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How Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Toppled the Berlin Wall
One concert ended communism in Eastern Europe

Ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, historians have debated who deserves the most credit for the event that sparked the end of communism in Eastern Europe and the ultimate demise of the USSR. Many point to U.S. President Ronald Reagan and his “tear down this wall” speech (as well as the arms race he triggered that bankrupted the Soviet Union). Some argue that it was the policies of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. Still others insist that it was Pope John Paul II, the pope from then-communist Poland, who brought down communism. And surely the half million people who gathered at the wall that November played a key role.
For the past 34 years, I have believed it was the combination of the three men mentioned above (Reagan, Gorbachev, and John Paul II) who were the key figures in the fall of the Berlin Wall, but recent research proves that I was wrong. The truth has been right in front of my eyes (or more accurately, ears) all along, every single day, in fact. Like so much else in life, the answer to the question is Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.

You might think I have finally lost my mind in my adoration of the Bard from the Garden State, but I haven’t. Reagan toiled against the communists his whole life, Gorbachev had absolute power to change things in the Soviet bloc from 1985 forward, and John Paul II had been pope for 11 years when the wall fell. During all this time, things remained the same.
Then, on July 19, 1988, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band played a concert in East Berlin in front of 160,000 fans and 16 months later the wall was gone. Coincidence? Don’t be ridiculous. Consider the setlist he treated those oppressed East Germans to:
1. Badlands
2. Out in the Street
3. Boom Boom (John Lee Hooker cover)
4. Adam Raised a Cain
5. All That Heaven Will Allow
6. The River
7. Cover Me
8. Brilliant Disguise
9. The Promised Land
10. Spare Parts
11. War
12. Born in the U.S.A.
13. Chimes of Freedom (Bob Dylan cover)
14…