The Fall of the Berlin Wall; Flashback to East Berlin, November 9, 1989

From my journal:

Visit to the German Democratic Republic, 4-12 November 1989.

4.11.1989

I depart for the German Democratic Republic. I’ll be in East Berlin on 9^th November.

(At the end of August East German refugees were beginning to arrive in Prague in large numbers: one of the first things that the West German Cultural Attaché did was to arrange to meet the refugees’ demand for English lessons. He approached my office for teaching materials, which were willingly supplied. Conditions in the German Embassy’s muddy garden and overcrowded tents soon became too bad for such educational activities, and blankets took priority over English Language Teaching books. It was against this background of ever-increasing numbers of GDR refugees deserting their country that I flew to East Berlin).

The hard-liners are still in control, allowing no contact with Westerners, unless with approved fellow travellers.

On November 3^rd half a million people demonstrated in favour of change.

On November 5^th I visited the Wilhelm Pieck University in Rostock. Professor Dr.sc. Horst Hőhne, the distinguished Shelley scholar once wrote, in “Literature as Liberation: On the Work of Arnold Kettle (1916-1986), Teacher, Critic, Communist”:

“To my generation of Germans who, after 1945, had come out of war and fascism and who grasped for human values in an atmosphere of material and ideological loss, experienced and devoted British communists like Leslie Morton, Alick West and Arnold Kettle were like father-figures…They did not start a ‘re-education’ programme but just set to work together with us to build a future which to them was as urgent as to us. So we had to rise to the level of their expectation”.

Prof Dr habil Rolf Berndt, an elderly linguistic scientist and English grammar expert, had had to fight in the war at he age of 17. He became a Prisoner of War, and interested in English. He’s sad and uncertain about the future, ill with cancer and lacking the energy to participate in the current changes. He wishes it had happened ten years earlier but he’s worried whether it means “a return to capitalism”, as he is sure will happen in Hungary. He’s saddened by the sight of young people leaving in such numbers. He says he was always sincerely motivated by his generation’s determination (having been betrayed by Fascism and Nazi-ism) “never to let it happen again.” English Studies became a tool never to let it happen again, a “tool for peaceful understanding and socialist idealism”. “The younger people take much for granted, they are unaware of the amount of progress made and the struggles endured; they want English for the normal reasons of an international youth culture, for computers and travel, and perhaps for a materialistic future in the West.” But, Professor Berndt insisted, “There are other things than material goods to live for”; he admitted it was easy for intellectuals to say so, they prefer (highly subsidised) books and LPs to fashionable things and gadgets: perhaps books were not what the common people wanted? This was “the second tragedy” in his life. The first tragedy was the betrayal by Fascism, and the second – not the protest and demonstrations – the mass exodus to the West by fine young people with their babies and youngsters, the effect on their families. One fairly typical lady in the department was sure her offspring would never leave; one day she woke up to find her son gone, too, a tragic blow.

Professor Berndt’s greatest anxiety is that “Socialism may turn out to be just an intellectual’s utopia, never realisable by human beings”. He seems to be a sad and broken man, who has just realised that for the last forty years he has been ‘living a lie’ or that all his ideals may have been based on false foundations.

Their text books on English history, by the likes of Leslie Morton and Dave Morgan, underpin the traditional GDR presentation of the British as the “klassenfeind” (class-enemy), a nation experiencing the “crisis of capitalism” from Neolithic times to the present, and of English as an “imperialistic language”.

8.11.89

Potsdam.

Met Professor Dr. Wolfgang Wicht at the Pedagogische Hochschule. His wife works for educational television. She was once told to “find examples of the misery of the English working-class”, when filming in England. She apparently looked hard, and couldn’t find examples. Eventually she found a tramp who lived in a miserable basement and filmed him, as a typical worker. This series is still shown on GDR TV (“English for You”).

9.11.89

Leipzig and East Berlin.

An historic day, a date that future historians may use to symbolise the end of the Cold War or of the Second World War, even, the day on which East Germany’s borders were to be declared open.

The British Cultural Attaché kindly took me to see West Berlin in the evening. The Wall looked just like it had always done. There was a rather bored-looking West German TV crew with cranes and cameras located directly in front of the Brandenburg Gate. We assumed that they were preparing to film a location scene for a TV drama. There were few other people showing any interest in the area on a cold, drizzly evening. It was the greatest irony that while my colleague was driving me the “long way round” to re-enter East Berlin from East Germany rather than from West Berlin (because we do not recognise East Berlin as the capital of the GDR, and cannot recognise their right to put stamps in our passports, which would imply recognition of such often-claimed status), it was announced on the radio that the Wall would be opened, and that all GDR citizens could henceforth leave the country and travel freely to West Berlin!

I was glad to have the chance to inspect the Wall from both sides that historic night. The TV crew on the West Berlin side was soon in action. They had clearly been tipped off, well in advance. The Wall was opened; thousands crossed to West Berlin through Checkpoint Charlie. West Berliners called, “Come Over! Come over!” East Berliners headed for the Kurfurstendam. New Forum demanded a reform of the education system amongst demands for free elections and a separation of the Party from the State. “A step towards a Europe that is whole and free”, said President Bush. “Eventual reunification?” asked the BBC.

10.11.89

An unforgettable experience to see East Berliners pouring over to West Berlin and returning in the evening with their plastic bags from Herties, with oranges, cassette radios and budget-priced Johnny Cash LPs, all bought with their 100 DM “Begrussungsgeld”.

11.11.89

A source of amazement to diplomats in East Berlin to see the daily changes in the newspaper “Neues Deutschland”.

As Volker Braun wrote in the supplement of 11/12 November:

“Wir erleben die grősste demokratische Bewegung in Deutschland seit 1918…Sie (die Massen) verabschieden sich aus dem zentralischtischen Sozialismus”.

Only a few days earlier, the famous novelist Christa Wolf had made a moving appeal on GDR-TV (8.11.89):

“Wir alle sind tief beunruhigt. Wir sehen die Tausende, die täglich unser Land verlassen…Wir bitten Sie, bleiben Sie doch in Ihrer Heimat, bleiben Sie bei uns!”

Postscript

A Great Day for Freedom, Pink Floyd

A year earlier, Bruce Springsteen in East Germany - 19/07/88 - EAST GERMANY - BERLIN, RADRENNBAHN WEISSENSEE


Erinnerung an den 9. November 1989 in Nairobi/Kenia, von Ute Gräfin Baudissin

(Recollections of 9 November 1989 in Nairobi, Kenya, by Countess Ute von Baudissin, Goethe Institut)