by Richard P. Greenfield
by Richard P. Greenfield
I was punch drunk from lack of sleep, but I had to see it for myself, walk through where the Wall had been.
In the 1980s, I was there a lot. Then in 1989, I saw the Wall broken, as did millions around the world. I
started corresponding regularly with my friends there,
but I had not been back there since.
The Berlin Wall actually surrounded West Berlin, not East Berlin. The city itself was 110 miles into what was then East Germany. The larger Wall, which ran from the Baltic Sea down to the Austrian border, was the Wall that really divided the two Germanys. This quirk of geography meant that leaving West Berlin entailed going out through the Wall, not in.
I hopped a cab to the
Brandenburg Gate. The Wall had run right there, and less than a
mile away had been Checkpoint Charlie. I walked through the Gate,
toward a floating flea market. Men and women
selling Soviet and East German badges and 100 varieties of Lenin and
Red Army belt buckles. You have to wonder if some
factory in Pakistan is now turning these out, or did the Soviets
devote billions of rubles to, dare one say, socialist
fashion accessories? After all, it has been 5 1/2 years since the
Wall came down. 3 years since the dissolution of the USSR, but on
the streets of Berlin, in every flea market, there are badges and
watches and assorted paraphernalia, enough to re-equip the Red
Army. "You should have been here 4 years ago," my Berlin friends
told me, "then, you could buy anything; Kalashnikovs, grenades,
rocket launchers, probably a tank." I have very limited uses for
grenades and rocket launchers but as a veteran of
many major metropolitan traffic jams, the potential advantages of a
serious armored vehicle were...intriguing.
Tank or no tank, there are a lot of ways to see Berlin. If you are going to go to a lot of museums and use the UBahn (subway) and SBahn (overhead railway) the Holiday Pass from the Berlin Tourist Office is a great deal at 29 DM. It has a 3 day unlimited transit pass, plus coupons good for discounts at numerous museums, bus tours, boat tours, even free admission to the Berlin Casino!
However, as with most cities, the best way to see Berlin is from ground level, on foot. Nick Gay offers walking tours with various historical and contemporary themes. He can be reached at Fislebener Strasse 1, 10789, Berlin, Telephone and Fax 030-2116663.
