From “Checkpoint Bravo” to Wernigerode

There are two photos for this date:

- the first is of a map which doesn’t exist, but which would probably have been permitted to be used in the German Democratic Republic (read on and all will make sense)

- the second is of our Hotel in Wernigerode


THROUGH " THE WALL "

The Wall was an ever increasingly sophisticated system of boundary walls and/or fences, watchtowers, minefields and other deadly obstacles.  It was erected in Eastern Germany in 1961 - on the insistence of the Russian occupying forces - and demolished in 1990.

My first glimpse of the Wall was in 1966.  

During the following year I was in Berlin, where I made two trips from West Berlin into the Eastern sector.  The first was via the underground railway system (at Friedrichstrasse station), the second by a coach tour (at “Checkpoint Charlie”).

I am sure that this trip to Berlin was a propaganda exercise financed by either the West German state or the West Berlin authority itself.  The town was underpopulated and probably in financial difficulty, particularly because of the obstacles which awaited people travelling to the town.

I was given a lot of information about both parts of Berlin, also
- taken to viewpoints from which one could see over the Wall into the east, 
- going on an underground train running under the Eastern sector, moving at a snail’s pace, the dimmed stations patrolled by guards with their Alsatians, and mirrors to ensure that nobody had managed to get onto the train. 

And I got a detailed talk about what I should and should not do (or say) if I decided to cross into the Eastern sector.

The most important advice was not to take a map over the border.  If you were frisked you risked being refused entry, possibly also more trouble with the police.  

So I entered map-less, and then made my way to the nearest bookshop to buy an East German map, one entitled “Berlin, Hauptstadt der DDR” or “Capital of the German Democratic Republic”.  This map is fascinating, mainly because of the amount of information which it does not supply.  (I  keep it as a treasured souvenir. It is the inspiration for my pseudo-map displayed here.)

Further essential advice: if you were using a camera, be very careful of whom or what you were taking photos.  Railways, no.  People in uniform, no.  Aircraft, no.  Military vehicles & machinery, no.  After all, you can be recognised as a foreigner by your clothing, and are thus considered likely to be a spy.

During the early 1970s I planned a coach trip to East Germany with my mother through Berolina Travel.  This would have been to Weimar (Goethe’s home and fief) and other historic towns, including probably Leipzig and Erfurt (Martin Luther’s home).  The trip was cancelled for lack of interest.


.......... Anyway, forwards to 1989.  With family, I had planned a week’s stay in a Hapimag holiday village in Braunlage, in the Harz mountains.  And Braunlage happened to lie right on the East-West border.  I had retained my interest in the East, and thought it an interesting exercise to visit Wernigerode with the family : after all, the Wall would be knocked down eventually.  The arrangements were made by Berolina.

I had no idea of momentous events further eastwards.

Hungary:
- in 1988 Hungarian citizens were permitted to travel to the West
- in May 1989, the boundary wire separating Hungarian from Austria was brought down

Czechoslovakia:
- in August 1989, there was a mass occupation of the West German Embassy in Prague by East German citizens demanding exile in West Germany
- from 3rd November, thousands of occupiers of the embassy started to go by train to West Germany

So you can perhaps guess what was going to happen next.....


However, back to our holiday. [The 3rd August, 1989.  [i]The occupation of the embassy in Prague may have already begun.[/i]]

There were four sites for vehicles to cross the East-West border.  We chose the Hanover-Magdeburg motorway.  If starting from the west, you would call it Helmstedt (or “Checkpoint Bravo”), but in the East it was Marienborn.  

With any maps well hidden, we waited an hour or so for our passports and visas to be checked.

The route taken by us was eastwards on the autobahn towards Magdeburg, thence on a minor road south-westwards to Halderstadt, and finally the short distance to Wernigerode.

Countryside and towns on our route were sparingly populated.  Trabants, East Germany’s best known car, appeared occasionally.  Buildings in towns and the city of Magdeburg were very drab, this probably aggravated by the braunkohl (lignite) which was mined in the region and thus also burned in the buildings.  

A few people were to be seen trudging along roads, pulling old prams or carts. 

The fields were enormous, many of them irrigated by enormous rotating water pipes.  And it was a gray, gray  day.


WERNIGERODE

The outskirts of Wernigerode were extremely ugly, flats probably built in the 1950s.  But the town centre was delightful.  We parked just outside the town beside the minuscule Trabants, and collected our luggage from the car.  

We walked inwards, trying to find the Hotel.  Fortunately we were seen by a short, well-dressed, officious, slightly antagonistic woman, who asked where we were going.  [Perhaps she had been waiting for us.  We could easily be recognised by our clothing and hairstyles.]

If the old town was delightful, our hotel was rather basic.  But not uncomfortable.

I think we were provided with breakfast and evening meal; if so I have no idea where else we could go to eat.  No menu to choose from, we were given good basic fare: the borsch (beetroot soup) was delicious, the brawn (pigs head) ditto.  The three cakes exhibited in the hotel window were disappointing, mainly because they were not there for eating by customers - and  was possibly made of cardboard.

Upstairs rooms: 19th or early 20th style.  No carpets.  Basic but perfectly adequate toilets.  

When at the end of our stay I was invited up to his office (to pay the bill?), the young manager’s priority was to ask if he could exchange some of his MDNs (Mark Deutscher Notenbank) for my foreign currency.  Verboten.  The trouble was you could never guess who the spies were: a hotel manager might well be a Stasi informer.

In the lounge: a newspaper with front page news praising the productivity rate of tractors in a local factory.  Funny, I never saw any.  [And no mention at all of the asylum-seekers in Prague.  Odd.]

More photos and narration to follow...….