Steven P. BarrettFOURTH OF JULY LOOK BACK ON
July 5th 2008 01:27
Steven Barrett
I can still recall the gray barren "quality" of it all, no, not an Alpine wall of granite slate looming over a quaint Bavarian village: quite the opposite -- East Berlin. Call it fortune, luck, or just plain happenstance, but I was able to visit Berlin twice, in 1963 and the following year. The first visit was with my family and the latter with the Boy Scouts.
Both trips required passage on the overnight express "duty train" owned by the US Army. The "duty train" -- a few converted German overnight coaches, pulled by an oil-powered steam locomotive -- also represented our committment to keeping West Berlin free from a Communist takeover. (I have to admit to feeling some unease in having to re-explain the wider political circumstances of my youthful journey and latter-day recollections. The unease reflects my displeasure -- no, let's make that Grave Displeasure -- with having to admit that so many people today aren't as knowledgeable about the seriousness of our situation in Germany during the decades immediately following WWII.
When the Wall fell in 1989, so did interest in the reasons why it was built in the first place. It's as if the world had a big wonderful party but has since forgotten why the bash was thrown in the first place, especially when it comes to what the East Germans and millions of other Eastern Europeans toiling under the iron hand of Soviet oppression were so overjoyed about to throw such a huge celebration.
Is my rhetoric a bit too overstated? Perhaps one should ask the Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians about their experiences during Gorbachev's last few years in power. They'll tell you about "Glaznost." Let's not forget the tinderbox that was East Germany just before the Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989. Thoughout most of that year trainloads after trainloads of frightened East Germans were making their way out of the "country" (actually the old Eastern Soviet Occupied Sector of Post-War Germany) -- carrying fresh memories of what the Chinese Communists did to its dissidents with them. Their present leader, Erich Honnecker, a hard-line Communist wasn't in the least bit above butchering his own people to stay in power, even to the point of thinking a harsh crackdown would impress Gorbachev in Moscow. It was a fool's impression because Gorbachev had enough problems dealing with the Baltics and taking a great deal of well-deserved condemmnation for sending Soviet tanks in to "keep the peace." And Gorbachev was more interested in both solving his own problems at home while trying to improve relations with the West, still hadn't forgotten what Ronald Reagan said at the Berlin Wall the previous year: "Tear down this wall!"
All Gorbachev had to do was to let the East Germans he wasn't going to lift a finger on their behalf and keep his troops at ease in their East German Kasernes. Honnecker got the drift, and so did the dissidents in his own politburo. So, in short order, many prayers offered up from J.S. Bach's home church in Leipzig and in many other cities and towns throughout were fulfilled when the Reds threw in the towel and let their people pass through the wall unimpeded.
The Berlin I'm far more familiar with is one further back in time. One so far back in time that the old and once magnificent buildings lining East Berlin's "Unter der Linden" thoroughfare remained shot pocked and blackened from WWII battle damage. Perhaps even more ignominously for any Berliner was the sight of grass growing on the pedestals and walls of these buildings which remained nothing but empty shells. Emptyness, and grayness abounded. Berlin always had a "gray" quality to it, going all the way back to when the Prussians were running the show and building a once sprawling collection of loose villages into a major world city. (The Nazis were originally the "Brownshirts." They only became more "acceptably" gray after taking power in 1933.)
And, yes, the East German Communists -- many of whom fought the Nazis in street battles before Hitler took power -- wore Red until, they too, took power after Stalin set Walter Ulbricht in power, who was followed immediately by his protege Erich Honnecker. But when the German Reds "took power" (under considerable Russian oversight) they developed the unenviable distinction of perhaps creating more shades of gray than any nation before or afterwards. The area was completely gray, save for what nature alone could provide in terms of sunny days. This grayness symbolized one thing, however, GLOOM.
It symbolized the puritanical zeal of a harsh group of socialist hypocrites in the drag of Pharisees; forever finding ways to get the "masses" to produce in order to make a better socialist state while doing nothing to improve the lives of the people they oppressed with a zeal matching that of the Nazis, if not moreso in some respects. So long as you weren't on their Nuremberg Rally of 1934 list of "undesirables" (i.e. Jews, Reds, Gypsies, homosexuals, et al) -- speak out against Hitler, or even committ a non-political crime, you were far less likely to be hauled off to a concentration camp than any and all East Germans were under Ulbricht and Honnecker. The Reds were an equal opportunity enforcer of misery and mediocrity for everyone -- save for those who sold their souls, family members, friends and neighbors, teachers, coaches, out to the Communist Party and its much feared STASI version of the old Gestapo under Herman Goering.
I'll never forget the wide expanse of nothingness and patches of wild grass, trash strewn about and the gnawing message of what all this emptyness was trying to say -- not only to them, but to every one of us.
THIS IS THE PRICE OF UNCHECKED POWER, WAR, AND LIVING FOR WARS TO COME.
It was as far removed from a state of joy, peace and an anticipation of a peace guaranteed by and only by, a sufficiently maintained defensive posture so as to prevent wars such as WWII and what we feared most, a third world war.
Our Founding Fathers were not perfect men. Nor are we. Our fathers and grandfathers who fought in WWII and the Cold War (Berlin Airlift, Korea, Berlin Crisis of 1961, Cuban Missle Crisis, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Grenada) at least deserve our immense gratitude for doing what they could so that we can look back and appreciate just how great the colors of freedom really are.
Believe me; having seen both -- I still wonder why in such a short time span since the Wall fell -- only 19 years -- that I'm beginning to feel as if nothing's been learned except how we can learn to accept a spirit of national, moral and even international decadence in the face of an even more ominous set of puritanical masters who'd love to enforce another totalitarian ideology: Wahabist Islam. If we should've learned nothing from the lessons of the past century, what I described about East Berlin is only a foretaste of what the real price of our ostriche-mentality and decadence has to offer.
Even the Berlin Wall and 256 shades of East German gray will look wonderful then.
Berlin Wall, Brandenberg Gate, East Berlin
I can still recall the gray barren "quality" of it all, no, not an Alpine wall of granite slate looming over a quaint Bavarian village: quite the opposite -- East Berlin. Call it fortune, luck, or just plain happenstance, but I was able to visit Berlin twice, in 1963 and the following year. The first visit was with my family and the latter with the Boy Scouts.
US Army "Duty Train
Both trips required passage on the overnight express "duty train" owned by the US Army. The "duty train" -- a few converted German overnight coaches, pulled by an oil-powered steam locomotive -- also represented our committment to keeping West Berlin free from a Communist takeover. (I have to admit to feeling some unease in having to re-explain the wider political circumstances of my youthful journey and latter-day recollections. The unease reflects my displeasure -- no, let's make that Grave Displeasure -- with having to admit that so many people today aren't as knowledgeable about the seriousness of our situation in Germany during the decades immediately following WWII.
Berlin immediately after WWII
When the Wall fell in 1989, so did interest in the reasons why it was built in the first place. It's as if the world had a big wonderful party but has since forgotten why the bash was thrown in the first place, especially when it comes to what the East Germans and millions of other Eastern Europeans toiling under the iron hand of Soviet oppression were so overjoyed about to throw such a huge celebration.
Berlin, November 1989
Is my rhetoric a bit too overstated? Perhaps one should ask the Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians about their experiences during Gorbachev's last few years in power. They'll tell you about "Glaznost." Let's not forget the tinderbox that was East Germany just before the Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989. Thoughout most of that year trainloads after trainloads of frightened East Germans were making their way out of the "country" (actually the old Eastern Soviet Occupied Sector of Post-War Germany) -- carrying fresh memories of what the Chinese Communists did to its dissidents with them. Their present leader, Erich Honnecker, a hard-line Communist wasn't in the least bit above butchering his own people to stay in power, even to the point of thinking a harsh crackdown would impress Gorbachev in Moscow. It was a fool's impression because Gorbachev had enough problems dealing with the Baltics and taking a great deal of well-deserved condemmnation for sending Soviet tanks in to "keep the peace." And Gorbachev was more interested in both solving his own problems at home while trying to improve relations with the West, still hadn't forgotten what Ronald Reagan said at the Berlin Wall the previous year: "Tear down this wall!"
All Gorbachev had to do was to let the East Germans he wasn't going to lift a finger on their behalf and keep his troops at ease in their East German Kasernes. Honnecker got the drift, and so did the dissidents in his own politburo. So, in short order, many prayers offered up from J.S. Bach's home church in Leipzig and in many other cities and towns throughout were fulfilled when the Reds threw in the towel and let their people pass through the wall unimpeded.
The Berlin I'm far more familiar with is one further back in time. One so far back in time that the old and once magnificent buildings lining East Berlin's "Unter der Linden" thoroughfare remained shot pocked and blackened from WWII battle damage. Perhaps even more ignominously for any Berliner was the sight of grass growing on the pedestals and walls of these buildings which remained nothing but empty shells. Emptyness, and grayness abounded. Berlin always had a "gray" quality to it, going all the way back to when the Prussians were running the show and building a once sprawling collection of loose villages into a major world city. (The Nazis were originally the "Brownshirts." They only became more "acceptably" gray after taking power in 1933.)
And, yes, the East German Communists -- many of whom fought the Nazis in street battles before Hitler took power -- wore Red until, they too, took power after Stalin set Walter Ulbricht in power, who was followed immediately by his protege Erich Honnecker. But when the German Reds "took power" (under considerable Russian oversight) they developed the unenviable distinction of perhaps creating more shades of gray than any nation before or afterwards. The area was completely gray, save for what nature alone could provide in terms of sunny days. This grayness symbolized one thing, however, GLOOM.
It symbolized the puritanical zeal of a harsh group of socialist hypocrites in the drag of Pharisees; forever finding ways to get the "masses" to produce in order to make a better socialist state while doing nothing to improve the lives of the people they oppressed with a zeal matching that of the Nazis, if not moreso in some respects. So long as you weren't on their Nuremberg Rally of 1934 list of "undesirables" (i.e. Jews, Reds, Gypsies, homosexuals, et al) -- speak out against Hitler, or even committ a non-political crime, you were far less likely to be hauled off to a concentration camp than any and all East Germans were under Ulbricht and Honnecker. The Reds were an equal opportunity enforcer of misery and mediocrity for everyone -- save for those who sold their souls, family members, friends and neighbors, teachers, coaches, out to the Communist Party and its much feared STASI version of the old Gestapo under Herman Goering.
I'll never forget the wide expanse of nothingness and patches of wild grass, trash strewn about and the gnawing message of what all this emptyness was trying to say -- not only to them, but to every one of us.
Berlin, Before the Wall Fell
THIS IS THE PRICE OF UNCHECKED POWER, WAR, AND LIVING FOR WARS TO COME.
Berlin, Bernauer Strasse ... What's a neighborhood?
It was as far removed from a state of joy, peace and an anticipation of a peace guaranteed by and only by, a sufficiently maintained defensive posture so as to prevent wars such as WWII and what we feared most, a third world war.
Our Founding Fathers were not perfect men. Nor are we. Our fathers and grandfathers who fought in WWII and the Cold War (Berlin Airlift, Korea, Berlin Crisis of 1961, Cuban Missle Crisis, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Grenada) at least deserve our immense gratitude for doing what they could so that we can look back and appreciate just how great the colors of freedom really are.
Believe me; having seen both -- I still wonder why in such a short time span since the Wall fell -- only 19 years -- that I'm beginning to feel as if nothing's been learned except how we can learn to accept a spirit of national, moral and even international decadence in the face of an even more ominous set of puritanical masters who'd love to enforce another totalitarian ideology: Wahabist Islam. If we should've learned nothing from the lessons of the past century, what I described about East Berlin is only a foretaste of what the real price of our ostriche-mentality and decadence has to offer.
Even the Berlin Wall and 256 shades of East German gray will look wonderful then.
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