Nine time zones away from where I sit tonight someone in Germany is awaking to celebrate the 27th Anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall. This at the same time the American populous is coming to terms with a new president who has pledged to build a massive barrier wall along the country’s southern border.
As a person who has spent six years studying the Berlin Wall and the massively fortified Inner German Border (IGB) to which it once belonged for a book project, I’ve come to understand something about this type of geopolitical bulwark — something that makes me want to warn an American public keen on this kind of protection.
