Historic Moments in Berlin, a Personal Perspective

Thirty years ago today, the first cracks in the Berlin Wall appeared. Not cracks in the wall itself, but rather in the restrictions East Germans had in traveling to West Germany. Through a fortuitous, confusing and seemingly uncharacteristically incompetent set of actions by East German officials, unfettered access to and from East Berlin began 30 years ago on November 9 (for an hour by hour playback click on this link: https://mol.im/a/7666435).

Hanging on a wall in my home office is large chunk of the Berlin Wall. Another sizable portion, next to a picture of me chipping away at history, rests on the built-in wall unit of our living room. I wasn’t in Berlin November 9. I didn’t get there until February 16, 1990, a few days before the wall near the Brandenburg Gate was knocked down.

I flew in from Dusseldorf from where I had been attending EuroShop, a once every three year trade exposition devoted to store design and construction. I headed to a Woolworth store (btw, Germans for years thought Woolworth was a home grown company, not an America import), to buy a small chisel and standard-sized hammer. When I arrived at the Wall that rainy and snowy day, I discovered how pitiful my purchases were to the task at hand. I barely made a dent in the reinforced concrete.

Standing next to me was a man with a huge sledgehammer and 30-inch chisel. He was breaking off softball-size or larger chunks. He took pity on me and offered his tools. I still failed to break off pieces larger than a pebble. He pitied me once more. He gave the Wall a few choice whacks for me. I left Berlin with a bagful of souvenirs, most of which I gave away to family, friends and colleagues at work.

My memories of the Berlin Wall are tinged with personal links. November 9 is more than just the date unification of Berlin began. On that date in 1938 the Nazis began a massive pogrom against Jews under their control in Germany, Austria, the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia and the Free City of Danzig. Known as Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass), the assaults continued into Danzig on November 12-13. My father lived in Danzig (now known as Gdansk). He would leave for America within two months. 

February 16, when I visited Berlin in 1990, marked four years since my mother died on that very same date.

My Ties to Bridge of Spies

Gilda and I have seen lots of movies over the past three weeks, the best of which, in my opinion, we saw Saturday night. Bridge of Spies tells the mostly-true-to-life story behind the exchange of prisoners among the Soviet Union, East Germany and the United States. 

In return for sending convicted Soviet spy Rudolf Abel back to Russia, America received U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers (shot down during an aerial spy mission over Soviet territory) and student Frederic L. Pryor (charged with espionage in East Berlin). To scrub fact from fiction, here’s a link: http://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/bridge-of-spies/

(Of the 11 movies we’ve seen, in descending order, my top flicks:

Bridge of Spies

Spotlight

Brooklyn

The Martian

The Revenant

The Big Short

Joy

Creed

Carol

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Mad Max: Fury Road) 

How could I not like Bridge of Spies? From the History vs. Hollywood Web site I was reminded that the prisoner exchange transpired on February 10, 1962, the same day as my bar mitzvah.

Even without that coincidence I identified with Bridge of Spies. During one of my trips to Dusseldorf for EuroShop, a once-every-three-years massive trade exposition, I made a side trip to Berlin. I traveled on February 16, 1990, just three days before the section of the Berlin Wall near the Brandenburg Gate was to be torn down.

I walked many of the same streets the Tom Hanks character followed in the movie, entering East Berlin through Checkpoint Charlie, then down FriederichStrasse, a main avenue. It was a rainy, sometimes snowy, day. Chilly down to the bones. I had the sniffles, just like Hanks had in the movie.

With their political order tumbling around them, East German border guards were as friendly as a Wal-Mart greeter. And why shouldn’t they have acted kindly? No longer armed, their main job function was to let German nationals pass through while smiling pleasantly at foreigners and directing them to exit where they entered East Berlin. It seemed to be a petty rule, but no more inconvenient than being told in an American department store that gift wrapping could be obtained only in the basement or some other out of the way location.

Along FriederichStrasse I encountered a wide range of visual stimuli. Just as an East German movie character complained that the Russians hindered reconstruction efforts after World War II, I observed many buildings in various states of bombed-out disrepair a full 45 years after the war ended. Intact buildings were generally drab apartment house blocks that made our inner city projects seem stately. 

The disparity between the two sides of Berlin was evident from two cars parked next to each other, one a boxy, eight-foot Russian-made Lada, the other a sleek, four-door Mercedes. Both cars were in front of the Grand Hotel, one of the more impressive hotels I had seen in any major city of the world. In the main lobby burnished wood, marble, chrome, plush carpeting and a majestic central stairway transported any visitor from the gray and gloom of a failed utopian vision to a world of privilege and pomp. The Grand Hotel was not for every, or maybe any, casual comrade. Room rates back in 1990 ran over $200 a night.

Before I left Berlin I chipped away at the Wall. I had stopped at a Woolworth store in West Berlin to buy a small chisel and standard-sized hammer. I soon discovered how pitiful my purchases were to the task at hand. The reinforced concrete gave no quarter. You couldn’t even classify as pebbles the pieces I managed to dislodge.

Standing next to me was a man with a huge sledgehammer and 30-inch chisel. He was breaking off softball-size or larger chunks. He took pity on me and offered me his tools. As I remember it today, my new efforts were hardly more rewarding. He took pity on me once more, and gave the Wall a few choice whacks for me. I left Berlin with a bagful of souvenirs, most of which I gave away to family, friends and colleagues at work. I kept the two largest pieces, one to display in our living room, the other to be mounted on a plaque and hung in my office. It, too, is now in our living room. 

One more tie-in to Bridge of Spies—during a trip to Russia five years ago, Gilda and I saw wreckage of the U-2 spy plane in Moscow’s Central Armed Forces Museum. 

Recalling History at the Berlin Wall

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the breach in the Berlin Wall, when East Germans streamed across the unnatural divide that kept them apart from West Berliners. It would be another three months before the Wall was torn down with a little, read that miniscule, assist by yours truly. I’ve reprinted my chiseling exploits from a blog posting five years ago. 

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2009

Chipping Away at History 

Today marks the official twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, one of the climactic events of the last century.

I wasn’t present when East Germany relaxed the rules on border crossings on Nov. 9, 1989. East and West Berliners rushed to the Wall, climbing atop the 12-foot high barrier to celebrate. But I did make a side trip to Berlin on February 16, 1990, just three days before the section of the Wall near the Brandenburg Gate was to be torn down.

I had been attending a conference in Dusseldorf, inside Germany’s western border. It was a no-brainer to make a quick, one-day jaunt to Berlin and back, to be able to walk through Checkpoint Charlie into East Berlin, to say, “I was there.”

I knew in advance people were chipping away at the Wall, so I stopped at a Woolworth store in Berlin to buy a small chisel and standard-sized hammer. When I arrived at the Wall that rainy and snowy day, I discovered how pitiful my purchases were to the task at hand. The reinforced concrete gave no quarter. You couldn’t even classify as pebbles the pieces I managed to dislodge.

Standing next to me was a man with a huge sledgehammer and 30-inch chisel. He was breaking off softball-size or larger chunks. He took pity on me and offered me his tools. As I remember it today, my new efforts were hardly more rewarding. He took pity on me once more, and gave the Wall a few choice whacks for me. I left Berlin with a bagful of souvenirs, most of which I gave away to family, friends and colleagues at work. I kept the two largest pieces, one to display in our living room, the other to be mounted on a plaque and hung in my office.

For the April 1990 issue of Chain Store Age, I wrote a column about my exploits, aptly titled, “Chipping Away at History.” Berlin today is a vibrant city, unified and culturally important. It’s hard to reconcile the Berlin of today with what I saw 20 years ago. But all I have to do is pick up the piece of the Wall in my living room to recall the divisions of an earlier era. And recall that I was there when at least part of it ended.

On This day

It's my birthday today. Please, no cards or presents. No Twitter or Facebook shout-outs. (Some of you got up earlier than I did so you already sent me birthday greetings. Thank you. It really is appreciated.) I bring up my birthday because for years I would tell people my birth date was significant because it coincided with the fall of the Alamo.

Now, however, I can relate another momentous occurrence—March 6, 1944, was the first successful daylight bombing attack on Berlin by the 8th Air Force.

The other day Gilda and I, with Gilda's sister Barbara and her husband Alan, visited the Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson, AZ. It's a fabulous museum, rivaling if not exceeding the new Smithsonian Air & Space Museum outside Washington, DC. What distinguishes the PASM, beyond its diversity of aircraft, are the knowledgeable and personable docents.

As we walked into Hanger #5, known as the 390th Memorial Museum, we were greeted by Richard Bushong. It was March 3. Richard told us 67 years ago to the day he was co-piloting a B-17 bomber on the first attempt by the 8th Air Force to penetrate Berlin's defenses. Bad weather scrapped the mission that day, and the next. But on March 6, the then 20-year-old Bushong and his crew of nine other airmen bombed Berlin. Eight hundred and twenty-one B-17 and B-24 bombers took off from England. Sixty-nine planes never made it back across the Channel. The 390th Bomb Group lost just one bomber while shooting down 27 German fighters.

A lanky Ohioan even at his advanced age of 87, Bushong served in the air force into 1971, flying F-4 Phantom jets in Vietnam. He retired as a colonel.

It is a remarkable experience to listen to history from someone who lived it first-hand. If you've ever seen a war movie of WWII bomber missions (films like Catch-22 or Twelve O'Clock High), you know the side gunners on the planes stood at open cutouts so their guns could swivel easily. With winds whipping by at 190-210 miles per hour, Bushong related, temperatures inside the plane plummeted to 30 to 50 degrees below zero. The crew wore electric suits under their sheepskin jackets and pants to keep from freezing. Just hearing about the cold made me shiver in the warm Arizona climate.

Aside from my birthday link to his historic exploits with the 390th Bomb Group, we share another common date, sad for him, happy for me. While laid up in hospital (a reaction to some bad food), Bushong's plane and crew were shot down. It happened December 16. That's a happy day for my family, the day Ellie was born.