The signs just say 'Happy Holiday,' which I think may be an anti-religious touch, but I learn later that they say that in West Berlin, too. There are lots of people going into the churches: both the Niklauskirche, where many of the demonstrations originated, and the Thomaskirche, where Bach was employed. I'm curious to go in and sit in on a service, but Mark is uncomfortable about this, so we don't. There's a suspicious-looking man standing in the shadows outside a church, smoking a cigarette. I know the government is on the ropes, but it hasn't collapsed yet and I wonder if the man is a Stasi officer. Of course, I could just be oversensitive. The massacres in Timisoara have already begun: banners on the churches urge prayers for Romania; memorial candles burn on the sidewalk. It's also on East German television: announcements on where to send money to help Romania.
We eat dinner in the hotel restaurant, the only place open in town. I pay for dinner with Ost-Marks and the waiter gives a start, as if I had pulled down my pants in front of him. He takes the money.
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December 25, 1989 - Leipzig/Berlin
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Christmas Day in Leipzig was less depressing than Christmas Eve. The sun was shining and the sky was clear, although the air still stank. We saw one of the culprits: a tall smokestack spewing brown smoke over the city. Mark points out that it looks as if the East Germans' idea of pollution control is to build the smokestacks taller.
We take another turn around the town, see a bus full of German soldiers driving around, look in the window of the Polish cultural center at a selection of calendars. A couple were what one might call 'cheesecake,', which was somewhat surprising. Looking into the store windows, it occurred to me what's different about them. In the West, they only put one each of a lot of different things in the window, giving the impression of more variety. In the East, they put a lot of the same thing, and it's often some mundane household item, like a plastic bucket.
Some of the cafes in the city, which were closed, looked elegant. There were several references in shop windows and plaques to Goethe's Faust, which was set in Leipzig. I ought to read it.
Graffiti is overwhelmingly of the leftist type - against Nazis and racism, although there are a few swastikas and anti-foreign graffiti (against the 'brown plague'). Some of the interior shopping arcades (like Parisian passages) seem like they were at one time quite elegant. On the drive out of town, we pass streets and apartment blocks that at one time were probably quite genteel, but now past their prime. Into the countryside. Now there are more western cars on the highway.
When we were checking out, Mark wanted to pay our mini-bar bill in West-Marks, but wanted change in Ost-Marks, whether for a souvenir or just to have some Ost-Marks in his pocket I don't know. The woman behind the desk looks at us like we're crazy. She says that we surely know that the rate is only one-to-one. We decide to take the West-Marks. She says she'd do the same. This at a government hotel.
Mark thought that many of the stores in Leipzig were privately owned, but I don't think so. In Czechoslovakia we later learn that they are not. In Hungary I learn that many of them are. We never got the definitive answer about East Germany.
Lots of heavy industry visible from the road - many smokestacks. Mark points out that they were once considered a symbol of prosperity.
We decide to get off the highway just before crossing into West Berlin, in order to take a look at Potsdam. Last time I was in Berlin, we could have taken the tram from East Berlin to Potsdam, but it would have been illegal on our day visas, so we didn't. This time we have a perfectly legal visa, so why not. Potsdam is a bit run down, but nicer than Leipzig. We go to Cecilienhof palace, where the Potsdam conference was held, and then to Sansouci, one of the major Berlin palaces. We see lots of Russian trucks and jeeps. Soldiers. Cecilienhof is built in the style of an English country manor; it's quite nice, with a hotel even - and it's right by the Wall. It's strange seeing the Wall so soon and so unexpectedly, and from the other side. Sansouci is very run down, although at one time it must have been quite splendid. It looked a little sad. There were lots of West Berlin cars in the palace parking lot. Have they always come here, or is this connected with the new visa-free travel?
On the way back to the highway, we see lots of kids in their school uniforms going home. What are they doing in school on Christmas? Lots of pointing at the car - we wave back.
We get to the border. It only takes 15 minutes; we're waved right through. Somehow I feel I'm on home ground. The highway is that of a western city, which of course it is. We go to the hotel which seems to be fairly old, not particularly fancy, but with a nice, enormous room.
West Berlin feels 'finished' to me, even though there are still gaping wounds: the Wall, the Anhalter Bahnhof, the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedachtnis [Memorial] Church. I think it's a matter of use of space.
We walk by the old Anhalter Bahnhof. It's kind of spooky. Before the war, this was the biggest train station in Berlin. Now all that's left is the facade and one arch. A sign says a park will be planted there. That's about all they should do with it, provided they still leave the ruin.
We go to the Wall. People are still hammering away at it, like they were a month ago. Most of the lower graffiti, within reach of people, is now gone. There are a number of large holes in the Wall that weren't there before. Some of the larger ones are covered with rusted steel plates; the East Germans don't want people walking through. Large crowds are still promenading alongside the Wall. One difference - lots of people are selling pieces. Kids have cut large, flat pieces out of it and have laid them out on a sheet for sale. Mark buys one.
At a hole in the Wall I see an East German border guard looking through. I smile at him and say 'Guten Tag.' He smiles back and answers. It's nice.
I buy some t-shirts for my brothers and friends. The selection of t-shirts is smaller than it was the last time I was here. The Potsdamerplatz crossing is still very busy, although most of the crowd is people crossing rather than crowds watching, as it was when I was there a month before - the week after the Wall was opened. There are no crowds applauding every Trabi that comes through, and no people giving away free flowers or cookies anymore.
We go to the Brandenburger Tor. There are people passing through holes in the wall in a long line; it was just opened the day before. I approach a couple and ask who can go through. They say only West Berliners with an ID card can use this crossing. They take pity on me and tell me that foreigners can cross at Checkpoint Charlie or the Friedrichstrasse Bahnhof, which I already knew.
There are big crowds entering and leaving, but the East Germans had things well in hand, giving out visas from the unusual briefcase/desks strapped to their chests that East German border guards often carry. I heard that when the gate opened, the East Germans had to give up the idea of checking passports; there were just too many people. Kohl and Modrow were upstaged, and had to flee the crowd.
There are people promenading around the Reichstag. It's nice to see people enjoying their city. Near the Reichstag are memorials for people killed crossing the Wall. It's very moving. Some were simply labelled 'Unbekannt,' and later someone who knew who they were wrote their names in. Others who were already identified had life details filled in by friends. Near this was the river Spree with railings and steps along the side, like a swimming pool, so that swimmers who escaped could climb out. Across the river, East Berlin looked like a prison.
On the Ku-Damm, the main street of West Berlin, there's lots of life. People promenading, a Christmas fair, restaurants open. It was great. We went to the Sudstern area, in Kreuzberg, where several guidebooks said that the Berlin 'scene' was centered. I went there a month ago and couldn't find any life, and went back this time looking in different places and still couldn't find anything. Maybe it used to be the center of the scene.
[A short digression on my previous trip to Berlin, the month before. As I said, we kind of planned that trip on the spur of the moment, and took the train from Zurich to Berlin, with a change in Basel. The train went via Frankfurt. The destination signs on the train were an adventure in itself, like something out of 'The Spy Who Came in from the Cold': 'Basel SBB - Frankfurt Hbf - Berlin Zoo. - Warszawa - Moskva'. We could have stayed on the train an extra day and stepped off in Moscow. Doug told us later (he had come up to Berlin a day later to join us), that one car on the train was a real old-style car with wooden fittings and Cyrillic lettering.
[The train was full by the time it left Frankfurt; people were sleeping in the corridor. As I mentioned, this was the week after the Wall was opened. In the next compartment were a pair of Americans who were carrying cassette recorders (to record people's impressions) and hammers and chisels (for obvious reasons). We later heard that the biggest building supply store in Berlin was completely sold out of hammers and chisels that weekend.
[We arrived in Berlin Zoo Station in West Berlin after travelling all night. Inside the station it was pandemonium. Crowds of people everywhere, as we expected. We wanted to get a hotel room as soon as possible, so we started looking for the tourist office. We instinctively got on a line, but soon learned that this was a line for Begruessungsgeld, the 100 DM that the West German government promised to East Germans who came west to visit or settle. All over the city we saw these lines - even early Sunday morning in the outlying district of Spandau people were lined up for their money. We heard that the demand was so great that some banks were running out of cash.
[Outside the city is already awake. There are crowds of people walking around, looking in shop windows. From their dress, they're most likely East German. Later we saw them crowded into the giant KaDeWe department store. West Berlin newspapers have published special editions greeting the visitors and advising them on the entertainment and activities going on that weekend. Every political group is handing out flyers, discussing the numerous possibilities for the German future. Near the Kaiser Wilhelm church, the Social Democratic Party is having a rally, with music and handing out posters celebrating Berlin. We get to the Europa Centrum a big indoor mall, where the tourist and hotel office is. Lloyd makes a wrong turn, then comes back and tells us there are hundreds of people sleeping on the floor in there. We get to the tourist office, get out room, and run into a young East German who wants to know where he can get a street map of the city like the one I have. We get a room, and dump our stuff there, then head toward the Wall, which I'd never seen before. We go to the Potsdamer Platz, which was once the busiest crossroads in Berlin, and possibly in Europe. Now it's a no-man's land between the walls. At the place where the Potsdamer Platz used to be, a hole has been cut in the Wall, big enough to admit cars, and a road has been constructed. The East Germans have set up a crossing point there. Around the hole is a big crowd and television crews. Trabis are crossing through the hole, the drivers beaming. Each car that crosses is applauded by the crowd. |
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