Redstate

Hi,

Allow me to clarify this statement:

"As I understand it from my German hosts, the part of the Reichstag to the right in the picture was in West Germany. The rest of it was in the no man's land called the "death strip" between East and West Berlin with the wall running almost through the building."

While the Reichstag was close to the Wall, the entire building was on its western side.

Cheers,

Wolf
Summerland, B.C.
Canada

Interesting post. I'd been thinking about The Wall too. I recently touched a piece of the Wall that was on display in an office I visited. One side of the wall was covered with grafitti, the other side clean. The clean side also showed parts of the rebar - nothing more than chicken-wire really - peeking out in places.

From the perspective of someone who appreciates good concrete it was a pretty crappy wall. Roman concrete has lasted 2 millennia, but commie concrete looks like it wouldn't have lasted another generation or two.

But it did manage to kill help kill 1,250 people and keep 1/2 continent in bondage.

Cutting edge political commentary at The Razor
Since Oct 2001

Thanks.

Stationed in Swabisch Gmuend, 20 clicks east of Stuttgart, November '86 to Dec. '89. When the wall fell we were told to stay on the base. But that is what makes American soldiers so hard to defeat, we don't always do what we're told(plus, I was just 24 and thought I was invincible). We got as close to the tumbling wall party as possible. It was wild.
Speaking of the concrete, my 1st Sgt, after formation one morning and soon afterward made the statement that the crumbling graffiti walls around the barracks looked a lot like THE wall. He said he was going to send pieces of it home and get his friends to sell them. He had that entrepreneur spirit. Wasn't around long enough to find out if he got to retire early.

Born in the backwoods, raised by a gator, got a P-2 missile, called the peace maker. Shoot cast iron metal into the clear blue sky,....something something, by God, fit to fight, by God, Pershing! by God!
Can't believe I remembered that.

take about a hour to see the DDR museum, and see a bit how daily life was in East Germany. The propaganda film experience is reason enough to go. You will get a new appreciation (?) for the dreariness of life under the Communist regime, as well as the spirit of those Germans determined to beat it somehow, even privately. The museum is located on the Spree, near the Berliner Dom (sp?), I believe.

I realize this probably sounds more than a bit cheesy, but I am glad I visited this museum, which adds to what I've read in books. Of course, you can see numerous reminders of what E. German communism was like in walks around the city, though some of the grotesque communist architecture is disappearing. And if you look even a bit, you will find (mostly aging) Germans nostalgic for the days under the DDR, which is an education as well.

Enjoy your stay.

Just curious!

I have a very small piece of the Berlin Wall still in my possession all these years later (won it in a contest at school), and hopefully someday I'm going to stand where you have stood. I remember the day the wall came down like it was yesterday.

___________________________________
The CIA has better politicians than it has spies - Fred Thompson

I was in the US Army in the then West Germany in the mid 60s. The Wall was an amazing thing but then so was the whole East German border known to the Germans as the inner German border.

The sign we used to call "Welcome to the DDR" hung on the double apron barbed wire fence just west of the commies' minefield was an inverted triangle with a skull in the center. It read "Achtung Minen DDR".

They used to patrol their side of the border about every 20 minutes usually in a two stroke motorcycle with a sidecar and they had a line of towers each within sight of the next.

The lights on the east side of the border would go out at (from memory) 10pm every night, switched off by the nanny state so her workers would be ready to go in the morning. So from the hills near the border it looked like half the countryside went dark.

The commies were so incompetent they couldn't even make beer with a German workforce. In East Berlin there was only one brewery compared with 12 (from memory) in West Berlin and the commie beer was foul.

And the East Berliners had anti-fraternization laws. They weren't allowed to speak with foreigners. If you asked one for directions they would jump back so any Stasi agents could see nothing was changing hands. The only people that would speak freely to you in those days were old people and, paradoxically, East German soldiers.

I used to go into East Berline in US Army uniform (I was a paratrooper on jump status which used to make the crossing guards curious)and it was quite amusing.

Berlin in those days was still an occupied city and divided into four sectors British, French, Russian (Soviet) and American. And our rules were in force, not German because Berlin was still conquered territory.

I used to walk to the head of the queue at Checkpoint Charlie, show my ID card for about 5 seconds and keep on walking because they (the East German border guards) were not allowed under the law to interfere with occupying soldiers.

If one of the guards called me back I would refuse to speak to him because he was illegitimate and insist that he get a Russian. There was always one on duty overseeing the East Germans at Checkpoint Charlie and Friedrich Strasse U-Bahn station (the other crossing point). The Russians always thought that was a hoot because neither they nor I liked the East Germans.

We would exchange pleasantries in bad German, bad mouth the East Germans and the Russkie would slap me on the shoulder and laugh and push me on my way.

It was all quite funny if you knew the rules and were a member of one of the occupying forces.

It wasn't funny if you were East German. There was a museum of the wall right next to Checkpoint Charlie which was one sobering experience to visit.

Anyone who has had the privilege of standing guard on a commie border to keep those buggers in place would know better than to say anything good about that system.

It was awful and disgusting.

It makes my blood boil when leftist academics and fellow travellers tout socialism or communism as if they know something real.

Bob Murphy

I keep hearing this bald guy in a red shirt from a mediocre sci-fi tv show.