Sunday November 8, 2009
‘Let’s go!’
By Dr TORSTEN SCHAAR
A former East German who was among the first to cross into the West when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 shares his story.
THE summer of 1989 was exciting and full of trepidation at the same time. As a young student of 25 in East Berlin, my friends and I were caught up in the meetings, protests and peaceful demonstrations that were taking place every single day. People were openly demanding for the freedom to travel, to speak their minds, to form political parties, to have different opinions.
The air was filled with uncertainty. We sensed something was going to happen. But we didn’t know what and we had no idea when. Would things turn bloody? Tiananmen had just happened. (The seven week-long Tiananmen Square anti-government protests in Beijing in 1989 left hundreds dead.)
I was researching my PhD in Potsdam and sharing an apartment with friends. I think everyone was keenly aware of what was happening. The situation was getting tense, crowds kept swelling in the streets. There was a very real possibility of violence.
Yet the ruling party was paralysed. They couldn’t admit their mistakes or embrace change, even as Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia were opening their borders.
And then came Nov 9. We caught the press conference. I believed Gunter Schabowski (a member of the ruling party who mistakenly made the announcement about borders being opened) said the borders would be closed again so we went to sleep that night not realising what was happening.
Early in the morning, the news came that the border guards at Bornholmer Strasse (Street) had given in to people’s demands to be let through. We were stunned and immediately we said, “Let’s go!”
It was incredible. There were thousands of people queuing up to go through the checkpoint. They were in work clothes, in uniforms, there were students, the elderly, everyone came. Rumours flew back and forth: we’d be turned back, they’d changed their minds, we needed a visa, a passport....
But all the guards did was quickly stamp my pass and I continued walking. I heard later they just stopped stamping passes because it was pointless.
It was a surreal moment for me as I was walking through the strip of land between the Walls. I did my national service from 1983 to 1985 patrolling the inner Wall to keep people out. And now, here I was, walking over a piece of land that all my life I’d been told was impenetrable.
When we got across to the West, a huge party greeted us. It was euphoric. People just came and hugged us, gave us champagne, and told us which bank had the shortest queue to collect our deutsche mark 100.
The first thing my girlfriend and I did was to run into a bookstore. I was researching Adolph Hitler and WWII for my thesis and we had limited books in East Berlin. There were endless titles available in the West. Then we went to the great shopping streets we’d heard about, like Kurfürstendamm and the KaDeWe shopping mall. We went straight to the food hall on the sixth floor to look at the exotic imported foods.
The choices they had! While we hadn’t gone hungry in the East, we never had the luxury of choice. We bought imported chocolates and coffees with whatever was left of our deutsche marks.
Everything was different! Even the air in West Germany smelt different – their vehicles used unleaded fuel then.
After the euphoria settled, though, came the hard realities. I grew up in a divided city. I had never regarded West Germany as my country. We’d always been taught since young that the Wall protected us from very possible aggression from the West and the Allies. Of course, as we grew older, we realised that it was to keep us in, to stop us from emigrating. Over 20% of our citizens had already left by 1961 (when the Wall went up), and most were educated professionals and skilled workers. The Wall was a drastic measure to contain people from leaving.
Life improved, of course. We had freedom of speech, freedom of movement, and free and fair elections. There were many positive developments. We had access to very advanced infrastructure. But all that came at a price.
After the Wall fell, many people lost their jobs overnight. Factories closed. Entire industries collapsed. We faced new phenomena, like drugs flooding in. Our way of life changed overnight. We believed we had traded a political dictator for another form of dictatorship – money.
Earlier this year, a survey revealed that 57% of former East Germans believe that life was better before the Wall came down. There was social security; everyone had a job. There was a strong sense of comradeship and solidarity. Now, people have the “elbow” mentality; we jostle others aside for what’s “me and mine”.
I was lucky I only lost a job; others had suffered bigger losses. After my university studies I was supposed to lecture at the University of Rostock. But departments closed down and professors were sacked for dubious reasons, like close ties with the party, and there were ugly incidents and a lot of real hatred between the former halves of the city.
And till today, there is a certain stigma about people from East Germany. We have lower salaries and pensions. The West seems to feel it needs to teach us things because its people are superior to us. We’re seen as having been suppressed and oppressed.
It’s true that many East Germans suffered for their religious and political beliefs, but the majority of people lived normal lives. And the role of the secret police has been overplayed! While we had to be careful of our speech, we never had to look over our shoulders all the time.
For the younger generation, the Berlin Wall exists as a story told to them by their parents and teachers. They have no emotional attachment at all. Some merely have nostalgic feelings. To Germans like me, the Berlin Wall is a symbol of a historical period that really began during WWII. And there will always be a little of the Berlin Wall in our hearts and minds even after 20 years.
Dr Torsten Schaar, 45, is a lecturer of history and the German language at UiTM (Universiti Teknologi Mara) who has been living in Malaysia for seven years.
Related Stories:
Walking the Wall
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