FOCUS
East Berlin border
guards on the wall
days after it opened
WHEN
EAST
MEETS
WEST
25 YEARS ON FROM THE FALL
OF THE BERLIN WALL, LILLIAN
McDOWALL FINDS IT STILL HAS A
LINGERING IMPACT ON THE CITY
O
n November 9, 1989, the scenes
of jubilant people queuing to
cross the Berlin Wall from east to
west were beamed into our living
rooms. The infamous wall that
divided a city for 28 years had opened and the
people of East Berlin swarmed, cheering,
into the land of freedom and capitalism that
was West Berlin, some with as many of their
possessions as they could carry.
More than 100,000 East Germans had tried
to escape the regime, and at least 136 people
were killed trying to make their escape,
many shot by border guards.
Tomorrow, the 25th anniversary of the
historic moment the wall fell is celebrated,
and how times have changed. The Trabantdriving Eastern Germans or Ossis, as they
were known by their western counterparts,
many of whom were desperate to escape the
east to enjoy western luxuries, would have
laughed at the notion that a quarter of a
century later East Berlin is now the place
that many flock to, the grand Communist
boulevards seen as a desirable place to live.
The pace of gentrification of the east has
been fast – no more the miles and miles of
grey buildings, as many streets look like
they have featured in a Dulux advert, so
colourful are some of the old facades. The
sight of cranes, scaffolding and the noise
of construction is also never far away.
In the run-up to this celebration, I am
here to see how the city and its people
have changed. I am staying in one of the
countless boutique hotels which have
14 the herald magazine 08.11.14
08.11.14 the herald magazine
15
focus
sprung up in the former eastern Mitte
district. The chic i31 Hotel, complete with
its German-style inner garden, is just a
short walk from the new main train station,
Hauptbahnhof. Opened in 2006, the giant
glass construction took over from Zoo
Station in the west and Alexanderplatz in
the east and is a milestone in the binding
together of the city’s very different parts.
I head south towards Rosenthaler Platz,
where cafes, restaurants and bars abound in
this popular gentrified neighbourhood, then
along the trendy Torstrasse which has been
transformed in recent years into a street of
chic boutiques and bars.
Stopping off in the cafe Zur Rose is like
stepping back 30 years in time. The Formicatopped tables, mismatching chairs and
kitsch wallpaper make this one of the nicer
old eastern experiences. This Ostalgie – as
the nostalgia for the old east is known – is
all around. For some people it’s a genuine
desire to go back to the old regime of no
unemployment, a state that looked after you
and the old eastern brands of food which
disappeared along with the country.
But for others, Ostalgie forgets the reality
which for some was life or death. Hundreds
of people were killed trying to escape over
or under the 3.6 metre high wall to the
west, while 5,075 are known to have made a
successful bid for freedom at points along
the 155km boundary.
I head to Berlin on Bike, a cycle tour
company housed in an old east brewery
which is now a cultural centre in the
trendy Prenzlauer Berg district to find out
more about the dark side. I’m taking the
Eastern Tour, so first we head out to the wall
memorial at Bernauer Strasse, where some
of the original wall still stands, while missing
parts are represented by huge iron bars.
In one of the few political events
planned to mark the milestone, tomorrow
German Chancellor Angela Merkel will
open the renovated Berlin Wall Memorial
Documentation Centre at this site, with
eyewitness accounts and readings planned.
In the park the memorial to those who
lost their lives brings the reality home, with
pictures of many who died in their break
for freedom. An image of one little girl
highlights the brutality of the East German
regime, which would stop at nothing to
prevent citizens escaping. This monument
sits in the garden next to the 1.4km former
border strip which reveals the grey prisonstyle walls which kept the east and west
divided and documented the timeline of
events which led to its demise.
Back on two wheels and cycling on the
kind of bike lanes we can only dream of in
Scotland, we head along big boulevards to
the eastern periphery of the city where the
Stasi, or state security, prison was located.
Now a memorial, it was where political
prisoners (or anyone who did not live
according to party guidelines) were taken,
tortured and held.
My guide Andre tells me the youngest boy
brought here was just 14 after he questioned
the country’s politics in his classroom. Nine
of today’s guides are former inmates of the
prison, known as Hohenschoenhausen.
Next we head a few kilometres south to the
Ministry for State Security HQ, past miles
and miles of grey prefabricated buildings.
Cycling under a nondescript archway in one
of them takes us into a courtyard described
as “a notorious compound”.
It’s where the Stasi orders came from
– where they “fought the enemies of the
Socialist Unity Party of Germany” with
their Marxist-Leninst ideology – and also
where the infamous Stasi files are held.
Throughout the regime’s 40-year history, the
secret police spied on, bugged and followed
people they termed citizens of interest
and their findings were meticulously
documented and filed in an adjoining
building to the headquarters. With 111km of
files and more than 1.7 million photographs
in the archives, even today German citizens
can apply for their Stasi files.
“I applied to see if they had a file on me
but there was none,” says Andre, who is
from a village in the east. “But there are
files on my parents and my grandfather.”
It was a daily fact of life in the east and one
that continues to astonish and fascinate.
He says they asked his grandfather to
spy but he refused, so this led to his
observation. Blanket surveillance was made
possible with 91,000 Stasi workers aided
by the 189,000 spies known as unofficial
collaborators.
We head along the wide and grand
Karl-Marx Allee back to the centre of
A line of East German Trabant cars pass into the west the day
after the wall opened. Border guards looked on as people
hammered against the hated structure
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08.11.14 the herald magazine
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FOCUS
Berlin. Much of the old eastern boulevard
is now protected by heritage laws and
the flats are now outwith the financial
reach of the workers they were built for.
At the end of the row of grand
apartments, grey prefabricated towers
stand next to an area of grass with
concrete stones.
“This is where a 3.5 tonne statue of Lenin
stood,” says Andre. City officials removed
the granite head in 1991 after the fall of the
old regime, using a crane as it was so heavy,
and buried it in Koepenick Forest in the
outskirts of the city.
“Now they want to use the head as part
of an exhibition on Communist and Nazi
monuments of the past but first the city
officials said no, then they said yes but now
they say they’ve lost it. Someone must
know where they buried it. You can’t lose
a 3.5-tonne head!”
After cycling 22km, I wander down to the
east’s gallery district Auguststrasse. This
area became a huge draw for artists when
the wall came down, with cheap rents and
big spaces, but the artists are now returning
to the west as the rents as now so expensive
in this area.
I stop off at a former Jewish girls’ school
which is now a major arts centre that
houses a Michelin-starred restaurant, but I
head into its neighbour for a quick bite, the
New York-style deli Mogg & Melzer which
serves Jewish-style dishes in keeping with
its heritage. Art and history seem to be
everywhere in Berlin, so keeping on an arts
theme, I take the underground south east to
the East Side Gallery. At 1316 metres long,
it is the largest remaining single piece of
the wall to stand as it was, except for the
fact that artists were invited to paint on the
east side of the wall which was forbidden
under the old regime. Artists with a Berlin
connection from all over the world were
hand-picked to paint on a section – including
Margaret Hunter from Ayrshire, who has
lived in this city for 30 years. Her double
head painting represents the two faces of
Germany, while famous images include the
Trabi bursting through the wall and the
Honecker and Brezhnev socialist kiss.
Travel notes
Getting there:
easyJet flies from
Glasgow to Berlin up
to five times per week
with prices starting
from £23.99 per
person (one-way,
including taxes and
based on two people
on the same booking.
www.easyjet.com)
S
Where to stay:
i31 hotel, rooms from
€100 per night, visit
www.hotel-i31.de/en
What to do:
Berlin on Bike run
various guided tours
from €14, visit www.
berlinonbike.de
Berlin Wall Memorial
charts the history
www.berliner-mauergedenkstaette.de
East Side Gallery is
free to visit www.
eastsidegalleryberlin.de
A door at painted sections of the Berlin Wall, a wall of
remembrnace for people who lost their lives trying to escape
and the famous Honecker and Brezhnev socialist kiss.
o 25 years on from reunification,
how have the people reunified?
East verses west still seems to
be an issue for older generations
at least, and the joining of two
very different cultures certainly appears
to be taking time in stark contrast to the
simple act of bulldozing a wall. When I meet
Martin, a West Berliner friend who was six
when the wall went up, I realise this is
something he never mentions until asked.
He says: “I am a West Berliner by chance
– all my father’s family were in the east but
my dad had a job in the west and moved us
there. When the wall went up it took him
about 12 years to come to terms with the fact
that we had to apply for a permit to see my
grandfather and aunts once or maybe twice
a year at most.
“For me, it was just normal because that
was always the case.”
GRAND
HOGMANAY
GALA BALL
in The Barony Ballroom
31st DECEMBER 2014 ,
7.30PM – 3AM
4 COURSE AND COFFEE CHOICE MENU
He adds: “I would still never drive in the
east because of the trams – we don’t have
them in the west and I was never used to
that.”
Indeed, a recent study found that
Germany is still very much divided by
a social wall, despite the physical wall’s
demise 25 years ago. Another friend I ask
confirms this, adding: “I have friends in the
east and friends in the west but I would still
never mix the groups.”
For younger generations the lines seem
more blurred, the memories of a divided city
less distinct.
Berlin will celebrate the 25th anniversary
by lighting up the path of the former wall
with a light installation of 8000 balloons
which will stretch past monuments such as
the Brandenburg Gate, Potsdamer Platz and
Checkpoint Charlie.
The bricks may be down but some of the
emotional barriers and differences it created
will take generations to fade from the
psyche of many.
However, that barrier and the history
which seems to be awash in the streets –
from the double brick line that zigzags its
way throughout Berlin to show where the
wall once stood to the idiosyncrasies of a
once-divided city that has two of everything
– make walking along the streets of this city
an endlessly fascinating and sometimes jawdropping journey of discovery. n
For all 25th anniversary Berlin Wall events
www.visitberlin.de/en
NEW YEAR
GRAND GALA
BUFFET
DANCE
(Live Disco)
1st January 2015, 7pm - 1am
£37 per person,
£21 for Children under 12, £10 for infants under 5
RESIDENTIAL SPECIAL
PACKAGE RATES:
Stay 30th & 31st December 2014 - £185
Stay 31st Dec & 1st Jan 2015 - £205
1st January - Family Afternoon Quiz included in the two & three night packages.
1 Night Package on 31st December £135 per person
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The Gylnhill Hotel and Leisure Club, Junction 27 M8, Paisley Road, Renfrew, PA4 8XB
18 the herald magazine 08.11.14
08.11.14 the herald magazine
19