Invitation to Germany 5 of 7
rolled his eyes sky-ward, clasped his hand to his cheek like Jack Benny, as if to say, “You poor fellow.” Never smiled, or lost that stern expression — what a comedian. He then returned our passports, and we headed for West Berlin.
Just before we left the border control point, a huge steel bar (about two feet by two feet, and long enough to block the street) was mounted on a track and looked as if it could be quickly “shot” across the road if they decided they really didn’t want us to leave after all.
As we left the last control point, young East German guards, high in a gun tower, held their machine guns in one hand, and threw kisses to the girls with the other. Well, maybe they had to live and work in that society, but boys will be boys, just as long as blond and brunette teen-age girls continue to look like teen-age girls.
%A BUS TOUR OF EAST BERLIN
For our first visit to East Berlin we joined an organized tour. When our tour bus arrived at Friedrichstrasse, the famous, or infamous Checkpoint Charlie (control point at the border between East and West Berlin), everyone had to go into the building to buy new visas. That we had just obtained visas the day before didn’t interest them at all. This is an excellent way for the East Berlin government to obtain “western currency,” and they needed all they could get.
The Border Police made a methodical inspection of the bus and the papers of the travelers. They confiscated a map we had, that showed the Berlin Wall as a cartoon-like jagged brick divider between East and West. They were apprehensive that a view of our map would contaminate the mind of an unsuspecting, naive East German citizen. (As if they didn’t know the wall existed.) Our West German tourguide was replaced by a woman from East Germany, and she told us about the impressive sights we were going to see. But since she had never been to the West, she had no interest in discussing a comparison with her way of life.
About the first identifiable edifice we passed was the Brandenburger Tor (Gate). As we found during most of this tour, even the most famous “points of interest” were not in good repair, there were almost no visitors near these famous structures, and the streets and public squares of the city were nearly deserted.
Next we were driven past the bunker in the Reich Chancellery Gardens, where Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945. What we could see from the bus window was not identifiable as anything important, just non-descript grassy mounds.
Nearby Potsdamer Platz, with the octagonal Leipziger Platz and Leipziger Strasse, had been the highlight of the old city. Berlin’s busiest intersection before the WW II, 600 trams crossed Potsdamer Platz every day. It had been congested with the clutter of auto traffic, the clatter of street cars, and the scramble of pedestrians, but now it was devastated. Many square blocks of what had been the bustling center of a major Capital city, were still a vacant, trash strewn wasteland, twenty-five years after WW II had ended.
The Soviets are big on statues and large plazas where they can accommodate large crowds to cheer their leaders, or at least they better look as if they are cheering. Along a street somewhere, an enormous statue of Lenin dominated the scene, and we stopped at another shrine to watch the changing of the goose-stepping guard, next to an eternal flame reflected in many mirrors.
Our guide told a story that seemed to say the Soviets won WW II all by themselves, without any help from the Allies. She didn’t mention the billions of dollars worth of material we shipped to them during the war, nor did we hear about the period when the Soviets were allied with the Nazi’s.
There were very few cars and people on the street this Wednesday afternoon, and we passed blocks of new buildings, built in a monotonous style. Over the years we have seen thousands of buildings built in the “Early Socialist” architectural fashion, in several Eastern European countries. Thousands and thousands of buildings with little or no individual style, or character of any significance.
The tour included Treptow Park and the Soviet Memorial, where there were many tributes to Mother Russia. After three years work by 1,200 laborers, the memorial was dedicated on May 8, 1949. Five huge communal graves, containing 5,000 Red Army soldiers, are in the burial ground, and two large red blocks of marble are expertly carved to resemble banners being lowered to the ground. The Mother Russia statue is carved from a 50-ton block of granite, and a series of striking white stone tombs stretch to the hill where a 38-foot bronze Soviet solider stands at the summit.
Our tour took us past ruins of what had been important buildings (theaters, etc.), and our guide said they would soon be renovated. She painstakingly pointed out Opernplatz (in front of the State Opera building), the location of the infamous book-burning incident instigated by the Nazi’s on May 10, 1933, (two months after Hitler assumed his dictatorship), but seemed to know nothing about the Soviet suppression of the East German uprising in June of 1953. Funny how news of interest to us, was a non-happening to our guide.
At one place we were told a normal wage would be 700 East D-Marks per month, and monthly rent for a three room apartment was about 170 East D-Marks, or about 25% of income. Our tour bus stopped at Hotel Stadt Berlin, which had a nice lobby and clean rest-rooms, but that is just about all of East Berlin we were allowed to see up close.
As a modification on the story that, “Aren’t we lucky to be born in the US,” how about the Berliners who can say, “Aren’t we lucky we were born on this side of the street.” At some locations the Berlin Wall was built so one side of the street is West and Democratic, and the other side is East and Communistic. Windows and doors of buildings right on the border were “bricked” shut, so no one could jump to freedom.
RETURN TO THE WEST
Our return through the East Berlin side of Checkpoint Charlie was without incident, and since the governments of the West do not recognize the Berlin Wall as a border between countries, no passport inspection was required as we returned to the West.
We met a lady from South Africa, who was revisiting her former home in West Berlin. She had relatives in East Berlin, but could not force herself to submit to the legal hassle required to visit them. She said they (Border Police) made her feel guilty, and she hadn’t done anything wrong.
The next day when we crossed the border from West Berlin to Drewitz in East Germany, we had to again buy new visas, another set of license plates for our vehicle, then wait a while. The drive across East Germany to Marienborn was uneventful, but it took an hour or so to pass all the inspections at that end of the road.
Our waiting time was spent trying to decipher the large signs that seemed to proclaim the joys of liberty in the East, as we were forced to sit there waiting our return to real liberty in the West. Linda did her best to copy the words of three of the signs, and a friend translated them for us.
• Kampf um den Frieden in der ganzer Welt.
“Fight for peace in the whole world.”
• Wir haben allen Grund, mit Festigkeit und absoluter Zubersicht in die Zukunft zu blicken. Lenin.
“We have good reason to look into the future with firmness and absolute confidence.” Lenin
• Die sche des Friedens hat in DDR stets seinen guten Vorlämpher.
“The question of peace has always had its good pioneer in the GDR.”
The border police gave us more of a glance than an inspection, but several cars in front of us had been unloaded at the direction the guards, and the vehicles and suitcases thoroughly inspected. Mirrors on wheels, and flexible rods poked inside gasoline tanks, satisfied the guards that no one was hidden in those vehicles. As we crossed the border to Helmstedt, West Germany, we were all cheering and laughing with relief, and almost ran over the poor West German Border Police who were waiting to look at our passports. At this point we were going from one recognized country to another, unlike the border crossing from East to West Berlin, that occurred inside city limits.
When we finally left that post, Daughter Linda said, “Just think, we could have brought someone to freedom!” She was referring to the fact that the East German police didn’t closely check inside our van, and wouldn’t have discovered a person hiding under the bed-covers. We would have liked to help someone escape, but could we take a chance like that? We had a much less dangerous chance in 1981, when a Polish family we had met in Vienna the previous year, escaped from Poland at the height of the Solidarity movement. As mentioned earlier we had the opportunity to help them emigrate to California three months later. Now that was thrilling!
Chapter 23
Second Trip to East Berlin
BORDER TO EAST GERMANY, 1980
Ten years later as we crossed the border from Helmstedt to Marienborn, we found large clean buildings with everything in very good condition — an enormous contrast with the whole border crossing area during our first visit. After filling out the proper forms (Linda wasn’t along to help this time) and buying our visa for 10 D-Marks each (no new license plates were required), we approached the next control point.
Here the guard, who was the spittin’ image of General Charles DeGaulle, told Emmy to take off her sunglasses to make sure she was the one and only in the passport picture. He then asked if we had a transmitting radio and something else we couldn’t understand. Finally he pointed his fore-finger with the other three fingers curled and his thumb sticking into the air just like a little kid playing cops and robbers, to let us know he was asking if we had a gun.
At the next stop a guard took our passports and visa forms and placed them on a moving belt, and by the time we arrived at the last building they were stamped and we were ready to go.
DRIVING TO BERLIN
Now the drive was also very different from ten years earlier. In the intervening years the West German Government had received permission from the East Germans to spend the equivalent of about $200,000,000 to rebuild the Autobahn, and it was now in perfect condition.
The roadside stops and gasoline stations were also new, or had been renovated. We stayed on the Autobahn, since our visas again permitted only “Transit Berlin.” A different type of visa was required if we wanted to get off the Autobahn and explore the East German towns nearby — next time, perhaps.
During the drive to Berlin we passed miles of farmers’ fields, especially huge fields of red cabbage. Other fields had hundreds of telephone-pole size “stakes” with wires strung all over the place, and some kind of plant (looked like string beans) growing high above the ground. Years later, we were informed these fields were growing a variety of “hops” used to brew beer.
At Drewitz, near West Berlin, we were given a cursory inspection, no problem except they again barked at Emmy, “Ohne Brille!” — but what a contrast with our experience ten years earlier.
%S - RAHN TO EAST BERLIN
For this our second visit to East Berlin, we boarded the S-Bahn at the Anhalter Station, and visited East Berlin on our own, without a tourguide. (S Bahn for Strassen Bahn or street railway, but for the first part of this ride, it was underground.)
When the city was divided, administration, operation, and the electricity for the S-Bahn were supplied from the East, while many of the workers lived in West Berlin. A few years later, when the East ran out of money, administration was transferred to the West. Surprisingly, through all the problems, service was discontinued only a few days here and there.
West Berlin’s sewage is pumped to the East, but no one ever threatened to block the pipes. If they had, sewage would flow into the rivers that supply the East with drinking water. Even West Berlin’s garbage was trucked down a specially guarded road to the garbage dump in the East.
As we bought our ticket at the Anhalter Station, we were told to get off at the first stop and change trains — and something about the first stop being at the third station — then get off the second train at the second stop — or was that the second stop on the first train, but maybe that was for the second train, or maybe they said … . Anyway, we knew we had to buy a visa and pass through East German customs somewhere, we just weren’t sure where.
The S-Bahn car was much wider than subway cars in other cities. The cars appeared to be at least fifty years old, were in exceptionally good condition, and the wooden seats and wood paneled walls of the car had absolutely no scratches, gouges, or graffiti. There were only three or four other people on board, and we had an eerie feeling as the train seemed to slink through two dimly lit, deserted, trash strewn, underground station platforms, closed to the public since the Wall was built in August 1961.
The best we can determine, that first station was at Potsdamer Platz, almost under the wall, and the second subway station, Unter den Linden, is near the Brandenburger Tor (Gate). Neither were located where there was a need (or permission) for people to get on or off public transportation while the Berlin Wall stood. Our train didn’t stop, it just slowly crawled past this testimonial to governmental trepidation and consternation.
FRIEDRICHSTRASSE / BORDER CROSSING
At the first stop, Friedrichstrasse, still underground we left the train and started to look for the border crossing point. But then Emmy remembered we were supposed to get off the first train at the second stop, so we jumped back on just before it left the station.
The train no sooner started than one of the men at the other end of the car (he had been there when we first got on, and must have assumed we were tourists) politely let us know we should have stayed at that station. Not much we could do about it now, and soon the train came up out of the tunnel and stopped at an elevated station, somewhere we weren’t supposed to be.
Using Emmy’s little-bit-of-German-language, we were able to confirm what the man had said. Both the ticket-lady and the guard-lady were friendly and interested in our problem, and helped make sure we boarded the proper train with proper instructions. As we surveyed the city from our vantage point at the elevated station, we could see nothing we wanted to visit, even if it had been allowed.
Back underground at Friedrichstrasse, we again looked for the border control point. A young lady seemed to be looking for the same place, and when we found she was German and could speak English, we made sure we stayed near her. As we walked and talked, we found she had recently visited San Francisco and Los Angeles, but she didn’t like anything about either city, or the US. She didn’t like TV commercials, there were no good restaurants, the beaches were dirty, and in general she had nothing good to say about our country. She was the only person we met in any country, during our European trips, who was unhappy with their visit to the USA.
At the border crossing point we again had to buy visas (10 D-Marks) and we had to exchange thirteen West German D-Marks, one for one, for East German Marks. The actual value is more like ten to one, but this exchange was similar to a “minimum” charge in a nightclub. The money could be spent (if we could find anything we wanted to buy) while we were there, but if we had any left over we could neither exchange it for West German D-Marks, nor take it with us as we left. As we understood the regulations, we were not supposed to just give any remaining money to anyone, either.
Now we re-boarded the S Bahn at the elevated station a couple of flights above where we had left the underground train, rode past the station at Marx-Engels-Platz, and got off at the second stop, Alexanderplatz. Emmy was right about that second stop, she was just wrong about which train. Just for the record, “first train, first stop (howbeit the third station),” “second train, second stop.”
When we visit an Iron Curtain country, Jim always has “cold feet” and is paranoid beyond repair, but Emmy just wants to go here and there as if we were in an “ordinary” country. Jim is always in a hurry to return to the West, but then is immediately ready to cross to the East again — talk about mixed emotions.
ALEXANDERPLATZ
Alexanderplatz, the city-center in East Berlin, consists of a high-rise hotel, a major department store with a large supermarket, and blocks of open space that will hold crowds of people for government sponsored celebrations. The 1,209 foot high Fernsehturm (TV tower, with a revolving restaurant half-way up) is in the middle of it all, but the very modern, glass-walled, block-long elevated S Bahn station, and the monotonous design of office buildings, didn’t look all that exciting for a tourist.
About half way up the Fernsehturm, the multi-story, round, glass-covered ball containing both the observation deck and a revolving restaurant, has been a visible landmark, or rather a “skymark,” above Alexanderplatz for several years. When it was first built, the Communist government didn’t expect that when the sunshine hits the huge glass ball just right, an unplanned, undesired, brilliant religious cross would be reflected, and be especially visible from West Berlin. With the Berliner sense of humor, the TV tower was sometimes called “Saint Walter’s” in phony acclamation to East Germany’s president, Walter Ulbricht.
The Rotes Rathaus, the red brick building that was the Berlin City Hall from 1859 to 1949 (and East Berlin’s City Hall, since the Wall was built), is nearby, and the red brick church, Marienkirche (St. Mary’s), built in the 1200s, is just west of the TV tower. This was one of the few churches in the heart of a major city that has been closed to the public when we visited. We never knew if it was closed just because it was a church, or because it needed renovation.
Nearby is Karl Marx Allee, East Berlin’s prestigious address for hotels, restaurants and movie theaters. This street had been named Stalin Allee by the East German Government, but a few years after Stalin’s death in 1953, the name was changed.
Between the Brandenburger Tor and Friedrichstrasse is the Humboldt University where Albert Einstein was once a member of the staff. Karl Marx attended the University from 1836 to 1841, and Lenin worked in the library in 1895. We wonder what Marx and Lenin would think if they compared this part of East Berlin with West Berlin just a few blocks from here. In their day there was no great difference, but we wonder if they would be proud of the dissimilarity they have caused today.
The Alexanderplatz Weltzeituhr (world time clock), a 32-foot-high steel wheel covered with aluminum and enamel, displays the time in cities all over the world. Jim’s comment was, “Who cares what time it is in Tokyo, East Berliners aren’t even allowed to visit West Berlin.”
SHOPPING IN ALEXANDERPLATZ
Our visit was on a Monday morning and since the major East Berlin stores were not scheduled to open until noon, the streets were nearly deserted. The Centrum Department Store’s large windows displayed only bolts of fabric, no ready-made clothes, and no mannequins were to be seen. We entered one of the special “hard currency” stores (western currency only), but saw nothing we wanted to buy.
A major distinction, in our opinion, between the lives of people in the East and those in the West, is the quality and quantity of food available in grocery stores. The huge supermarket in Alexanderplatz had an inexcusably small supply of food, and what there was, appeared to be of low quality, and did not look appetizing. Food supplies consisted of “piles” of poorly labeled cans and boxes, and no effort had been spent on neatness, presentation, or display.
The labels on the canned goods did nothing to “sell” the product, but since there was little supply and no choice, no one but the consumer would care, and after all, he didn’t count. The fruits and vegetables were small and scrawny, the beets and carrots were covered with clumps of dirt, and all were in short supply. We saw nothing we wanted to buy, and if we had, we would have felt we were depriving someone of something they needed.
At each of several cash registers there were long lines of people, each with two to six items in grocery carts so small they looked like a child’s toy. What a contrast with the stores a few blocks away in West Berlin, where an unlimited supply of groceries of excellent quality, await the buyer.
LACK OF MOTIVATION
It made us wonder how it was possible to place the border at the exact place so as to have all the good workers and the good productive farmland on the western side, and all the lazy non-productive people, and poor farmland on the east.
In 1985, while in Warsaw, Poland, we met a busload of college students from Western Europe who had just returned from a trip to the Soviet Union. They thought Poland was heaven compared to the Soviet Union, but they couldn’t understand why a new road built in Poland was not level and smooth like roads in their home country.
Jim said, “If the workers build a bad road, they must stand in line to buy a loaf of bread. But on the other hand, if they build a good road, they must stand in line to buy a loaf of bread. And in either case, the pay is the same. No motivation, no good road.” From the look on the student’s faces, Jim thought it was the first time they had heard the word.
RETURN TO THE WEST AGAIN
More time was spent in Alexanderplatz, walking through the hotel and a few other buildings that were open, and Jim walked additional blocks in either direction to learn what else we should see. Mainly he found very wide streets and blocks of monotonous high rise buildings, with wide open space between. It was strange to see a farm tractor pulling a wagon right down the main street of a Capital city in the middle of the morning, but there were few cars in sight.
Our return to the West was without incident. They just waved us through the border crossing at Friedrichstrasse S Bahn Station, and didn’t ask if we had any remaining East German Marks. Again no one on the West side of the Wall cared that we had returned, and while it is always a relief to leave a place like that, we immediately think of all the things we must see and do the next time we can visit the East, just as soon as possible.
It was mid-day when we returned to West Berlin. The border crossings from West Berlin to East Germany at Drewitz, then from East Germany at Marienborn, across the border to West Germany at Helmstedt, were without incident — we bought visas, and all that — but there were no lengthy inspections or delays this time.
Chapter 24
West Berlin, Behind the Wall,
1970 and 1980
%WEST BERLIN
The partition of Germany into four zones of occupation, and the division of Berlin into four additional sectors, was based on a decision reached at the Yalta Conference in February 1945. (In 1989 we visited the Livadiya Palace, in the Crimea, where the Yalta Conference had been held.) The three Berlin sectors, under control of France, England, and the United States, are part of West Germany, but Berlin’s location in what was the Soviet zone of Germany resulted in a geo-political island called West Berlin.
Surrounded, partly by the Berlin Wall (the 28.5 mile City Wall), and the rest by the barbed wire and guns of East Germany (the 75-mile Country Wall), West Berlin was home to over 2,000,000 people. It was a pleasant surprise to discover two-thirds of West Berlin’s metropolitan area is farmland, forests, and lakes. Over one hundred miles of canals and waterways within the city limits were at one time used to distribute goods throughout the city. As they like to brag, no other city has so many lakes, forests, parks and green spaces, and Berlin’s streets are lined with hundreds of thousands of trees.
Berlin suffered 363 air raids during WW II, the equivalent of nearly one each day for a year. The air raids of November 1943 alone killed 4,370 people, and demolished 104,613 dwellings. As many as 120 of Berlin’s 258 bridges were destroyed, others were damaged, so not much of the original city remained.
RUBBLE MOUNTAIN
In both East and West Berlin, carefully shaped and landscaped man-made mountains were formed from rubble accumulated from buildings destroyed, or extensively damaged during WW II. West Berlin’s 377-foot-high Teufelsberg (Devil’s Mountain) is landscaped with public gardens, along with a ski jump, a toboggan run, and a US Army radar installation on the very top. Another pile of rubble, Kreuzberg, was made into Victoriapark, in the center of Berlin.
BERLIN, AS PLANNED BY ALBERT SPEER
Hitler, and his architect Albert Speer, had planned to construct enormous buildings in Berlin when Germany won WW II. The new Reichstag (legislature building) would have been fifty times larger than the existing one; the Great Hall was planned to have room for 150,000 people under an 825 foot dome (St. Peter’s in Rome, with the world’s largest dome at 200 feet, can hold maybe 50,000 people); and Hitler’s triumphal arch would have been 386 feet tall (the Arc de Triomphe in Paris is only 160 feet).
A Residential Palace and other large buildings would have lined several miles of a 400-foot-wide street. Interestingly enough, all were to be constructed of stone and cement, but without reinforcing steel bars. These buildings were to age, crumble, and fall, so they would look impressive thousands of years from now, much like the fascinating 2,000 year old Greek and Roman ruins we see today. Steel reinforcing bars would spoil that “look.”
KAISERDAMM, BISMARCKSTRASSE
Berlin’s main street before WW II has several names — Kaiserdamm, Bismarckstrasse, and the section just west of the Berlin Wall, across from the Brandenburg Gate, is called Strasse des 17. Juni, a reminder of the East Germany uprising on June 17, 1953.
Continuing east of the Berlin Wall, past the Brandenburg Gate it becomes Unter den Linden, Marx-Engels-Platz, Karl Liebknecht Strasse, and on to Alexanderplatz, and Karl Marx Allee, in the center of East Berlin. Alexanderplatz was the center of Berlin before WW II and up to the time Berlin was divided by the Wall. We remember Bismarckstrasse as appearing to be wider than the Champs-Elysées in Paris, and we shopped in a flea market held somewhere along there.
THE REICHSTAG, THE CAPITOL
A block north of Strasse des 17. Juni, just west of the Wall is the Reichstag, Germany’s Capitol, the habitat of the German Legislative body since 1894. Hitler managed to blame a young Communist, Marinus van der Lubbe, for setting fire to the building on February 27, 1933. Van der Lubbe was soon convicted and decapitated, and Hitler used that incident as part of his excuse to take more control of the German Government.
The Reichstag was additionally damaged during WW II, but was then repaired. With the Berlin Wall in place, the Reichstag was used at times for meetings of the West German Government. They wish to remind the Soviets and the East Germans that this is still West Germany.
SOWJETISCHES EHRENMAL, SOVIET MEMORIAL
On Strasse des 17. Juni, still on the West Berlin side of the Wall, there’s a huge Soviet Memorial with statues celebrating the liberation of Berlin from the Germans. Soviet Guards were always in attendance, they were permitted even during the Berlin Air-lift, and after the Wall was built.
When the memorial was first erected, only one guard was in attendance, but after one defected to the West, they decided to use two guards — one could shoot the other if he tried to defect. A few weeks after our first visit to Berlin, someone (A tourist? A sniper?) shot one of the guards as he stood at his post.
BRANDENBURG GATE
A short distance away the Brandenburger Tor (gate) can be seen beyond the Wall, just a few yards from West Berlin. In 1795, the Quadriga (statue of four horses and a chariot) was placed on top of the gate. In spite of its weight of ten tons, in 1806 Napoléon stole it and took it to Paris, but it was returned in 1814.
The Quadriga suffered extensive damage during WW II, so in 1957 West Berlin cast a replica (based on plaster casts that had been kept in the West), and donated it to East Germany. A guide book said, and a lady in Berlin told us, the Quadriga had faced west sometime in the past, but now faces east. A letter we received from Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin, stated, “… do not fall into that trap. It has always faced the city center, which later became East Berlin.” Jim’s nephew and his wife were told this latter story while touring that part of Berlin.
POTSDAMER PLATZ
Just a half-mile south of the Brandenburg Gate, and a few yards west of the Wall, steps led to platforms that were constructed high enough so we could look over the wall into Potsdamer Platz, and see how the other half existed. We could see the tank-traps, the barbed wire, concrete “dragons’ teeth,” and the guard towers that protected the Wall that imprisoned the East Berlin citizens. A terrifying sight.
Potsdamer Platz, the highlight of old Berlin, was severely damaged during WW II, flattened during the East German uprising in 1953, then designated as a no-man’s-land and a killing zone, with the Berlin Wall running down its middle for 28 years.
DAS SCHÖNEBERGER RATHAUS, WEST BERLIN CITY HALL
In 1948, as a result of various incidents in the fledging City Government, the non-communist members left the offices in Berlin’s Rotes Rathaus (Red City Hall, named for the color of the brick, not the political leanings of the East Berlin Government) located in Alexanderplatz, and formed a new city council at Schöneberg, located at what was then called Rudolph-Wilde-Platz. After the Wall was built, this council continued as the West Berlin City Government.
We climbed the belfry of Das Schöneberger Rathaus, the West Berlin City Hall. A replica of our Liberty Bell (presented to Berlin by General Clay on October 24, 1950), and 16,000,000 signatures by US citizens supporting the West Berlin people, are found in the bell-chamber at the top of the Rathaus tower. The bell normally rings at noon each day, but was silenced for repairs at the time of our visit.
The West Berliners just loved President John Kennedy and his celebrated statement, made at this spot on June 26, 1963, “Ich bin ein Berliner!” (I am a Berliner.) Since a “Berliner” is also the name of a large jelly roll, in support of his statement, some people would now order a “Kennedy” instead of a “Berliner.”
Five months later, on November 25, 1963 three days after he was assassinated, in a moving ceremony the square in front of Berlin’s town hall was renamed “John-F.-Kennedy Platz.”
NOLLENDORFPLATZ ANTIQUE MARKET
During our trip in 1980, 16 antique rail carriages, in the unused elevated Nollendorfplatz U-Bahnhof (subway station), were used as West Berlin’s antique/flea bazaar. It was an appealing idea, and an interesting location for an antique market. We saw a market scale with a ceramic base produced by Mettlach’s Villeroy & Boch in 1900. We didn’t want to pay $175 for it, but ever since have wished we had. We have a lot of ceramics from Villeroy & Boch, but nothing this old.
We know they will be happy to move the market elsewhere on the joyous day the Berlin Wall is torn down, and this U-Bahnhof can be put into service again.
It’s a little confusing, at this station and at many others, the U-Bahn, or subway, is above ground, and at other places the S-Bahn, or street railway, is underground.
KURFÜRSTENDAMM, THE “KU - DAMM”
During our 1970 trip, we spent two nights in West Berlin’s Hotel Bogota, and spent most of our time walking, sightseeing and shopping in the general area of West Berlin’s main street, The Kurfürstendamm. We did spend some time driving through the nearby residential neighborhoods to see where West Berlin’s citizens lived and shopped. It was interesting to see a street here and there, where the buildings appeared to be of pre-war design. Either the bombs missed that neighborhood, or at least the damage was slight, so repairs could be made.
We have seen pictures of pre-war Berlin, and while a portion of that Berlin survived, it doesn’t appear they tried too hard to rebuild the city in its original style. There are some very modern buildings in West Berlin. On John-Foster-Dulles-Allee beside the River Spree, the strange looking Konzerthaus, which Berliners call “the pregnant oyster,” is about the most modern of them all.
West Berlin’s main shopping street, Kurfürstendamm (Boulevard of the Electors), called the “Ku-Damm,” is the center for hotels, department stores, theaters, car showrooms, the Zoologischer Garten (Zoo), and sidewalk cafes by the dozen.
KAISER - WILHELM - GEDÄCHTNISKIRCHE
Where the Ku-Damm nears the Tiergarten at Breitscheid Platz, there stands the remains of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche (Kaiser-Wilhelm-Memorial-Church), built in the 1890s. This Protestant Cathedral was destroyed by bombs on November 23, 1943. The last sermon preached in this church had the theme “All passes away,” and it sure did. The broken tower is kept as a remembrance of the havoc of war, and a museum is to be located in the small room that remains next to the tower.
As its replacement, right next to the ruin on December 17, 1961 the new church was consecrated. The ultra modern octagonal church and a 172 foot campanile containing six bells, were built with 20,000 small dark-blue windows.
EUROPA CENTER
Across the Platz from the church, the Europa Center at twenty-two stories the tallest building in West Berlin, is recognizable by the huge Mercedes Benz hood ornament rotating on the roof. This complex is filled with stores, restaurants, bars, an ice skating rink, a hotel, gambling casino, a planetarium, two movie theaters, a cabaret, a spa with sauna and swimming pool, and an unusual “water clock.” After colored water has spilled into the 30 small “2-minute” glass bulbs, it is then directed into the larger “hour” bulbs, and on and on. Here, time doesn’t fly, it flows.
In contrast to the US, where people criticize the quantity of neon signs used for eye-catching signs, at the Europa Center, and on the exterior of many buildings in European cities, the façade is covered with lighted signs between the windows of the first several floors.
Under Breitscheid Platz, between the Europa Center and the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche, there are underground walk-ways for pedestrians to go from here to there, protected from the weather and traffic. This space is also an underground shopping hub with dozens of small stores.
THE BERLIN AIRLIFT MEMORIAL
Das Luftbrückendenkmal (the Berlin Airlift memorial), a concrete form symbolizing one end of an air bridge to the West, stands just outside the terminal at Tempelhof Airport. (The other end of this memorial is at the airport near Frankfurt-am-Main.) For nearly a year (from June 26, 1948, to May 12, 1949), a steady flow of airplanes landed at Tempelhof airport, supplying the city with the barest necessities, including coal to heat their homes. One lady told us that as a young girl, she would dream of having a whole loaf of bread for herself — just once to have a full stomach.
PLÖTENSEE MEMORIAL
On the north side of the city, Flughafen Berlin-Tegel is the airport that now handles most of Berlin’s air traffic. Just southeast of that airport, the Gedenkstätte von Plötzensee, is a monument to the people who were hanged following the futile attempt on Hitler’s life at Stauffenberg, on July 20, 1944. The briefcase containing the bomb was moved to the “other side” of a large table-leg by someone who was unaware of the plot, so Hitler was only slightly injured. General Edwin Rommel was forced to commit suicide for his part in that assassination attempt.
THE BERLIN WALL
On August 13, 1961, Eastern authorities stopped all communication (except by mail) between the citizens of East and West Berlin. Since it was Sunday, United States and West German politicians were caught by surprise. At 1:30 in the morning S-Bahn and U-Bahn connections were interrupted, and 68 of the 80 road connections were closed. Several hours passed before the world learned of this surprise.
Two days later they started to build the original twenty-eight miles of barbed wire wall that zig-zaged back and forth, up and down the streets that exactly defined the border between East and West Berlin. At some places, where a building was in the way, doors and windows facing the West were bricked closed.
We have a copy of the blueprint “… für die »neue« Mauer (for the new wall) 1979/1980.” The new wall was built of high density reinforced concrete and consisted of prefabricated sections that are 1.2 meters (4 feet) wide, 3.6 meters (12 feet) high, and with a 2.1 meter (nearly 7 feet) base, that would make the section almost impossible to be pushed over. The letter from the Alliierten (Allied) Museum in Berlin that accompanied the Wall plan, says, “… prefabricated sections were introduced … because the communists wanted their border to look tidy — after all they were true Prussians.”
With the first version of the wall, at some places it was possible to jump, catch hold of the top, fight through the barbed-wire, and pull oneself over the wall to freedom, if the bullets could be dodged. The new wall had a rounded roll-cap about 15 inches in diameter that would make it impossible to escape over the wall, even if the attempting escapee got past the deathstrip, or killing zone.
During the Cold War, more than 800 people died as they tried to cross the Berlin Wall or other parts of the East-West border. In spite of the armed guards, mines, automatic shooting devices, and other instruments of death, other thousands succeeded in escaping, one way or another.
The new wall did not replace the old wall exactly, and a church ironically named Versöhnungs-Kirche or “Reconciliation Church” found itself sitting between a portion of the original wall, and the new wall. In 1985 the East German authorities destroyed the church, and its memorial plaques to people who had tried to escape.
The east side of the wall was painted white so a body could be easily seen in a searchlight beam, and the deathstrip was a flat plowed area so footprints were easy to follow. For added security, several rows of concrete “dragon’s teeth” insured no vehicle could approach the wall from the east, and sentry towers permitted the armed guards to survey the area. The guards were constantly rotated so they would not become friendly with each other. If a guard tried to escape (as hundreds did when the wall was first built), the others might not want to shoot a “friend.”
We got a laugh (an ironic laugh, not a funny laugh) from the announcement made by the East German authorities on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Wall. They said the Wall had served its objective — in the years since its construction the US had been unable to invade East Berlin.
SPANDAU PRISON
A few miles northwest of downtown Berlin (not far from the Olympic Stadium, home of the 1936 games), the town of Spandau is famous as the location of the Spandau Prison, where Nazi officials, sentenced at the Nürnberg War Crimes Trials, were imprisoned for forty-one years after WW II.
CAMPSITE IN WEST BERLIN
During our first trip to Berlin we spent two nights in the Hotel Bogota. On our second trip to West Berlin, we decided to stay in a campsite rather than a hotel, so we drove to a location still inside the Wall, near Potsdam. The campsite (no vacancy) was built right up against East Germany’s fortified “country-wall.” Another nearby campsite was also full, so we drove through Spandau, to the campsite in Kladow, where we spent Saturday and Sunday nights.
Sunday evening Emmy became ill and needed to see a doctor. It was (a) Sunday, (b) six o’clock PM, (c) we were in a campsite, (d) in Germany, (e) behind the Wall in West Berlin, so what was the chance to solve her problem?
A few miles before we reached the campsite we had passed a medical facility of some kind, so we returned and found the Stadt Klinik für Lungenkrankenhaus-Havelhöhe, a hospital for long-term pulmonary problems; but that wasn’t Emmy’s predicament. From what we understood, down the street a couple of miles was a Klinik (small hospital) that might help.
Even with those five strikes against us, sure enough, not only did we find the Klinik, but the stomach doctor was IN. He answered her immediate questions and said there was no emergency, and there was no charge. How difficult is it to find a medical specialist in our home town on a Sunday evening, especially one who doesn’t charge for an examination?
WASHING POTATOES
A German-born lady we met in the US told the following story: As a young girl, she and her mother were living in the eastern-most part of the country as the Soviet Army advanced into Germany near the end of WW II. Some of the Soviet soldiers, thousands of miles from their homes, were horse-riding Mongols and Cossacks. These men, raised in a most primitive society, were not prepared for the “advanced” style of living in war-torn Germany.
A devastating problem arose when potatoes the soldiers were washing for their dinner, suddenly disappeared. This was the first time they had ever seen a flush toilet.
Chapter 25
East Germany
BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN
Prior to 1991, except while driving the Autobahn that extends from West Germany to Berlin and on to Poland, we had not explored East Germany. We looked forward to the opportunity to investigate East Germany sometime, but they just made it so difficult to take care of the paperwork.
In 1985 while we were in Vienna, we decided to apply for permission to go from Austria to Czechoslovakia, then across the corner of East Germany, with a visit to the city of Dresden, then on to Poland. We finally gave up before we had the necessary papers for the East German leg of that trip, so went through Czechoslovakia, then to Poland.
After we have visited Iron Curtain countries for a week or so we are so happy to return to freedom, that we just say, “ … next time maybe we’ll visit East Germany.”
We spent about two weeks visiting Czechoslovakia and Poland before we arrived at Frankfurt-an-der-Oder (Oder River) on the East German border with Poland. The visas needed to drive the Autobahn from Poland to West Germany, with no sightseeing in Berlin or in East Germany, were rather easy to obtain at the East German border with Poland.
While in Czechoslovakia and Poland we had experienced just about all the paranoia we could stand for one trip, and were eager to get out of Communist Eastern Europe. Neither the police, nor anyone else we met “bothered” us personally in any way, but to see the long lines of people waiting to buy bread (or anything else), and knowing they were trapped by a system they didn’t want, was almost more than we could stand.
As an example of how the Communist system worked, at a couple of stores in Poland we stood in a long queue waiting to buy our daily bread and butter. When we finally arrived at the counter we found piles of bread and mounds of butter and three or four clerks behind the counter — and occasionally a customer would be waited on. There was no need for the line, it was a result of their full employment policy — everyone had a job, but few people worked. As one man said, “We pretend to work, the Government pretends to pay us.”
But the worst thing that happened to us behind the Iron Curtain, not only didn’t happen, it happened three days after we returned to West Germany. Now that will take a little explaining.
ZOLL (CUSTOMS) INSPECTION
As we crossed the border from Poland into East Germany, we were subject to the most detailed customs search we have experienced in our 225 or so crossings of international borders. First we spent more than an hour lined up in a parking lot a few miles from the border, waiting our turn to wait in line some more at the border control point, located on the bridge over the Oder River, at Frankfurt, East Germany. Then the East German customs officer spent well over an hour checking pillows, and looking under the kitchen stove trying to determine what we were trying to hide from them.
He knocked on walls, and in general looked every place that didn’t have much chance of hiding anything. (Thank goodness he didn’t find our emergency fund of US dollars hidden behind the RV battery, beneath the chemical toilet.) Since it had been nearly two months since we had last unloaded our RV at Cousin Toni’s, we had purchases tucked into every niche and cranny — the small version of the Dodge Transvan just doesn’t have much storage space.
Near Gstaad, Switzerland, we had purchased a 10 pound, 20-inch-high “Zinn” (pewter) coffee urn with pouring spout, fancy hinged lid, and large curved handle. In Venice we bought several Venetian glass necklaces and bracelets; in San Marino we acquired coral necklaces; a belt in Florence; and numerous other small objects, all of which we had stored in this large pot.
When the customs man found it behind our hanging clothes, he first seemed to accuse us of trying to hide it, until we were able, with sign language, to ask if he could find any other place in the small RV where it could be stored.
At his direction, Jim unloaded the small packages and handed him the empty urn for close inspection. He wanted Die Rechnung (the receipt) which we could not find, but we showed him the entry in Emmy’s diary concerning the purchase. Finally he returned it to Jim who replaced the small packages and returned it to its “hiding” place.
A short time later two women Zoll (customs) officers approached and said something about the Amerikanisch camper, and after some conversation, the first officer indicated he wanted to show the ladies the Zinn urn. Jim started to remove the small packages again, but they told him to leave them alone. As the urn was handed outside, Jim tried to watch what the inspector inside the RV was doing, and still keep an eye on the two ladies, the urn, and its contents.
A few minutes later they finished their inspection, returned our possessions, and sent us on our way. (The Polish Government confiscated the last of our Polish Zolties at the border, but how we got more than “even” is a story for another time.)
THE DRIVE TO WEST GERMANY
Again we had arranged for Transit-Only visas — Frankfurt-an-der-Oder, at the border with Poland, to Marienborn, at the border with West Germany. No visit in Berlin or elsewhere in East Germany was permitted.
The Autobahn from the East German/Poland border to Berlin was rather rough, but we could drive fifty-five miles per hour most of the time, a great improvement over roads in Poland. Between Berlin and the West German border however, the road was excellent.
At the border, some vehicles were carefully searched by big German guards, and some were carefully sniffed by big German shepherds, but they just glanced inside our RV, checked our papers, and off we went.
SEARCH FOR THE NECKLACE
A couple of days later we looked at the calendar and the map, and decided to visit Denmark and Sweden again (yes, we make major travel decisions that easily), and planned to visit a friend of Emmy’s step-mother, who at last report, lived in Heiligenhafen, Germany near where we would catch a ferryboat to Denmark. Emmy asked Jim to get one of the Venetian necklaces as a gift for the lady. Jim emptied the big Zinn urn and could find coral from San Marino and other objects, but no necklaces from Venice.
Now we were sure that the Zoll officer had distracted Jim on purpose to give the two ladies a chance to help themselves, knowing we would be in a hurry to leave their border just as soon as they finished the search. Furious, disgusted and betrayed were our feelings at that moment, and very upset to think they would do such a thing. We talked about what we were going to do and how we were going to do it — anything to get even.
Jim reminded Emmy that he had told her not to put all those little things in one place; it would be too easy for someone to steal everything, complete with a coffee urn to carry it in. Emmy recalled the conversation, and remembered we had hidden some small things in folded clothes under the couch — and we found the necklaces.
Well, we now dismantled the bomb, canceled the charter plane that was to deliver it, and slinked into bed exhausted. We were delighted the beads had been found, but far happier that we hadn’t accused (at least where anyone could hear) the poor East German Zoll officers of something they hadn’t done. After all, they were about as friendly as they could be under the circumstances.
So as we mentioned earlier — it not only didn’t happen, it happened three days after we left their country.
Chapter 26
After the Wall, The Western Part of Former East Germany
GORBACHEV, AND OUR TRAVEL PLANS
In August 1991 we arrived at Emmy’s cousins in Mettlach, and a few days later we had rented a Recreation Vehicle and were ready to leave on our planned visit to former East Germany and other Eastern European countries. Our last European trip had been from March to July 1989, just a few months before the Berlin Wall fell, and the Iron Curtain disintegrated. We were eager to see countries in that part of the world again, now that they were under control of their new governments.
That very morning we heard on the US Armed Forces Radio that Mr. Gorbachev had been thrown out of office in the Soviet Union. That put a crimp in our plans, since there were 250,000 Russian military still stationed in East Germany. We were concerned that civil war might break out in the Soviet Union, and if the Army was ordered to come home, they would. Since they had little money of any value, little fuel for their trucks and tanks, and not much food, we could just imagine what the East German and the Polish countryside, the stores and gas stations, streets and highways, would look like, during and soon after the “invasion in reverse.” We were surprised that short-wave news broadcasts and newspapers did not mention this possibility until a week or so later.
We decided to spend a few days in the western edge of former East Germany, then if things had not quieted down, we would go to Scandinavia, and perhaps to the British Isles. The way we travel, no itinerary is made, and no schedule compels us to be here or there at any particular time. If we couldn’t tour Eastern Europe this year, no problem, we would find other captivating places to visit.
BERNKASTEL TO GOSLAR
After leaving Mettlach we spent a day on the Mosel River near Bernkastel, then on to Rodenkirchen, between Bonn and Köln, to a campsite on the banks of the Rhein River. We visited friends in Essen, watched “The Pied Piper and the rat catcher fable,” in Hameln, waiting for Gorbachev to get his government in order.
Finally, a couple of days later, while we were in neighborhood of Goslar, short-wave radio reported Gorbachev was back in power, so we decided to visit East Germany after all.
%QUEDLINBURG
Our first destination was Quedlinburg, and “Franz Jenrich, Juwelier,” the original home of the sterling silver spoons Emmy bought in nearby Baddeckenstedt, several years ago.
As we approached the former border between East and West, we found our “old” maps did not show any road that connected the formerly divided Germanys. As we drove, generally in an easterly direction, we found a temporary road that connected existing roads, but no signs were needed to inform us that we had left the West. Since the roads were now narrow and paved with rough cobblestones, it was easy to determine we had traveled where few vehicles had ventured for several decades.
When small groups of buildings were passed, or when we went through a village, there was no doubt we had regressed 50 years or more. This is hard to describe, but not too hard to imagine. The older buildings looked much like those in the West, except all maintenance and renovation had stopped decades ago.
We could see that Quedlinburg had been, and will be again, a very beautiful city. The main street made a wide graceful curve, and the store buildings and the cathedral were well designed, but in need of maintenance. There is an odd-looking object attached to one of the church steeples, but we couldn’t tell what it was, or why it was there.
Soon we were at the jewelry store and met the wife of a grandson of Franz Jenrich. She was delighted to hear our story, and Emmy was tickled to find the origin of her serving spoons. While we still don’t know the age of the spoons, high on the outside of the building, the name Franz Jenrich and the date 1904 are painted on a horizontal half-timber, indicating his jewelry store must date from early in the twentieth century.
When we retrieved our vehicle from its parking spot, we “talked” to a man wearing a sweatshirt that proudly proclaimed “America.” We politely refused his offer of a “campsite” in his driveway that night, but it was nice to hear that he, and others standing nearby, were happy to hear we were visiting from the US.
%HALBERSTADT
Driving through Halberstadt, Wernigerode and Blankenburg, was depressing. Everything just looked “tired” and in need of repair. The streets, sidewalks, and buildings were unkempt and untidy, something that is just not found or permitted in West Germany. That description fits much of what we saw as we visited in former East Germany.
THE FORMER! CHECKPOINT ABLE
Retracing our route we got on the Autobahn to make sure we would again pass through Checkpoint Able, the former border control point between Helmstedt and Marienborn. But what a splendid difference we found at the place where everyone and everything had come to a dead halt for the past 35 years.
Twenty-one years ago, our first crossing at this point, the buildings were temporary shacks, and the parking area was rather small. Eleven years ago, there were several large new buildings, and the parking area and the special driving lanes had been enlarged and modernized.
Now, imprisoned behind a high chain-link fence, huge empty buildings and acres of unused parking lots were all that remained of Checkpoint Able. The Autobahn was bumper-to-bumper with trucks speeding loads of building material for new stores and factories, and supplies to fill the shelves of stores already open in the East.
Checkpoint Able isolated West Germany from East Germany, Checkpoint Baker insulated East Germany from West Berlin, and Checkpoint Charlie, perhaps the best known, partitioned West Berlin from East Berlin. These designations were the result of the US Army’s refusal to count, “one, two, three.” It’s the Army, and they used their version of A, B, C.
AUTOBAHN ON / OFF RAMPS
We always try to travel on regular roads rather than the Autobahn, so we exited at the first off-ramp and discovered an interesting bit of road design. When this Autobahn was built 60 years ago, this was most likely “state-of-the-art” for on/off-ramps, and since then there had been no reason to redesign the exit/entrance of this highway.
It was a surprise to exit the high-speed traffic-jammed Autobahn, onto the narrow, rough, cobblestone off-ramp that led to a road that was even worse. Imagine a road shaped as the letter “Y” connected to the Autobahn by the top two points of the “Y.” One point is the on-ramp, the other is the off-ramp, the stem is the access road, and sometimes there is a parking/rest area inside the “Y.” A driver must be very careful how he handles this, as there is little space to slow down or speed up, and many times a vehicle is just entering or leaving the rest area. We’ve seen similar off-on ramps in other countries, including the US, but they were not paved with cobbles, with such sharp curves, short slow-down and speed-up lanes, and we don’t remember a rest stop in the middle of the access ramp in those other countries.
%EICHENBARLEBEN
In Eichenbarleben we talked to a work crew who were remodeling a store building. The man in charge had left Iran years ago, had lived in the US for a few years, and now was in this little German farm village. We found here, and throughout the East, that for 50 years people had not been permitted to develop and apply craftsmen or management skills, and people from other countries were here to supply that missing expertise. We found that sometimes those skills were applied for the benefit of the former East Germans, and sometimes mainly for the benefit of the entrepreneur.
COBBLESTONE ROADS
The road from Eichenbarleben to Magdeburg was about the worst “main-street” we found anywhere in Europe. The cobblestones were quite uneven, sometimes there were two smooth paths for vehicle wheels, which was not of much use when we met another vehicle. Road construction and repairs were underway in thousands of places, but it will take years to bring the road system up to the standards found in West Germany.
A cobblestone street or road is a good example of Communist thinking. All that’s needed is a man, a hammer, a bucket of sand, and a pile of stones. And any number can play. The job can be divided into small sections, and later it’s easy to open and close the surface to install or repair under-road utilities. While cobblestone is interesting and can be laid in quite attractive patterns, the thousands of miles of hand-made roadway in the East most likely results from a desire to employ as many low cost workers as possible, rather than an attempt to create a beautiful road.
%WANZLEBEN
In Wanzleben, about 15 miles southeast of Magdeburg, we saw a supermarket in a “bubble.” In desperation to get the store open quickly, a large supermarket-sized rubber “balloon” was inflated to create a building that is kept inflated by fans, rather than wait for the nearby building to be completed.
The idea of competitive capitalism was already alive and well in Wanzleben. We saw three stores in the business of creating vehicle license plates, just across from the office where license plates were authorized. Each store promised free coffee and a variety of other consumer services, in order to attract the business of potential customers.
SATELLITE TV
There are thousands of small television satellite dishes attached to private homes and apartment buildings throughout Europe, including the former “behind the Iron Curtain” countries. Unlike the huge dishes (early-‘80s technology) needed in the US up to the mid-1990s, Europeans had launched their satellites years later, after technology was developed that permitted transmission to a small 20-inch dish. (The first version of a new technology is exciting, but is often rapidly surpassed by advanced technology. Then a few years must pass before the original is replaced by the advanced.)
Jim talked to a man who ran a TV store, and was told the cost of the dish, including installation, was about $1,000 for a system that can receive 20 channels. Only four channels are available with a regular TV antenna.
%MAGDEBURG
In Magdeburg, at least downtown Magdeburg, we found nothing of much interest to tourists. That doesn’t mean there was nothing of interest, it means that we didn’t spend the time it would take to really see the whole city. A development understood by most travelers.
There are large open spaces between the miles of office and apartment buildings that are rather new, or at least were built since WW II. Generally these buildings are plain boxes of ten to fifteen or twenty stories, with no particular style, and little effort was spent to make them architecturally attractive. They have attempted to enliven the design of some buildings by adding brightly colored mosaics and other examples of art, but the missing tiles and the lack of maintenance, makes it look worse than it would without the “art.”
In one part of the city, we saw a few blocks of buildings that appeared to be the style built in Germany years ago. Perhaps this part of the city did not suffer much damage in WW II. We did see an UPS (United Parcel System) truck in Magdeburg (and in other places), and it’s exactly the same color, shape and style as in the US.
NEW SHOPPING CENTERS, NEW GAS STATIONS
Shopping centers and store-buildings of various types were under construction in or near almost every town, and gasoline stations were being built in large numbers. A typical existing station, sometimes with three or four pumps with long hoses, usually has little room to park vehicles. Some of the new stations exceed even what we might see in the US, or in West Germany. There were Shell, Esso, and Texaco stations, as well as stations with familiar German company names. Huge parking areas, 25 to 30 pumps, and plenty of room to maneuver, unlike anything previously seen in this part of the world.
ABANDONED FARM EQUIPMENT
In the countryside north of Magdeburg, in several large farm fields huge irrigation systems and a lot of large farm equipment, were sitting in tall weeds. It must have been there for a year or two. We have no idea how, or if, the fields and the equipment of the huge collective farms might be divided among the farmers, now that the Capitalists have replaced the Communists.
MITTELLANDKANAL
We drove under the Mittellandkanal, a man-made waterway that connects with the Elbe River, near Magdeburg. This canal was built across hundreds of miles of countryside, and is the same canal mentioned earlier, at Minden, 150 miles west of here.
This part of the canal is 30 feet above the road, and is elevated above the countryside as far as we could see in either direction. It must be almost perfectly level for all those miles, regardless of what river, road, hill, or valley it must cross. And this is just one of many canals in Germany, and in other European countries.
%STENDAL
In the marketplace in Stendal we met an officer and a group of Russian soldiers, who appeared to be shopping for large quantities of food. When we shook hands and tried to explain we were from the US, their facial expression indicated they either didn’t understand or didn’t care, our verbal communication was nil. This large marketplace was filled with beautiful fruits and vegetables. Thanks at least in part to the Soviet Army, that’s a sight that wouldn’t have been seen a few years ago.
In the window of a nearby appliance store we watched a dishwasher demonstration. The dishwasher was made of clear plastic, so these people could see how it works, and what it does. It’s interesting to remember that thirty to forty years ago that was a common sight in the US, and now that these people have an opportunity to buy such a luxury, they must be shown how it works.
At the nearby campsite, we had our first long conversation with a lady who was just thrilled with her status as a citizen of a unified Germany. There was joy on her face as she described her first several visits to cities and towns just 45 miles west of her home. This was the first of many times we were told that, “If we had known the truth about life in the West, there would have been a revolution years ago.”
We asked why the buildings and grounds in the former East were not taken care of in the manner expected of Germans. She said, and others repeated a similar story, that since the government owned almost everything, there was no benefit to doing something “just because.” In contrast, we remember apartment buildings we have visited in the West. Prominently posted at the entrance was a calendar stating which renter-family was responsible for cleaning the entrance and stairway each week. Believe it, they were spotless. They had motivation, the responsibility, and all their neighbors, plus the landlord, would notice the results.
%TANGERMÜNDE
The little town of Tangermünde looks quite attractive, and with the renovation already underway it will look even better in a short time. Several brick buildings were under repair, and fresh paint was obvious on timbered store buildings along main street.
The Elbe River flows into Germany from the Czech Republic, through Dresden, Magdeburg and Tangermünde, to Hamburg and to the North Sea. In Tangermünde we crossed the Elbe on an old bridge that was in need of a lot of work. The rickety road bed was made of wood, and only one lane of traffic was permitted, first one way, then the other. The man who controlled the bridge traffic was very happy to see Americans were enjoying his town.
THE COUNTRYSIDE
Along the road, at the edge of the farm fields, we see stacks of four-foot by four-foot wooden “things,” with four or five horizontal boards attached to vertical end-pieces. After we studied the lay of the land and the direction of the road, we decided they were most likely installed along the road as a sn
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