When my wife Denise and I left Berlin in May 1980 we were both determined that we would one day return to this fabulous city. I may have even said those words made famous by a one time Austrian body builder by saying "I'll be back." The reason for this was that both professionally, socially and educationally, my posting to Berlin was one of the most enjoyable times of my British Army service.
Between 1980 and now, a number of factions delayed that return, the main one being my retirement from the Army, the necessity of finding a job in UK and bringing up a family in the darkest depths of Surrey (plus paying for a Surrey level mortgage). Then, just as we started planning that return, some inconsiderate people began the destruction of European communism and tore down the Wall!
Anyway, I digress. This year we decided it would be now or never and booked a 6 day trip covering our 34th wedding anniversary. For those with an interest in Berlin, who had lived there, either as a member of a military organisation or as a Service dependant, I thought I would put my views down in this blog in the hope that someone, somewhere, may find it of interest.
There is no doubt that there will be those who may correct some geographical or political errors or may feel that this is a load of garbage. That is their perogative but I don't really care. This is how I found modern day Berlin. I did not visit any of the sites of military barracks or even where I used to live but found that 6 days was hardly enough time to cover the city plus trips to Dresden, Potsdam and Oranienberg which was the site of Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
First impressions
Clean streets, though graffiti seemed to be prevalent; there were fat men but none in football shirts (a pet hate of mine) - in fact I didn't see anyone wearing a football shirt as leisure wear; there were overweight women but none in shell/track suits - in fact the majority seemed to select clothing which suited their particular build (also no Croydon face-lifts); I'm sure there must be some but saw no signs of groups of feral youths hanging on corners, spitting in the gutter and giving off theatening vibes; a terrific public transport system where the buses, trams, U-bahns and S-bahns seemed to be working in conjunction with each other rather than in opposition (have you visited London recently?).
Disappointments
To the best of my recollection (a bit of irony here), there was a significant British contribution to the control and protection of the city and its residents post war, especially during the Berlin Airlift and the de-Nazification of the relevant authorities. I saw very little of this contribution during my visit. You can still buy postcards and key rings showing the shape of Berlin and the four sectors with the national flags, including the Union Jack, but this seemed to be it.
One of our first stops was to a place I would have been shot 30 years ago for attempting - walking from West to East through the Branderberg Gate. A sign of modernisation, unification and capitalism is apparent when one of the first buildings you see in the 'old Eastern sector' was a Starbucks!
In the open area by the Brandenburg Gate was a group of actors, working for the Berlin Tourist Authority, dressed in various military uniforms selling souvenirs of the cold war era, such as Soviet visas allowing travel to the West and post cards with stamps of the various military authorities. They were dressed as US Army MPs, an East German Border Guard, a Soviet soldier and even a French Army officer (ha!) but no one in a British military uniform. When I queried this I was told that the Tourism Authority did not have any British Army uniforms (and no one had apparently tried to obtain any) - it was admitted by one of the actors that even the stamp shown as that of the British Military Government was, in fact, an Australian Army stamp!
Following on from this, a German television programme on the Berlin airlift did not show any British planes, participants or officials of the day. They were all American. The only British military I saw in the one hour prgramme was that of a British Army Sgt stood with American, French and Soviet soldiers saluting delegates of the Allied Kommandatura as they attended a meeting - even then, whilst the other three were in dress uniforms, with the American wearing a burnished steel helmet, the Frenchman a kepi and the Soviet soldier one of those high fronted peak caps, the British Sgt wore a beret and an open-necked KF shirt with the sleeves rolled up!
Perhaps I'm just being paranoid but I felt that the British contribution to Berlin was being slowly deleted from history.
Some changes
In the 2 years and three months I served in Berlin, there were a number of occasions when, together with colleagues, we tried to consume a great part of the Schultheiss brewery output and I was looking foward to having a glass or two during my stay. No chance! the brewery est geschlossen and is no more. I found some of the older side street bars still displaying a lit sign advertising the beer and one even had beer mats but no beer. I do recall that it was quite a strong beer and gave a hell of a hangover after over imbibement and perhaps it does not fit in with the politically correct 'lite and healthy' image.
Do you remember the Berlin clock in the Ku'Damm which did not have numbers or a normal clock face but told the time throught different coloured lights? It was a major tourist talking point and souvenir shops up and down the Ku'damm sold smaller copies - I even bought a couple to give away as unusual presents. After wandering up and down trying to find it, thinking I'd gone past it or just not noticed it, I was told by someone in the Tourist Office that it has been moved inside the Europa centre behind the Gedachtniskirche and smaller versions are no longer made.
Whilst in the tourist office I mentioned that I could not find the TeufelSee, where the Teufelsberg (and the Sigint listening station) was. Apparently, it is now called the Dianasee.
The Wall
After reunification, the Federal Government apparently decided that the site of the wall and the death strip around the outskirts of West Berlin with East Germany would not be used for residential or commercial building as it may lead to notoriety or even a weird kind of fame. It was decided that part of the autobahn ring road would follow the route of the death strip thus allowing millions of people to traverse where so many were forbidden to venture only 20 years ago. The irony may have escaped them but what they created is still divisive as one side of the road is Berlin and the other side is what was East Germany.
The route of the Wall through the centre of the city is shown by a line of small cobble stones with the result of many photographs taken of visitors astride the line with one foot in the West, etc. Sad people! In Bernauer Str there are a couple of places where the Wall has been kept with a (sanitised) example of the death strip with watchtowers but in the main, we found that the area has been left as grassed over wasteland (hope they removed the mines first?).
Other tourist sites
One aspect of the reunification is the opportunity to visit some of the greatest museums in Europe (The Russian authorities have even returned looted artifacts and exhibits - well, some of 'em (I was not allowed into East Berlin when stationed there but Denise visited regularly using her British Military Government ID card and I was reliant on her memories of the areas). The Pergamon and Boden museums are both worth a visit.
Alexanderplatz has obviously been modernised but Denise showed me where the Soviet shop was where the Eastern bloc great and good were allowed to buy luxury goods using hard currency as well as the shopping centre where she recalled East Berliners queueing for bunches of overripe bananas in the knowledge that it would be some time before they saw any more once they had gone.
The Fernsehturm (TV tower) is now open to the public and offers a wide view of the city though none of the guides I spoke to admitted knowing about it being called "The Pope's Revenge" or why. They also claimed not to have heard of the death of Rosa Luxemburg at the nearby Red Rathaus - perhaps part of the conversation was lost in translation.
There are loads of land or river tours around and through Berlin - we took a very informative river cruise - and visitors can select the distance or area they wish to travel so will say no more about that.
Outside Berlin
We did three trips outside Berlin, an organised trip to Dresden and two independent trips to Potsdam and Oranienberg.
In Dresden, the major buildings, churches and palaces are fairly central and close to each other. The trip was quite informative though the guide emphasised the destruction of the city by British bombers in 1945 - at last the British were recognised for something in the area. He tried to make the point that Dresden was a city of culture and minor industries and the bombing was a war crime but I'm afraid I butted in and mentioned that not only was it a major railway cross roads for travel to and from the eastern front but that the 'minor' industries were turning out vital precision optical instruments for German armaments and planes and sad though the damage was, it had to be compared with the bombing of Coventry earlier in the war. The guide also was not aware that a cross formed of beams from the original Coventry Cathedral, held together with nails found in the ruins, was presented to the Dresden church authorities after the war as a sign of mutual forgiveness.
Potsdam was reached by a 40 minute U and S-bahn journey from where we were staying near Ardenauer Platz (just off the Ku-Damm) though the major attractions, if you can call them that, are spread around the city. For this reason we took a local tour. Ex-Brixmis personnel may be interested to know that the Mission House is now a mansion owned by a German television talk show host, though whether he's managed to get the blood off the cellar walls is not known (joke).
In what was called the Forbidden City or The Russian Colony, which is where the KGB Headquarters, offices and residences were, the buildings are either very high quality hotels or luxury flats (can I tell the cellar joke again?). In the bright sunshine, the Gleinicke Brucke didn't seem half as malevolent as it did in the spy films but I bet it could tell a story or two. If any Ex-Brixmis want a copy of a map of modern day Potsdam, just let me know in the comments below.
We both believe that tourism should be more than just sitting on a beach in the sun drinking cocktails so we decided to visit Oranienberg, at the end of a S-bahn line from Berlin and which is a very unassuming town apart from being the site of the first Nazi concentration camp, used initially for political dissidents but then for the incarceration of Jews, Gypsies, Soviet POWs and others as well as some British military personnel captured during Commando raids - Hitler had decreed that Commandos were not to be afforded the rights of the Geneva Convention and many were sent to concentration camps. At Sachsenhausen the aim seemed to be the ritual humiliation, torture and death by the SS purely because they could, though they justified it by claiming the inmates were working to help the Nazi war effort. Although it was a sunny day, the steel entrance gate with the wording "Arbeit Macht Frei" sent a chill down my spine. To me, Sachsenhausen stood out as a place of evil comparable to Bergen Belsen, which we visited when stationed in Germany, and the Cambodian SL2 prison and Cheung Ek killing fields in Phnomh Penh and the cynical side of me felt that even though it has happened and been recorded, it will be recorded that it will happen again. On leaving the camp we entered a garden of remembrance where, amongst others, there is a memorial to a group of military personnel who were incarcerated, tortured and killed there. It is obviously visited on a regular basis as the ground around it is well tended and three poppy wreaths were at the base. It is my intent to write to the organisations shown on the wreaths and send them photos taken of the memorial.
Conclusion
It is often said that you should never go back to places as they will have changed in real time while, in your mind, being as you remember them. However, both of us are glad we returned to Berlin and saw the changes as well as parts being as they were 30 years ago. My advice is that, if you have the chance, you could do a lot worse for a city break but you may find, as we did, that the 6 days we had was not enough.
Many thanks for reading this, make of it what you will and any comments, apart from racist, abusive, obscene or insulting, are welcome.
