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. 

Personalizing the News: Autobahn Driving, GOP Stubbornness, A New Pope and Penney Problems

Under snowy conditions Tuesday in Germany, about 100 vehicles crashed on an autobahn near Frankfurt. No doubt, the snow contributed to the massive crack-up. But I also have no doubt the pattern of German driving contributed, as well.

During my first trip to Germany, in 1996 to attend the EuroShop conference in Dusseldorf, I was invited by the team from Boston Retail to tour some stores. They had rented a car, a large Mercedes sedan, with a driver. I sat in the middle of the rear seat with an unobstructed view of the speedometer. German cars measure speed in kilometers per hour. It’s a simple computation to convert the number into miles per hour. Simply multiply it by 60%. 

When the speedometer needled its way toward 160, I could barely contain my anxiety as I also had an unobstructed view of the traffic in front of us, which at that moment was no more than two car lengths ahead. It wasn’t that our driver was a tailgating daredevil. Every driver on the autobahn was spaced the same one to two car lengths behind the car he was trailing. To travel less than 96 miles per hour would endanger all. 

Of course, that means when a car slows down, because of snow, fog or some other reason, there is a chain reaction should any one vehicle not brake to the precise slower speed. Large pile-ups are common in Germany.

All for Naught? Why do we bother holding elections if the party that loses just regurgitates the same garbage that cost them the election? I’m talking about the Republican budget proposal that would slash Obamacare, transform Medicare and reduce other social services programs without asking any more in taxes from the wealthy. It’s the same hogwash that voters repudiated in the last election just four months ago.

Since losing the presidential election to Barack Obama and seeing their ranks in the House and Senate shrink, Republicans have shown little if any inclination to change their national message and appeal. Their only salvation for the moment is their hammerlock on state governments where they have gerrymandered congressional districts into safe GOP seats, safe, that is, if their candidates hew to the hard right to avoid a Tea Party primary. 

Doubtful we will get a legislative branch of government in the short term that will function to the welfare and benefit of the country rather than the partisan aggrandizement of each congressman.

For Old-Time Vatican Watchers Only: As I listened to CBS News correspondent Allen Pizzey report from Rome over the last several days, I was nostalgic for the hushed, clipped tones of Winston Burdett, the network’s Papal eyes, ears and voice during the 1950s and 1960s. His weathered look gave his Vatican reports a certain ancient authenticity, not that Pizzey’s reporting hasn’t been crisp and informative. (BTW, did you know Burdett was a self-confessed spy for the Soviet Union? Rather than throw him under the bus, Edward R. Murrow had him transferred to CBS’ Rome bureau.)

No need to guess about this—with the election of Francis I Tuesday we will be subjected to a stream of articles on the significance of his elevation from archbishop of Buenos Aires to the 265th successor to Peter as the bishop of Rome. Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio is the first pontiff to be elected from the New World, though he has roots in the Old. Before he was born 76 years ago, his parents emigrated to Argentina from Italy.  

In 2005, Cardinal Bergoglio was the runner-up to Cardinal Ratzinger’s election as Pope Benedict XVI. Yet he was not considered a front-runner this time. As he was chosen on the fifth ballot, perhaps he was a compromise candidate, someone who, in Pizzey’s words, while not a fan of the embattled, scandal-plagued Roman Curia, nevertheless is seen as an ultra-conservative and ultra-orthodox cleric not likely to shake up church dogma on such issues as abortion (which many in Argentina favor, according to Elaine Cobbe of CBS) or celibacy for priests. 

The new pope is said to be a humble Jesuit who lives simply and rides the subway to work. Though the trappings of his new office will require lifestyle changes, his emphasis on eradicating poverty and helping the indigent and less fortunate could have political repercussions in the United States where Republican efforts to limit or eliminate programs to help the poor would undercut his mission.

It was speculated the College of Cardinals would choose someone younger. After all, Francis I is only two years shy of  Benedict’s age when he ascended to the papacy. What’s more, he has only one lung. In his appearance before the crowds in St. Peter’s Square, he appeared restrained, barely cracking a smile. Perhaps exuberance is not appropriate at such a solemn occasion, but as the leader of 1.2 billion Catholics beset by numerous ecclesiastical and administrative issues (some would say scandals), Francis I will have to show more energy than he did from the balcony of St. Peter’s.

In the theater world, second acts are among the hardest to pull off. Third acts, almost impossible.

It’s that way in retailing, too; no less a luminary than Gordon Segal, founder of Crate & Barrel said, “Retailing is theater.” Few retail executives have been able to replicate success after success after success at different companies. 

Ron Johnson, the beleaguered CEO of J.C. Penney, is finding that out the hard way. After a notable career as a vice president of merchandising at Target, Johnson stunned the retail world with his evocation of retail nirvana—he developed the Apple Retail Stores. Apple stores boast among the highest sales per square foot in the industry. While almost all other mall stores can be empty on any given weekday, Apple’s are a beehive of activity. 

For sure, Apple products are key attractions. But equally magnetic have been the store design, the attention to detail and customer service, particularly the Genius Bar Johnson pioneered at the back of each location.

It was inevitable Johnson’s success would lead to his recruitment. Penney, though, is a far cry from Apple. Its products don’t have the cache of Apple’s. Apple concentrates on one category of merchandise. Penney is multi-dimensional, which means its messaging is dispersed across many areas, to many different types of customers. Its stores are way larger. Penney’s store staff are not brand proselytizers the way Apple’s are. Apple almost never ran sales; customers came into the stores because they wanted to. Penney had to rely on sales to generate traffic. When Johnson tried to change that by going to an everyday low price strategy, they stopped coming. (Johnson’s disappointment in that tactic is not unique—Food Lion recently pulled its “no sales” platform, as well.) When Johnson came to Apple, he had a supportive leader in Steve Jobs. They worked off a tabula rasa to create a unique store experience. At Penney, Johnson had to work with 100 years of heritage, arteriosclerosis and all. 

Johnson’s latest misstep is his apparent disregard for an exclusive contract between Macy’s and Martha Stewart. He seemed to encourage placement of Martha Stewart products in Penney stores, the result of which has been embarrassing revelations during a Macy’s lawsuit contesting the Stewart-Penney alliance. I won’t go so far as retail analyst Walter Loeb who suggested “this could be a fatal blow to J.C. Penney.” But I do believe it could signal the end of Johnson’s leadership of Penney. His tenure is not helped by the company’s performance in the fiscal year ended February 1: year over year sales dropped by $4.27 billion; the company lost $985 million compared to a loss of $152 million the year before. Share price tumbled by 60%; 2,200 workers were laid off last week.