don't know if jim baker was sitting next to me. i was asked by the polish journalists if i were a young pole, what would my advice be? i said i think you ought to stay there and participate in this dramatic change in your country. feel the surge of freedom. feel the move towards democracy and be a part of it. these are germans. germans love their country. at some point i think a lot of andans who felt pinned in unable to move and move, but wouldn't it be better to participate in the reforms taking place in their own country? host: clear back in the berlin wall gallery at the museum just down pennsylvania avenue from the capital building. it's our home this morning on the washington journal on c-span on american history tv on

c-span3. we are taking your phone calls and getting your thoughts and memories from 30 years ago today, the fall of the berlin wall on november 9, 1989. phone lines to join us this morning, (202) 748-8000 if you live in the eastern or central time zones. (202) 748-8001 if you are in the mountain or pacific time zones. for) 748-8002 german-americans. that special line this morning. we have our phone line that we keep for text messages. (202) 748-8003. a few text messages come in so far this morning. i want to review a couple of them. rights,ew york city "when the wall came down we took the train from amsterdam to berlin. patrolled by east german soldiers with rifles. at the brandenburg gate, east germans came across to stand in the west which was all they could do with no money."

"i cried with relief and joy in disbelief. i thought it would never come down. i'm a minister woman. the desire for -- i am a midwestern woman. the desire for freedom is a powerful force." " i was 10 years old. my teacher was a berliner. i recall her tears of joy. she gave me a piece of the wall with a guiltl -- which i still display on my desk today." we are taking your phone calls on the phone lines we set aside mountain,n, central, pacific, and german-americans. oceanside, california. caller: i was born right after the war and i was always scared of the communists. ,verything that was on tv everything was about how bad the calmness was.

there were so many tv shows and movies about the war. you cannot escape it. it was scary. i guess i never thought it would come down. you thingss to show can change. host: thanks for that call this morning. dylan out of waynesboro, pennsylvania. good morning. caller: hello. hi. in 1977, my uncle made a trip to east germany to visit relatives. i just wanted to read a few excerpts from a letter he wrote to my dad. he said, and this is pretty brief, "it is most difficult to describe in written words the conditions one notices immediately between east and west germany. lives in the old family house. in his day it must've been a beautiful place. in our standards, we might call

it a slum. she lives on the third floor. the rest of her home is occupied by other people. this is due to the great housing shortages. they do not have hot water, flush toilets, etc. they cannot get materials and help to keep their homes in good repair. she pointed out the glass factory that was started -- by our great-grandfather. now is run by the government." sorry, i'm a little emotional. "she was curious about our living conditions, what kind of houses we lived in. will be allowed to live without having to share our homes with strangers, etc." he closes by saying, "we are fortunate to live in the usa and what we have.

host: how often do you take out that letter? caller: gee, i have not taken it out for quite a long time. i found it in some old papers. whoared it with my cousin is my -- his uncle is my dad. it was a couple of years ago. i have not looked at it since but never merit it when i heard the discussions today. you sharingeciate it with us in our viewers. andy is next out of indianapolis. your memories from number 9, 1989? then.: i was 17 to fight the communists, the socialists, the bad guys, the reds.

sudden itll of a collapsed. i was 17 years old. at 18 i joined the army, the u.s. army. and, it was suddenly very different because the soviet union collapsed. saddam ishing we know our enemy. and we were ready. i was in basic training. we were going after saddam, not these red, pinko communists. that we always knew. how strange was that.

hey, we've got a job to do. we've got to do it and do it well. that is the way it was. my we find ourselves in, oh , thesel these jihadis al qaeda ties, these isis ties. host: what is the lesson you take from all that? , socialism andw squad and these crazy socialist types, they don't know american history. and the younger ones, they don't know american history.

they don't how bad socialism is. like they have got no idea of what american history 1995 or 1999 or something. stupidike they are so they can't figure it out. yet we have a whole generation of these people that just want to go, oh yeah, this socialist idea, this bernie sanders thing. it and we wantow to do it. you guys have no idea. host: that is anti-in indiana. this is michael out of taylorsville, north carolina. good morning. caller: i would just like to share. i am not a german citizen.

i came to this country when i was six years old. i went back when i was 18 and started working for the u.s. army, working for the u.s. army from 1976 up until 1991. my view is i remember sitting in heidelberg, germany at the barracks, and international barracks. we had this old projection television. we were sitting there watching this unfold. i was sitting there with german soldiers, british soldiers, american soldiers, civilians. we were like, what is going to happen? unease.s a feeling of there was a feeling of euphoria. it is hard to describe. i goterman i felt, hey, my country back. i am 62 years old.

i was there when the wall was put up. i was there when it came down. i have been to east germany. i was over there in 1982. i was married to a canadian. that was the only way i was allowed to travel there. we got the checkpoint charlie and we were met by east german border guards with machine guns. they took our car apart. they took all the reading with serial. there was a stars & stripes newspaper and a herald tribune. all my cassette tapes and anything that had any kind of printed message on it. they took the backseats out of the car. they said put your car back together and move on. the whole time we were in east germany -- host: they made you put your car back together? they did not have the courtesy to do it? caller: no, they stood there with a machine gun. ok, put your backseat back in and get out here.

it was not a warm reception to say the least. .hey frowned at that time pretty much the height of the cold war. we had german license plates on our car. they knew i was west german and she was canadian. i could have tactically -- because i was with her. they basically followed us the whole time we were in east berlin. it is like you see in the movies. there was a guy in a leather trenchcoat that every time you turn around was standing there. i have pictures in my living room of the changing of the guard with a goose stepped in front of their police building or whatever. i was taking pictures. the man for the trenchcoat came over and asked me why i was taking the pictures. i said it is for historical purposes. i think it is interesting. he just kind of walked away. host: thank you for sharing that.

on the idea of espionage in berlin and the significance of that, stick around. in the next segment of the washington journal we will stalk -- will talk with steve vogel, author and former washington post correspondent who worked in berlin about that topic specifically. thank you for sharing your memories. randy is in fayetteville, north carolina. ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call, c-span. i enjoy watching your program. i was stationed in germany in 1984. i remember vividly the berlin wall. i was in the military at the time. i served in the third infantry in germany. stationed about 45 minutes from the czechoslovakian border.

exercise, notield knowing that the wall was about to fall. i have a lot of memories of germany. the transition of time. the disco bombing in berlin. i listened to the gentleman talking about espionage that was going on. that was one of the main reasons. there was a lot of tension going on over there. remember in 1985. a lot of people forget about that. moammar qaddafi. qaddafi was going on over there at that time.

the bombing. i got married in germany. host: that is randy in fayetteville, north carolina. we are taking your calls throughout the morning on the washington journal and on c-span3 on american history tv. a few minutes ago we showed you president george h w bush's first public reaction to the news about the fall of the berlin wall on november 9, 1989. in that clip you saw you saw secretary of state james baker in the oval office with him. withlked with -- we talked secretary baker about his memories from that day, about being in the oval office that day and what it was like to watch the fall of the berlin wall from the white house. this is secretary baker from houston, texas, talking about where he was when he heard about the news on november 9, 1989. [video] >>