15Sep / 2014

The Darker Sides of Berlin’s History

 
Yep, that would be the Berlin Wall behind me, there in the background. We are sitting in a cafe on the Western Side of the city next to the longest surviving portion of wall, which also includes the no man’s land that sprung up, in time, to keep East Germans from defecting across (or as it’s frequently called here, voting with their feet.)
 
Today was a tough day for touring. We visited a Ghost Station at Nordbanhof, the Wall Memorial and the former Stasi prison Berlin-Hohenschonhausen. First, a bit about Ghost Stations:
When the city was divided, a number of train lines were blocked outright. However a number of lines which had only one or two stops in East Germany but continued through to West Germany were permitted to continue running (at substantial cost to the West) but the trains were prohibited from stopping at the stations in the East. The trains would slow to a crawl and pass through the stations where armed guards (above) waited in bunkers and along the platforms. Nordbanhof was one of these stations and was of particular concern to the East Germans because one half of the station opened into West Germany, the other in East.
 
After a number of escapes through the tunnels, including some by the guards assigned to watch the Ghost Stations, the defenses and fortifications of the stations became as severe as the death strip between the outer and inner walls that made up “The Berlin Wall.” Emergency exits were locked and walled, ceilings were lowered so people couldn’t ride the top of the trains to freedom and guards were locked inside their booths.
 
Just outside the Nordbahnhof station (now a thriving little commuter stop) is the Berlin Wall Memorial.
The German government, having recognized that the Checkpoint Charlie business has taken history for a terrible dogleg, has begun to financially support the Berlin Wall Memorial. This section of wall was the first to be constructed, and it ran right down the middle of what was then Bernauer Straße, cutting a neighborhood and a church congregation right in half. The Memorial itself goes on for almost a mile and contains the last unmolested stretch of wall and the last remaining guard tower in the no man’s land called the death strip. To keep it pristine the area with the tower is walled off but you can see it from an observation deck across the street (above).
The wall and the death strip essentially bisected a church that was eventually razed so the death strip could be fortified. This is part of the original foundation discovered when the fortifications were torn out.

 

A panorama photo of the area between the walls (the original wall is marked by the rebar on the left, that was the Western border or the “outer wall”. The wall on the right is the “inner wall” and the border of East Germany.
These little “incident markers” dot the mile long Memorial. This one identifies where a Grenzhaus (a border house) was demolished, it’s population evacuated and forcibly moved. The border houses were so close to the wall (and it’s predecessor) that people would jump from the windows to freedom, their death, or sometimes the waiting nets of the West German feuerwehr (fire department).
This is the memorial to the men, women, and children who died trying to make a direct attempt at crossing the wall. The last person to be killed in the attempt was a 20 year old man. He was killed by East German guards nine months before the wall fell in 1989.

And then, as if all of that wasn’t enough of the dark and terrible, afterward Jim and I headed out to the main remand center for political prisoners of the East German government, Hohenschonhausen. Before I get to the prison, a note about that part of town.

 

We took public transit to get out to the prison which is not a big tourist draw. It is way out of the way, only runs one tour per day in English at the single most inconvenient time of the day when everything runs 10-6 (2:30) and you can’t wander the grounds on your own. One has to really want to see it to see it. As we were riding out toward the prison, you could tell the entire area was once East Germany. It was more than the architecture (though that was a lot of it). It just had a feel like you’d stepped backwards. The wall only fell 25 years ago, and it shows still. While the area where our hotel is (tourist area) has been brought up to the new century, the area around the prison hasn’t and in fact many of the apartment blocks are in buildings where the Stasi used to steam open people’s mail (every single piece of post sent in or to East Germany was read, 100,000 a day).

Prison on the left, Stasi mechanics building straight ahead, now apartments.
Hohenschonhausen

 

Most of the guides at the prison were former prisoners of the Stasi in Hohenschonhausen. The prison was so secret and the prisoners held in such isolation that one now guide only discovered he had been a prisoner in this particular facility when he came one day to take a tour and recognized the linoleum flooring. Though prisoners were kept in relatively good conditions, the Stasi were masters of psychological torture, so while the prison was held up as a model of international standards, the terror they inflicted would never be “seen”.

Prison in dark gray. The white area was all Stasi controlled offices and workshops where they built and perfected surveillance equipment.

 

We leave Berlin tomorrow for Munich. If Jim thought he was having a good time with the beer in Berlin he is in for a treat in Bavaria, land of pretzels, beer, and pork knuckles. (Oh dear god don’t get me started on the sauerkraut; and normally I don’t even like the stuff!)

 

No secret message today, this Stasi business has me looking over my shoulder. 🙂

 

Miss you all!

 

-Robin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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