Berlin - Part 2: The Wall : Then and Now
The Wall That Was
In 1961, the Soviet communists constructed a civic enclave literally overnight. "The Wall" was designed to effect a circuitous concrete corridor of macabre, mortared nobility measuring meters high. A cement necklace, indelicately strung with rebar and barbed-wire, enchained Berlin's wonderous patrician streets.
The asphyxiating strand of ‘Cold War Bling’ instantly isolated individuals, and dislocated families and friends. "One day my father left for work and I didn't see him for sixteen years", the 'Easterner' we met recounted in conversation on Churchill-lan while all watched the Berlin Marathon.
Soon following the construction, Easterners continually discovered clever ways of traversing the wall. The Russians added the iron and brass circular tubing (atop the wall) so that it was impossible to grab onto at the top.. That simple adaptation prevented any further escapes.
For twenty-eight years, the thorny crown of Communism pierced the parchment and strangled the soul of Berlin society. This 27-mile “death strip” consisted of two parallel concrete walls where, from ‘Eastern’ watchtowers marksmen stood, watchful and wary, rifles loaded and poised, cross-hairs aimed at the intersection of Bernauerstrasse and Ackerstrasse.
One perimeter intersection of “The Wall” - Bernauerstrasse and Ackerstrasse - from a watchtower
Close-up of the building (center, right) above
Looking down from a watchtower.
This ‘void’, replete with miles of anti-vehicle trenches, guard dog runs, floodlights and trip-wire machine guns, displaced amd dislocated tens of thousands of families. Visitors to the wall would walk idly by in hopes of a forlorn, momentary glance at a loved one’s chance passing. Children peered through gaps gaping in dejected disbelief seeking to salvage marauded memories.
The tunnel that lies beneath the commemorative plagues marks the path underneath the wall.
I could not help but be captured by the disturbing breadth of the wall, its’ looming presence and its inherent sense of threat, dread and danger. The Berlin Wall should today be a lesson in abject failure - an unsuccessful, deplorable defense of totalitarianism, and a sterile symbol of state supremacy. Yet, it seems that we have not learned from earlier mistakes. The historical futility of “WALLS” appears lost on many who simply cannot accept their ultimate absurdity as tools to maintain either the rule of law or the semblance of order.
The “Velvet Revolution” achieved its outcomes as much from the fatigued and frustrated philosophies of commandants as from the persistence of resistance by the opposition. German government officials, military officers and army regulars literally stood by, stared and did nothing. Their passivity, as film of their facial expressions seem to suggest, was a shared desire for the inevitable denouement and finale to finally occur, like the feeling one gets being let out of a Wagnerian opera) Masses of people turned out in non-violent protest - A WALL OF HUMANITY - a force irrefutable by any government. They stood by as the wall was chiselled, riveted, pounded, and hammered. Until finally fallen.
The Wall Today (to be continued...)