossed notes over the walls of the Berlin Wall. As a young girl I made it a quest in lifeto have the Berlin Wall taken down. I felt sad reading all of these stories about families split by division. Some family members were caught on the East Berlin side sorting out years of Nazi Party accusations and other family members were in West Berlin for one reason or another.

By late 1988/early 1989 I joined a local group that was dedicated to tearing down the Berlin Wall.  Now the German descendent guy that I am with now Eric lived in the Schaumburg,Illinois area with me at that time.  He was a young kid at the time but it was something that he was involved in from a distance he was aware that the Berlin Wall conflict was an issue of our times.

My mother Marietta was a history major in college and she always inspired me to keep up with history over time. She is a very very intelligent person.

She remembers history quite well.

The fall of the Berlin wall was historic.  At the time as a child I also wanted to work on the division between South Korea and North Korea.  Decades later I'm not so sure how things are going between those two factions.  I feel like North Korea has a very strong military but Seoul, South Korea is known for tourism and their popular business district.  North Korea seems to have the stronger military.

When the Berlin Wall fell down, I was happy to be watching MTV and other news channels with all of the German kids tearing down the wall and taking pieces of the wall home with them as souvenirs.  The Fall of The Berlin Wall was the most significant event in my life at that time and I remember listening to a lot of the INXS album "Kick" at the time.  INXS was an Australian group but it was just such a historic time in European history.

I still listen to German music every single day and still speak German. I remember when Baywatch star David Hasselhoff recorded an album in German and I remember German music star Nena who recorded the song "99 Luft Balloons." I feel real comfortable listening to German music.  I can't believe that it has been 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, such a historic event and this has been one of my favorite i-report topics.