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The Peculiar Truth about David Hasselhoff & the Berlin Wall

Writer's picture: Dan SpencerDan Spencer

  • November 9, 1989: The government of East Germany announced that travel restrictions between East and West Berlin would be eased. Jubilant pedestrians on both sides gathered along the notorious wall in celebration. Automobiles lined up to drive through it.

  • That night, defiant citizens began hammering at sections of the wall and slipping through from one side to the other.

  • Later, American celebrity David Hasselhoff stood atop the Berlin Wall encouraging the crowd to break it all down.

  • Germany’s Peaceful Revolution eventually led to the country’s reunification less than a year later.

  • After the end of WWII, defeated Germany was divided among the Allied nations of Great Britain, France, the US, and the Soviet Union. The eastern half of the country went to the Soviets. The west was evenly distributed between the remaining three nations. However, Berlin - Germany’s largest city - fell fully within East Germany. So Berlin was also divvied in the same manner. Half of the city, which became known as West Berlin, was a tiny oasis of democracy inside Communist-held territory.

  • In 1961, Stalin ordered construction of the infamous wall around West Berlin. It was designed to keep Soviet citizens from defecting to the West.

  • 1985: Mikhail Gorbachev rose to power in the Soviet Union and made sweeping changes. Decades of tensions between Russia and the West began to thaw, including in divided Germany. Protests, especially in Eastern Germany, sparked the wall’s demise.

  • David Hasselhoff rose to fame in the United States as the lead actor in two TV series: Knight Rider and Baywatch.

  • His ancestors emigrated from Germany to the US, and David was born in Maryland in 1952.

  • His first major acting job was on a daytime soap opera: The Young and the Restless, which premiered in 1973. Hasselhoff joined the show in ’75 and remained for seven years.

  • 1982: Hasselhoff’s fame grew when he was cast as the lead in Knight Rider, a series about a LAPD cop assigned to work with an AI-powered talking sports car. Together, they fought crime. It ran for four seasons.

  • 1989: Baywatch aired for the first time. Although NBC canceled it after a single season, Hasselhoff revived it for the syndication market. The show propelled him to international fame and fortune.

  • Meanwhile, Hasselhoff also developed a music career. In 1985, he released the album Night Rocker, followed in 1987 by Lovin’ Feelings. He co-wrote just one song on the two albums.

  • Neither record made the US charts, although Night Rocker went to number 1 in Austria.

  • June 1989: Hasselhoff released his third album Looking for Freedom. Most of the songs were written by its German producer, Jack White (no relation to Jack White from the White Stripes).

  • Hasselhoff appeared on European television to perform and promote the album, and the title track sold well in Austria, Switzerland, and Germany. It appealed to people who supported the rising freedom movement.

  • Again, virtually no one bought it in the United States.

  • New Year’s Eve 1989: With the Berlin Wall being gradually dismantled, Hasselhoff performed a concert from a crane hovering over the wall itself. On hand were hundreds of thousands of Germans, many of whom stood atop the wall as they sang along with Looking for Freedom.

  • Hasselhoff, already famous in the German-speaking countries of Europe, became an icon.

  • Although he personally had no part in the Berlin Wall’s destruction, David Hasselhoff is still revered in Germany to this day.

ALSO:

  • Hasselhoff hoped to achieve the same fame in his native country that he had in Europe. So he produced a live televised pay-per-view concert to air in the US.

  • It was broadcast live from Trump’s Castle Hotel Casino.

  • The airdate was June 17, 1994.

  • That was the day of OJ Simpson’s infamous freeway chase.

  • Nobody watched Hasselhoff’s concert as a result.

  • The person who gave him the bad news was Donald Trump.

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