THERE are no security service goons posted at every street corner, the shops are full of consumer goods, foreign tourists mill about and ordinary people go about their business as elsewhere on the European continent.

That is the Berlin of today.

Things were very much different when I was there in October and November 1989, at the height of the protests that culminated in the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Many people were out on the streets because they were fed up with the regime and wanted a better life. But many – as in all revolutions – were just curious on-lookers, individuals who had no political agenda but still marvelled at the sight of the throngs.

Fear was in the air: the military and security services were out in force and, although they did nothing, they looked menacing.

Rumours spread about worse to come: some said that columns of tanks were sighted on neighbouring streets, and that the East German government was about to implement a “Tiananmen Square” solution, by crushing the rebellion, Chinese-style.

There was also fear about what the Soviets may do. For, although we now know that the Soviet leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev decided to do nothing to save the Soviet empire, the people of Eastern Europe were not aware of this at that time.

Everyone, however, remembered what happened in Hungary in 1956, when an anti-communist rebellion was crushed by Soviet forces, or in Czechoslovakia in 1967, when a similar Soviet invasion took place.

The leaders of all European countries also assumed that the Soviet Union would never give up on East Germany, the most strategic colony in its empire.

So, the belief was that, sooner or later, blood would be spilt. The only question was where this may happen.

In the event, of course, nothing happened: the communist regimes melted away, although in Romania this took a week of heavy fighting.

Either way, the people of Eastern Europe were courageous: they knew that they were writing history, they were ready to take risks and – at least some – were also prepared to suffer the consequences.

Nevertheless, the pictures of crowds storming the barricades, the images which have survived in our mind today, were not so evident to those who were present at that time.

All I remember are the swelling crowds, badly-dressed and suffering from a pungent body odour, crammed into pot-marked roads, marching aimlessly, and often for no particular purpose.

There were women pushing prams, bemoaning the fact that their absent husbands are now "involved in politics".

There were the old men who were busy telling everyone what it was like when Berlin – the German capital – was a united city, and people could travel from East to West unhindered. And there were the occasional pickpockets, who smelt an opportunity for some rich pickings.

All of them are now forgotten: the camera lenses have only recorded the joyous faces of people dancing on the Berlin Wall during the night of Nov 9 1989, and the vast, faceless crowds which surged forward to erase Europe’s divisions.

When the first Trabant car — the spluttering East German vehicle made of fibreglass — drove through an opening in the Wall into West Germany, a roar was heard from the crowd: the revolution had succeeded.

"We are free!" shouted a young, bespectacled man next to me. "OK, but now what do we do?" responded an elderly lady.

Nobody bothered to answer her query; people were too busy rushing to put their first foot on Western territory.

Read the complete story in The Straits Times' Saturday Special section.