Berlin Wall Installations in the United States
Documentation with Commentary
A comprehensive guidebook to extant segments of the Berlin Wall makes the
point that “Because it was overcome peacefully and unexpectedly, the Berlin Wall is
perceived today [2004], internationally at least, primarily as a positively charged site
… In Berlin and Germany, however, there is hardly an awareness of any positive
values connected to the Wall.”1 My intent is to test the validity of this thesis and so
to define the long-term cultural significance and meaning of the Mauer as a physical
artifact. While the focus is on the installation of some 100 segments of the Berlin
Wall in the United States, these are, taken collectively, interpreted as a particularly
American variant of Berlin’s essentially ‘official’ memorial culture. The
introductory section comments briefly on Berlin, where sites are driven by
historical, ideological and touristic imperatives. It establishes a baseline for the
discussion of US installations in terms of a typology based on location – 1)
installations at memory sites for US presidents, 2) installations at governmental /
military locations and 3) those at civilian museums and educational institutions.
1
Axel Klausmeier, Leo Schmidt, Wall Remnants – Wall Traces. The Comprehensive
Guide to the Berlin Wall (Berlin: Westkreuz 2004) 21. The guide is an extremely
detailed documentation of any and all remnants of the barrier system on the East
Berlin / West Berlin divide. For a more recent overview of Berlin Wall sites in
Berlin, see Rainer E. Klemke, “Zwischen Verschwinden und Gedenken. Die
Erinnerung an die Berliner Mauer heute,” in: Anna Kaminsky, ed., Die Berliner
Mauer in der Welt (Berlin: Berlin Story Verlag 2009), 214 – 227. This volume is
published under the aegis of the Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SEDDiktatur. –
1
Within each category a ‘close reading’ of several exemplary installations is offered –
the Kennedy and Reagan presidential libraries, 2) CIA headquarters and the
National Air Force Museum, 3) the Newseum in Washington, DC, and at the
National Underground Railroad Museum and Freedom Center in Cincinnati.
Finally, consideration is given to virtual sites, specifically to the web site of the
German Information Center as well as to the public diplomacy initiative of the
German Embassy, “Freedom without Walls.” As a result, the US ‘brand’ of Berlin
Wall memorial culture is defined.
I.
The several memorials to the Berlin Wall in situ and installations of
Mauersegmente in Berlin proper come instantly to mind. The Gedenkstätte Berliner
Mauer on Bernauerstrasse, a work still very much in progress, may stand pars pro
toto for memorials incorporating a significant remnant of the barrier.2 The thirteenhundred meter East Side Gallery along Mühlenstrasse, a most conveniently situated
touristic draw with its recently restored post-fall artwork, participates in the agenda
of officially sanctioned memory culture.3 The lengthy sweep of unadorned and
2
See >>www.berliner-mauer-gedenkstaette.de<< as well as Gerhard Sälter,
Mauerreste in Berlin. Relicts of the Berlin Wall, Miriamne Fields, tr. (Berlin: Verein
Berliner Mauer Gedenkstätte und Dokumentationszentrum e.V. 2007). By 2006 and
„Following long and intense deliberations, the elements of the border system along
Bernauer Strasse that had not yet been dismantled or destroyed were redesigned
into a memorial to recall ‚the division of the city and commemorate the victims of
Communist tyranny’. “ (39)
3
A brochure available at the Gallery explains: „Officially inaugurated as the East
Side Gallery in September 1990, today [2009] this fragment is supposed to show less
of the regime terror and their victims, but particularly the euphoria at the fall of the
2
ragged Mauer situated along Niederkirchnerstrasse is in dialogue with the soon-tobe
reconfigured
Topographie
des
Terrors
site
--
a
locus
of
complex
Vergangenheitsbewältigung if there ever was one -- but it is currently rendered
inaccessible and “unter Denkmalschutz” by a sturdy Metallgitterzaun. And lest we
forget, possibly the most elegant memorial is the trace of cobblestones embedded in
the city’s pavement, reminding both the touristic flaneur and workaday Berliner of
what once was and where, even if actual segments of the Wall are in not view.
Several times removed from the actual concrete structure, the photographic and
video displays of the temporary (and soon to be permanent) “Open-Air-Ausstellung
zur Freiheitsbewegung in der DDR” on Alexanderplatz are installed on stainless steel
sets (perhaps inadvertently) reminiscent of wall segments,4 not to mention that the
viewer may fly along the Wall by observing a continuous digital loop just below
ground at the entrance to U55 at the Haltestelle “Unter den Linden” not far from
the Brandenburg Gate. All of these and the so-called “Parlament der Bäume”
installation along the Spree facing the Reichstag makes apparent that in Berlin Mitte
and beyond, the Mauer is hard to overlook, difficult to forget. Even the celebratory
events leading up to and culminating on November 9, 2009, the temporary
installation of colorfully decorated Styrofoam wall segments in a line stretching
wall.” 188 artists from 21 nations participated in the painting of the segments. The
entire Gallery is unter Denkmalschutz.
4
See Kulturprojekte Berlin GmbH, ed., >>Wir sind das Volk!<< Magazin zur
Ausstellung Friedliche Revolution 1989/90, Berlin 2009. The memorial aspect is
voiced by Lord Mayor Wowereit in his Grusswort: “Das Jahr 2009 steht im Zeichen
der Erinnerung an die bewegenden Ereignisse vor 20 Jahren, als die friedliche
Revolution schließlich die Berliner Mauer zum Fall brachte.” (7)
3
from Potsdamer Platz to the Reichstagsufer, that then were bought to fall like so
many dominos, reminded Berlin and the world of the barrier’s former presence.5
The discrete segments of the wall at the entrance and exit from the Haus am
Checkpoint Charlie document and advertise, the latter affording a welcome photo-op
and opportunity for tourists to sign off on the object as they leave the fascinating, if
ideologically strident museum.6 Out in Zehlendorf, the vividly restored graffiti on
the segments at the Allied Museum let out a variegated scream; the ensemble is
framed by a former East Berlin watchtower and the actual guardhouse from
Checkpoint Charlie, all three militant artifacts of Cold War Berlin.7 The six wall
segments apparently installed for the purpose of photo-ops at Potsdamer Platz would
seem out of place, were it not for the fact that they stand on the precise footprint of
the barrier and at the intersection of the former British, American and Soviet
sectors. They remind well-informed tourists of what once was, a past now
superseded by the hyper-modern high-rise structures of Potsdamer Platz. Finally,
the three unadorned segments installed near the exit from the permanent exhibit in
the Museum für deutsche Geschichte document the historical condition of the times
with spare eloquence.8 Their powerful presence closes the display on two millennia
of German history.
5
See Kulturprojekte Berlin GmbH, ed. Dominobuch. Geschichte(n) mit
Dominoeffekt, Berlin 2009. The painted images adorning the some 1000 segments
often replicate or echo the visual symbolism of the actual Mauer.
6
See >>www.mauermuseum.de<< and the trilingual guidebook by Rainer
Hildebrandt, Es geschah an der Mauer (Berlin: Verlag Haus am Checkpoint
Charlie 2000).
7
See >>www.alliertenmuseum.de<<.
8
See >>www.dhm.de<<.
4
II.
The Mauer memorials in situ and the various segments situated around the
metropolis Berlin engage the city and its history with a degree of immediacy hardly
possible in the United States. The ninety-one segments currently installed in this
country – that is, roughly 350 feet of Wall – constitute an interesting variant of
memorial culture.9 The foremost impact upon an understanding of US-American
installations is the loss of the immediate context – the Mauersegment surrounded by
Honolulu’s palms is more than a little exotic (Welt 97-98). Secondly, the average
viewer of an installation in the United States is likely to be less informed than the
average German, less informed even than a curious tourist in Berlin – furthermore,
the person who notices the Hinterlandmauer–installation near DiMillo’s Floating
Restaurant on the Portland, Maine waterfront (Welt 121 – 122)10 is likely more
focused on the pending lobster dinner than on Cold War Berlin. This is not to
undervalue the potential impact of the installation, merely to state the obvious need
for complete explanatory information.
Having said as much, it is not possible to present even a thumbnail sketch of
each American site. Thus, I have thus chosen but several US installations, each of
which typifies a category:
9
By contrast, the aforementioned volume, Die Berliner Mauer in der Welt (footnote
X above), documents 42 sites in Europe, five in Canada, five in Central America, 5
in South America, 1 in Africa, 16 in Asia (Israel is listed here), 1 in Australia, as well
as a rock formation on the planet Mars officially named “Zerbrochene Mauer” by a
German geologist. – Henceforth references to this volume will be parenthetical, i.e.
Welt followed by the page number(s).
10
The assertive statement in caps painted on the section might cause pause, of
course: “FORGET NOT THE TYRANNY OF THIS WALL HORRID PLACE.
NOR THE LOVE OF FREEDOM THAT MADE IT FALL – LAID WASTE.”
5
1) Installations at memory sites for US presidents and other
public figures,
2) Installations at governmental / military sites,
3) Installations at civilian museum sites and educational institutions,
4) the “Freedom without Walls” initiative and the Cincinnati
installation.
While it is clear that these categories are not absolute, it is my intent that such an
exercise in contextualization might approach a definition of Berlin Wall installations
in this country.
Category One: Memory Sites for US Presidents and other Public Figures
Pride of place in this category surely goes to the installation of eight
contiguous segments of the Berliner Mauer at the Winston Churchill Memorial and
Library on the campus of Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri (Welt 132–134).
11
It was there that the British leader held his “Iron Curtain” speech on March 5,
1946 – “An iron curtain has descended across the continent…” – an oration defining
an era. The ensemble was dedicated on November 9, 1990. Then former President
Reagan delivered the dedication address and the artist Edwina Sandys,
granddaughter of Churchill, formally presented her work “Breakthrough” (fig. 1).
The cutout silhouettes of a female and male give the installation its title, the
authentic graffiti unWahr boldly splayed on the surface of the segments impart an
edgy agenda to the display, and, finally, the fact that the nearby Churchill Museum
includes a replica of the famed Checkpoint Charlie guardhouse – among other Cold
11
An illustrated pamphlet, Breakthrough, published by Westminster College
documents the installation in great detail, to include President Reagan’s dedication
address: “In dedicating this magnificent monument, may we dedicate ourselves to
hastening the day when all God’s children live in a world without walls.” (17) – The
last words apparently inspired the title of the 2009 public-diplomacy campaign of
the German Embassy, Washington, D.C. – see >>www.germany.info/without
walls<<.
6
War artifacts and video footage – implicitly contextualizes the sculpture.
Furthermore, looming above “Breakthrough” is Christopher Wren’s Church of St.
Mary the Virgin, a building that withstood the London “Blitz,” a building
purchased, disassembled, shipped, and reconstructed on the Westminster College
campus as a memorial to World War II. Sandy’s “Breakthrough” is, thus, but one
component of a complex ensemble – the church, the wall, the guardhouse neatly
triangulate the post-war era.
The resourceful artist that she is, Edwina Sandys made good use of the
cutouts from the Westminster College installation. The male and female silhouettes
stand in front of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library and Museum in Hyde Park,
New York (Welt 137). The sculptural installation is entitled “Breakfree” (dedicated
1990), an echo of “Breakthrough.” The concrete figures extracted from the Missouri
Mauer monument, link New York to Missouri, Churchill to Roosevelt.
The FDR installation is an anomaly among the other US presidential sites.
Each of the installations connected to Presidents Herbert Hoover (in Iowa; Welt 102
- 103), Kennedy (in Massachusetts; Welt 125-126), Nixon (in California; Welt 115 116), Ford (in Michigan; Welt 130-131),12 Reagan (in California and Washington,
DC; Welt 111-114 and 162-163), George Herbert Walker Bush (in Texas; Welt 151152), and Clinton (location currently unknown; Welt 123-124) burnishes the legacy
12
The caption on a postcard available at the Ford Museum reads: “The peoples of
Eastern Europe have sought freedom and national independence since the end of
World War II. After it was built in 1961, the Berlin Wall came to symbolize their
oppression. It is a great irony that man’s response to the Wall, escape, became one
of the most meaningful and important actions to all freedom-loving men and
women. Donated to the Gerald R. Ford Museum on its 10th anniversary by
Frederick G.H.Meijer.” See also footnote 10 below.
7
of each. That for Hoover, who died in 1964, is justified in the phrase on the plaque:
“Herbert Hoover did not live to see the Berlin Wall crumble, but he never doubted
the ultimate triumph of freedom.” (Welt 102) – The segment in the JFK Library and
Museum was installed in October 1990.
The visitor enters the chronologically
determined path through the exhibits, through JFK’s career – where footage of the
“Ich bin ein Berliner”-speech may be viewed – but it is to the right of the exit from
the entire exhibit area that the Mauersegment rears its presence. As the final object,
it would seem to be the goal of his career, its dominant presence argues for the
Mauerfall as the capstone of his shortened life and presidency.
Like each of the presidential installations, those connected to Nixon, Ford,
and George Herbert Walker Bush serve a largely documentary purpose, even as
they advance the agenda of legacy enhancement, as documented, for example, by
Nixon’s carefully crafted words cited at the display – “We have seen here a wall. A
wall can divide a city, but a wall can never divide a people.” (delivered February 27,
1969 in Berlin; cited Welt 115) or by the less than elegant understatement of Bush at
a press conference on November 9, 1989: “Well, I don’t think any single event is the
end of what you might call the Iron Curtain, but clearly this is a long way from the
harshest Iron Curtain days – a long way from that.” (cited Welt 151). More elegant,
of course, is the sculpture of five horses in front of the Bush museum by the Santa
Fe artist Veryl Goodnight entitled “The Day the Wall came down.” Quite unlike the
four steeds atop the Brandenburg Gate, these horses triumphantly vault crumbled
wall segments, actually realistic remnants of concrete cast in bronze and adorned
with slogans – “Ich bin ein Berliner” / “Wir sind ein Volk” – with names – “Peter
8
Fechter” / “Christian Geoffroy” -- and even with an image of Humpty Dumpty
about to have his great fall.13
True to his “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall !” reputation, President
Reagan’s legacy is celebrated in four installations – twice in California (at the
Reagan Ranch Center, Santa Barbara and at the Presidential Library, Simi Valley),
twice in Washington, D.C. (at the Reagan Building and International Trade Center
and under the dome of the Capitol Building).14 Of all of the installations, the Simi
Valley site overlooking distant hills and splendid Pacific is the most spectacular.15
The butterfly and flower graffiti is an Auftragswerk (by the Berliner Denis Kaun).
Taken together, the segment is staged as an actor performing in a cosmic theater,
sublime theatricality in consonance with Reagan’s political and personal mystique.
As an aside: Bill Clinton, the first president to walk through the newly
accessible Brandenburg Gate (1994), Kanzler Kohl at his side – “Now, together, we
can walk through that gateway [the Brandenburg Gate] to our destiny, to a Europe
united, united in peace, united in freedom, united in progress for the first time in
history. Nothing will stop us. All things are possible. ‘Nichts wird uns aufhalten.
Alles ist möglich. Berlin ist frei.’ ”16– has yet to see the Mauersegment designated for
his library. It was packed in Berlin, delivered to the United States, warehoused in
13
The Goodnight sculpture also stands in Berlin adjacent to the Allied Museum on
Clayallee.
14
Embedded in the base of the recently installed sculpture of President Reagan in
the Capitol Rotunda are small chunks of the Berlin Wall (The Washington Times
[June 8, 2009] 13).
15
As spectacular as the image is, the very fact that the publisher of Welt ‘decorated’
the cover of the volume with the photograph of the spectacular Simi Valley
installation speaks of Reagan’s “tear down this wall”-legacy.
16
For Clinton’s speech “Berlin is free!” see >>http://usa.usembassy.de/etexts/ga6940712.htm << (accessed on 26 October 2009).
9
Maryland, where the trail goes cold – to this day. Some pundits surmise that the
Lewinsky affair distracted Clinton, while the agent responsible for the segment’s
shipment maintained it was a heist: “Nach Meinung von Lux [a Berlin art agent
responsible for shipment] wurde die Betonplatte samt Glasbehälter schlicht
gestohlen.” (Welt 124)
Category 2: Installations at governmental / military sites
Presidential libraries come under the aegis of the Federal Government, yet
other governmental / military sites require passing consideration as a separate
category: the Defense Language Institute (Monterey; Welt 109-110), Fort
Leavenworth (Kansas; Welt 117), Fort Knox (Kentucky; Welt 120),17 the National
Air Force Museum (Ohio; Welt 147), the Bundeswehrkommando (Virginia; Welt
155), Fort Gordon (Georgia; Welt 96), CIA Headquarters (Virginia; Welt 165-166).
Each of these locations reflects the fact that the Berlin Wall was and remains the
iconic symbol of the Cold War. As staff enter the Kommando in Reston, Virginia,
they may read “The division of Berlin ended in November 1989. This original
segment of the former Berlin Wall attests to the spirit of German-American
friendship.” (cited Welt 155) – With reference to the CIA installation, it is worth
remembering that Vernon Walters, former CIA Deputy Director and US
Ambassador to Germany in 1989, stated that the Wall fell not only because of the
political constellation in Berlin. Bonn, Washington and Moscow, but also because of
17
The Fort Knox installation is accompanied by a mural depicting East German (!)
tanks advancing across the East/West Berlin border at Zimmerstrasse / Checkpoint
Charlie. The mural is based on iconic photographs of the face-off between US and
Soviet tanks in October 1961. Fort Knox is, of course, home to the US Army Armor
School and the museum is named for General George Patton.
10
effective intelligence operations over the years. The three segments bearing the
words “Endlich frei” / “Democracy” / “Freedom” remind viewers of the aspirations
of the Agency, they justify the mission of espionage and counterintelligence. – The
installation of three segments at Fort Leavenworth – one upright, one akimbo, one
down – visualize an historical process, one surely made possible by military policy –
so the argument. – The ensemble at the National Air Force Museum, Wright
Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio, is set in a cavernous hall crammed with
military aircraft. The visitor enters this so-called “Cold War Gallery” by way of
tableau displays of the Berlin Airlift, the first test of the Cold War (1948-49). The
encounter with the Mauersegmente – two of which are in restored brilliance, the
others being a tableau of jubilant Germans, a man and a woman, once riding the
Wall, the other atop a Trabant. The persons are linked by a German flag,
suggesting the triumph of German patriotism. This reading is, however, rendered
somewhat problematic by the fact that the Ostberlin side of the Mauer faces the
viewer. Is the message, then, a definition of the triumph of the friedliche Revolution?
Are these two citizens of East Berlin or is my reading the result of an unintended
error by the museum staff? Given the fact that the other two segments nearby are
correctly positioned (graffiti-side out), the tableau installation is perhaps an
unexpectedly subversive bzw. sophisticated text in a decidedly military context, even
though any such differentiated interpretation is undercut by the text of the postcard
caption available in the National Air Force Museum’s gift shop: “Berlin Wall. A
well recognized symbol of the Cold War, the Berlin Wall has become one of the
Museum’s most popular exhibits. Four large sections from the original Berlin Wall
11
along with an East German Trabant automobile are joined by mannequins
depicting German citizens celebrating the destruction of the infamous wall. This
exhibit […] serves as a tangible reminder of the triumph of democracy and freedom
over communism.”
This catalogue of commentary on governmental / military sites does little
justice to the phenomenon, yet what stands out is the statistically minor number of
such installations – but nine of 91 segments overall in the United States. Strange as
it may be, the military Weltmacht that occupied Germany and Berlin for decades,
that patrolled the Demarkationslinie and the Mauer, that penetrated Eastern
intelligence and openly spied from the vantage point of the American Military
Liaison Mission headquartered in Potsdam does not appear to blatantly
instrumentalize the symbolic star-power of the icon in a ideologically triumphalist
manner.18
Category 3: Installations at Civilian Museums / Educational Institutions
Of the Mauer installations throughout the United States, seven are located in
the general context of places of business (for example, in the headquarters of
Microsoft in Redmond, Washington; Welt 156), eight ensembles on college campuses
(for example, in the Blackmoore Library of Capital University, Columbus, Ohio;
Welt 146)), eight installations in what I would term to be public space (for example,
in the Lincoln Square Metrostation, Chicago; Welt 100-101), and, finally, eight in
civilian museums: the Wende Museum, Culver City, California / the Museum of
18
As an aside, I served as Military Counter-Intelligence agent headquartered in
Kassel in 1970/71 with surveillance service along the Demarkationslinie between Bad
Hersfelg and Eschwege.
12
World Treasures, Wichita, Kansas / the Van Andel Museum Center, Grand Rapids,
Michigan / the Marbles Kids Museum, Raleigh, North Carolina / the History House
of Greater Seattle / and in the Newseum, Washington, DC (Welt, respectively 104,
118-119, 128, 144-145, 158). This statistical catalogue might be expanded by the
observation that California counts nine installations overall, New York State seven –
of which four are in New York City alone, to include three segments, named
“Trophy of Civil Rights,” on the grounds of the United Nations (Welt 138-39), a gift
from the people of Germany to the UN.
The listing points to the affiliation of monetary clout vis a vis the business
sites – the supermarket magnate Fred Meijer gave monies for the purchase,
shipment and installation of the three Grand Rapids sites.19 The ensembles on
college campuses connect to the educational mission of the institutions –
appropriately enough, the single segment on the campus of Colgate University was
dedicated during an anniversary celebration of the founding of the college’s Peace
Studies Program (Welt 136). Those ensembles in less defined public spaces serve to
inform hurried commuters in the Chicago Metrostation on the history of the Berlin
Wall, they serve to decorate a pocket park, as along the wayside of 523 Madison
Avenue, New York City (Welt 142), or to transmit encouraging slogans to passing
golfers in the Namacolin Woodland Resort, Pennsylvania (Welt 149) – “Change
myself” / “Wake up” the segment pronounces, two of the so-called “Global
Messages” of the famous Berlin graffiti artist Jürgen Große, aka “Indiano.”
19
See Ronny Heidenreich, “Beton zu Geld. Das Geschäft mit der Berliner Mauer,“
Welt: 237-249. In my personal experience at the fall, acquisition of chunks of the
Berlin Wall was enabled by persons offering the rental of hammers and cold-chisels.
Tee-shirts proclaiming “Ich war dabei!” were also on sale.
13
The Berlin Wall serves many purposes and it is in the various museums that
the contextualization of the segments is most apparent. The vivaciously joyous
heart-face on the segment (Welt 144-145) that once stood on Waldemarstrasse is
displayed in the Marbles Kids Museum, Raleigh, surely to entertain and inform the
young.
The brightly painted segment decorated by Thierry Noir catches the
attention of visitors at the entrance to the Wende Museum in Culver City (Welt 104),
a private collection of some hundred thousand artifacts documenting DDR culture,
before and after the fall. The eight contiguous segments in the Newseum,
Washington, DC (Welt 160-161), situated in front of an authentic Wachturm and
attended by informational video monitors and picture panels anchor a message
about the power of the media to influence and inform public opinion prior to,
during and after the fall (– from the broadcasts of Radio in the American Sector
[RIAS] to the fateful press conference of November 9, 1989). “ACT UP!” its graffiti
text reads, a message in consonance with the media museum’s web site statement:
“The Berlin Wall was strong enough to stop a tank, but it couldn’t stop news from
getting into East Germany by word of mouth, smuggled messages or radio and
television. This gallery tells the story of how news and information helped topple a
closed and oppressive society.” The designers of the Newseum might have chosen
any other event to exemplify the media’s power, but they privileged the Berliner
Mauer, a globally recognized concrete icon of both totalitarianism and the ultimate
triumph of the freedom of speech.20 After all, the West Berlin flank of the Wall had
itself been a text and a canvas. The medium Mauer was, is and remains the mess
20
Signage on the segments reads: “Please Do Not Touch. In order to maintain the
14
III.
In 2008, the German Information Center (GIC), a section of the German
Embassy in Washington, DC, launched a nationwide public diplomacy campaign
aimed at commemorating and celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall leading up to
November 9, 2009. The aim of initiative was to inform Americans of the historical
and cultural factors that culminated in the Mauerfall. Universities and colleges
across the land were encouraged to submit plans for programs and events in
keeping with the slogan “Freedom without Walls.” The goal was to engage persons
who had likely not been born when the Wall fell, to inform and inspire an entire
generation of young Americans – as Ambassador Klaus Scharioth put it – “in a
spirit of deep gratitude and with a desire to share our experience – the vision of
hope, of unity, and of freedom without walls.”21
Both as a professor of German Studies at the University of Cincinnati and as
Honorary Consul of Germany, I took this call as a charge. I designed a varied
program that was subsequently approved for funding by the Embassy. Working
with partners at the university and in the city, the “Freedom without Walls”
campaign soon took on a life of its own, events which constitute a variant of memory
culture. The Philharmonia Orchestra of the College Conservatory of Music,
integrity of the Berlin Wall, please do not touch.”
21
Text from a public diplomacy brochure “freedom without walls.” See also
>>www.germany.info/withoutwalls<<. The GIC provided participating universities
with Streuartikel: informative brochures, pink and blue pens, pink and blue TeeShirts, bright green markers, bright green backpacks as well as eyecatching
signage. The color-scheme and edgy logo evoked much commentary; both
apparently reflected the GIC’s intent not to privilege the German national colors
and staid “branding.” This is a new Germany, it suggested.
15
University of Cincinnati opened its season on October 7, 2009, with an all-Beethoven
concert. Sixty years to the founding day of the German Democratic Republic, its
demise was musically commemorated, just as Maestros Barenboim and Bernstein
had celebrated the Mauerfall in November and December 2009 with concerts in
Berlin.
And music rang out the commemorative events in a concert by the
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra on 20 and 21 November 2009.
Between these musical brackets, other offerings engaged university students
and the public alike. The university library mounted a well-conceived and visually
arresting exhibit on display from September through December 2009. A “Deutsches
Filmfest” featured four films set in Cold War Berlin, from the classic “The Spy Who
Came in from the Cold” to the iconic “Goodbye Lenin!” Four lectures on the history
and legacy of the Berlin Wall’s rise and fall were presented in educational and other
venues – including to a throng of lifelong learners. The series culminated in two
talks by the Consul General of Germany / Chicago, Onno Hückmann, to members
of Cincinnati’s business elite and to students of German Studies. All told, hundreds
of persons received the message of “Freedom without Walls,” one reinforced by an
exhibit of photographs I had taken of Mauer -graffiti in the heady days of November
1989.
All things being equal, the events in Cincinnati culminated in the academic
conference “The Berlin Wall: 20 Years After.” Scholars from all over the United
States and abroad convened to discuss the legacy of the Wall, presentations
documented in the current proceedings volume. Importantly, this conference was
attended by undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in three semester-long
16
courses:
European Studies Program students examined walls, barriers, and
borders, from past to present, while German Studies graduate students zeroed in on
the events of the year 1989, and an Honors seminar focused on Berlin 1949/2009, a
course concluding with a ten-day trip to Berlin, where the students encountered the
remnants of and memorials to the Wall.
Much in the spirit of the “Freedom without Walls” campaign, I scheduled a
luncheon networking meeting in my role as Honorarkonsul with the dynamic
president of the Cincinnati Rotary Club. The city of Cincinnati needs a segment of
the Berliner Mauer, I mused on the way over to the meeting. I was about to lunch
with a person who gets things done and I broached to topic. As expected, she
embraced the idea. Before very long I had contacted the Generalkonsul in Chicago,
who in turn advised me to contact the Berliner Senat, under whose aegis the
remaining intact segments are held. One thing led to another -- an ad hoc Mauercommittee was constituted (the head of the relevant sub-committee of the European
American Chamber of Commerce and president of the Munich/Cincinnati Sister
City Association, as well as an executive staff person of the Cincinnati USA Sister
City Coalition). We met and arranged for meetings with Mayor Mark Mallory and
his assistant, with one of Cincinnati’s member of Congress, both of whom wrote in
our behalf to the Lord Mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit. Consent was granted in an
exchange of letters and a statement verifying the authenticity of the segment was
provided by Berlin’s protocol officer.
At one and the same time, contact was
17
established to local institutions interested in installing the segment, design proposals
which were received in due time.
In early March 2009, I approached the CEO of a local firm, ThyssenKruppBilstein, at a networking event organized by the European American Chamber of
Commerce. He immediately was willing that his firm collaborate in the shipping of
the segment from Berlin to Cincinnati. Another global logistics firm, Kuehne +
Nagel, volunteered to transport the unwieldy 2.5 ton segment overland, to include
the administration of all the customs paperwork. Working with the Berliner Senat,
three possible segments were singled out from among some thirty remaining ones
and reserved for later inspection.
I was to be in Berlin in May, an opportunity for me and my wife to select the
segment “Reserviert für Cincinnati” in the Erholungspark Mahrzahn. During the
summer, the segment was transported overland from Berlin, loaded on a ship,
picked up at the port of entry and trucked to Cincinnati. The total cost Berlin to
Cincinnati was one Euro, a value required for customs formalities. On September
18, 2009, Mayor Mallory publicly announced his decision to locate the segment at
the Underground Railroad Museum Freedom Center, downtown near the Ohio
riverfront (“The Banks”), a site well in line with the conceptual and educational
mission of the Freedom Center. Just as the Berlin Wall prevented passage East to
West, so the river’s swift current posed a topographical barrier for slaves escaping
North to freedom during the nineteenth century.
18
The Cincinnati segment was installed on 3 July 2010 and the text on the glass
protecting the segment reads:
FREEDOM WITHOUT WALLS
On August 13, 1961, the totalitarian government of East Germany split Berlin with
a Wall of concrete. Over the years, more than 130 persons were shot and killed
attempting escape through this brutal barrier to freedom.
On November 9/10, 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. During that autumn, hundreds of
thousands of East German citizens had marched in opposition to the oppressive
regime, acts of non-violent resistance inspired by the American civil-rights
movement. Their chant was “Wir sind das Volk” / ‘We are the People,’ an echo of
the American Constitution – “We the people …” Ultimately, the Wall could not
withstand freedom.
Before you rises one segment of that wall, a gift from the city of Berlin to the citizens
of Cincinnati. It honors the human spirit. It commemorates those persons
everywhere who have died seeking freedom without walls.
19
20