Early next month (Nov. 9) will mark the 20th anniversary of the crumbling of the Berlin Wall. East Germany, East Berlin, the Potsdam Agreement and the Soviet orbit were effectively sledge-hammered into history. The dramatic, emotional, Cold War-shattering event will be well chronicled in the media.
Personally, it will transport me back in time. Back to when that wall, barely a decade old, was fulfilling its odious task of keeping freedom-craving people in. Nobody ever escaped from West to East.
It was an appropriately cold, blustery night in 1972, and I was doing a journalistic drive-by at Checkpoint Charlie, the best known border crossing between what was then East and West Berlin. Truth be known, I would have done it for free, on my own, even if the late, lamented Philadelphia Bulletin wasn’t paying me by the inch. The memories now come cascading back.
There was that grim, little guardhouse, plopped down in the middle of Friedrichstrasse. Perhaps the only thing iconic that ever looked like a back yard Wally Watt shed. And Friedrichstrasse itself, which was then dominated by drab storefronts, abandoned apartments, empty lots and a modest museum dedicated to those who had died fleeing from East Berlin.
I vividly recall visiting with Checkpoint Charlied G.I.s, who were glad to talk to another American – and yet leery about who I might really be. Spies were a given.
After about 20 minutes of both somber and animated conversation, one of the soldiers said: “How ‘bout that Super Bowl? Were you surprised to see Miami beat Dallas?”
“Actually, I’m surprised you said that,” I answered. “Dallas won,” I replied.
“I know,” responded the G.I. through a nominal smile. “Just checkin’.”
Checkpoint Charlie checkin’.
Later the subject of Willy Brandt, the former mayor of West Berlin, Nobel Peace Prize winner and then chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, came up. I thought it was cool, ironic – and refreshingly egalitarian – that in such a sobering context the man in charge was not on some authoritarian pedestal, but often referred to as “Schnapps Willy.” It was said endearingly – not derisively.
You could bet that nobody referred – at least in public – to East German leader Erich Honecker in such a delightfully irreverent fashion. And if anybody had earned the right to some serious tippling, I figured, it was Brandt. I said as much.
After much agreement and some salty slapstick, a soldier said: “I noticed that you referred to Brandt as ‘Villy.’”
Well, that’s how it’s pronounced,” I said.
“But most Americans wouldn’t say ‘Villy,’” he countered.
“Well, I guess I’m not most Americans,” I explained, which probably sounded more smart-ass scribe than Stasi spy. “You know, when in Rome…”
Not that it needs underscoring, but visiting an Allied checkpoint in Berlin back then was an immersion in Cold War reality on a number of levels. In the age of dueling super powers, this was the world’s most infamous tripwire. This was where American and Soviet tanks faced off against each other in 1961. Where emotional demonstrations were routine and escape attempts sometimes ended brutally and tragically.
So it was no surprise that nothing was to be taken for granted – including a lone journalist, purportedly American, showing up at Checkpoint Charlie in the winter of the free world’s geopolitical discontent.
Contemporary Charlie
But that was then. Recently I returned. Familiar points of reference, different points of view.
The once dour Friedrichstrasse still attracts. But the farther north you now go – past a cheesy, Checkpoint Charlie replica – the more gentrified and glitzy it becomes. A Westin Grand Hotel, Galeries Lafayette, a Bugatti dealer. What was once a ghost town artery now teams with conspicuous consumption brand names – Rolex, Patek Philippe, Hermes, Escada, Gucci – plus fancy restaurants and numerous software firms. Surely, this is not what Honecker had in mind.
Not far is the reconstructed Reichstag complex, the Brandenburg Gate, the (notably accessible) U.S. embassy and a President John F. Kennedy museum. Construction cranes are ubiquitous – as are blue, above-ground water pipes.
The immediate Checkpoint Charlie area, however, has had no such dramatic makeover. It went from barren and grim to commercial and nondescript. An Underground station, an eclectic mix of businesses, the most prominent of which cater to tourists, plus a produce market, a (Kamps) pastry shop, a storefront museum, an (outdoor) pictorial chronology of the Cold War and some vendors hawking, of all things, Soviet-era memorabilia.
But back to that Checkpoint Charlie replica. In front was a pile of sandbags, an American flag, and a local in an American G.I. uniform. There was also a kettle where those wanting a photo with the Berlin poseur could deposit one Euro for a personalized picture featuring ersatz, back-dropped history.
Call it entrepreneurial. Or better than Photoshop. But it seemed, well, sacrilegious.
It was also geopolitically unique. In the context of Iraq and Afghanistan and the ongoing hit our international reputation continues to take, it was gratifying to be privy to a circumstance where the U.S. was still seen as a force for good in a foreign land. The Berlin Airlift and JFK’s common cause with the besieged residents of West Berlin could have happened, seemingly, yesterday. It harkened back to a time and place when fighting for “freedom” and “democracy” wasn’t synonymous with realpolitik and wasn’t glib government-speak for ill-considered foreign-policy ventures — from Saigon to Kabul. It was — and was seen as — doing the right thing for the right reason.
Indeed, at Checkpoint Charlie, Americans are still the good guys.
German Guilt
Also on graphic display is frank documentation of how Germany has come to moral grips with – and self-understanding of – its Nazi past. Numerous museums and memorials around Berlin are dedicated to the reign of terror, the extermination policy and the memory of Holocaust victims. Ample evidence underscores a level of civilian awareness and complicity at odds with self-serving, if not self-deluding, “final solution” denials.
Among the most moving — and haunting — artifacts were those housed at the Memorial To The Murdered Jews of Europe, not far from the Brandenburg Gate and the Tiergarten. One room contained diary entries and letters. One in particular left me emotionally limp. It still does. It reads:
“Dear Father! I am saying goodbye to you before I die. We would so love to live, but they won’t let us and we will die. I am so scared of this death, because the small children are thrown alive into the pit. Goodbye forever. I kiss you tenderly.” Your J. 31, July ‘42.