Only six years later, the world was amazed by images of German citizens cheerfully chipping away at the Berliner Mauer - the infamous Berlin Wall. A few months later, the Wiedervereinigung - reunification - would be a political reality.
One group was, if surprised, at least ready for the reunification: the city planners in Berlin. For forty-five years, the planners in West Berlin had carefully designed all of the city's systems to be readily integrated in the event of reunification. Throughout the decades, the various routes of subways, streetcars, and commuter trains - U-Bahn, Straßenbahn, und S-Bahn had been expanded, but always with an eye to connecting to the lines on the other side of the Wall. The bus routes, of course, lacking fixed infrastructure, could also be easily combined. Other forms of fixed infrastructure likewise designed for speedy consolidation with the hardware of East Berlin: telephone, electricity lines, water and sewage pipes.
Some had mocked the planning, and considered it a waste of money to build systems that connected to nothing. But the planners had the last laugh, and when the Wall fell, Berlin, a major city of nearly four million, saw its key infrastructure systems integrated quicker than most observers had thought possible.
