WAITING IN BERLIN
By Dick Meister
It was 18 years ago that the Berlin Wall finally fell, one of the last
vestiges of the Cold War. But though it's long gone, I and I'm sure many
others have not forgotten that Soviet-erected barrier which had stood
for 28 years as a nearly impenetrable divider between the Soviet East and
the West.
I especially remember the first time I saw the wall, just after it went up
in 1961. The atmosphere was incredibly tense, a tension that my wife Gerry
and I found almost too acute to describe.
West Berliners sat at sidewalk cafes downtown, chatting amiably but without
gaiety. Genuine relaxation seemed impossible because of the
newly-constructed wall that stood just a few miles away. Out there the
crowds were greater, but almost no one was talking.
It was a warm day in October.
The night before, an East Berliner had tried to get beyond the wall. Police
chased him from rooftop to rooftop, but he reached a drainpipe on a
building fronting on West Berlin.
West Berlin police fired across the wall, hoping to give the young man
opportunity to reach the sidewalk and the freedom he had shouted for. But he
lost his grip and fell to his death.
On the spot that fall afternoon lay wreaths, placed there by some of the
West Berliners who stood in the large, quiet crowds lining the streets that
bordered the wall. Twice before, their vigil had been broken. That had come
earlier in the day, when the East Berlin police had fired across the wall,
though without doing damage.
What would be next? Would it be just pistol fire? The crowd didn't know,
so it waited. Here was the East-West confrontation in a single frightening
capsule.
Rows and rows of red flags and the flags of the East's German Democratic
Republic waved overhead. The wall below them was a crude structure hurriedly
constructed of used brick, but sturdy and topped with wicked-looking barbed
wire and jagged chunks of broken glass.
Above the wall, caps of the East Berlin police standing guard were
everywhere evident. Here and there a guard in bright green uniform showed
himself -- always with at least two comrades, their grimness in contrast to
the outward ease of the gray-uniformed West Berlin police standing across
the street from them, smiling as they chatted with the curious onlookers.
At one spot, East Berlin workmen were heightening the wall, placidly gazing
now and then at the intently staring West Berliners. An attractive young
woman on the West Berlin side sauntered to within a few feet of the spot and
casually pointed a camera into the face of a guard peering over. For what
must have been the thousandth time, he allowed his photo to be taken. Then,
for just a moment, the crisis was forgotten.
Other guards popped up to catch a glimpse of the woman, and one bantered
with her suggestively. A nervous titter started through the crowd, but no
one laughed out loud. The onlookers seemed embarrassed. The titter died away
quickly and nerves were once more drawn taut.
A West Berliner shouted insults at the guards. His dog barked at them.
Then it was quiet again, except for the occasional roar of military jeeps as
they sped through the city's western sector, constantly patrolling the wall.
On some street corners, West Berliners stood on ladders, looking across and
above the wall through binoculars, waving at East Berliners in far-off
buildings. In the upper floors of buildings on either side, people leaned
from windows to view the scene below.
On both sides, the buildings mirrored desolation. Most showed heavy scars
from the bombs of World War II and near them were piles of rubble. In the
West, however, there were some new apartment houses, and laden fruit stands
and bright shops.
But there was a greater difference, far beyond shops, buildings and the
attitude of police. Whatever else was felt on the western side of the wall,
it was not the helplessness and desolation that hovered on the other side.
Just beyond the wall in East Berlin stood a church, with a statue of Christ
out front, beckoning. But close by the church stood armed guards in green
uniforms, there to keep people from the simple act of crossing from one side
of a street to another.
Copyright © Dick Meister