Europe, 1982:

East & West Berlin

My visit to East/West Berlin in 1982 was a sobering experience.

Born and raised on the sunny coast of California, I had read of the Berlin Wall in history books, but it was just an intangible part of the insanity that was the Cold War.

In 1982, the Cold War was a conflict that I expected to continue without end.

It was a monolithic battle being waged amongst faceless nations, so the personal impact of the whole conflict was marginal.

The Cold War had existed in my earliest memories, and shaped many aspects of society during my childhood. Mutually Assured Destruction seemed to be the only thing that kept the crazy people from killing each other, and I saw little chance of the balance of power ever changing.

Visiting West Berlin, touching the Berlin Wall, and crossing through 'Checkpoint Charlie' into East Berlin for a day brought it all home.

To experience a single large city ripped in half by the capricious whims of politics - the painful absurdity of it was overwhelming.

One of my favorite photos is of an East Berlin guard tower, framed by a hole in a brick wall. (Not actually the Berlin Wall, it was a brick wall on the opposite side of the river from the real Berlin Wall.)

Looking from the West, across the river you can see an East German guard tower, with a smokestack billlowing black smoke behind it.

A decaying pier sticks out of the middle of the grey river - testament to the bridge that once linked the old city of Berlin.

Not pictured is the patrol boat which showed up only a few minutes later.

Whether on routine patrol, or alerted by my picture taking, a small East German gunboat with a group of three military officers cruised by slowly without stopping.

I think that the picture was taken along this stretch of river:


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When I revisited the site 18 years later, the guard tower and the smokestack were long gone, but the large white building with the brown roof to the right of the guard tower was still standing

Just a few blocks away was the terminus of one spur of the West Berlin elevated metro system. Judging from the architecture, it could well have been built before World War II. The notable thing about the station was that the rails continued on and went over a bridge to East Berlin.

The passage was, of course, blocked. While the brick and suspension bridge was well designed, it's beauty was marred by huge sheets of rusting steel that had been crudely welded together to wall off the entire portal on the West Berlin side. Barbed wire ringed the edges. There was a small doorway in the iron barrier, but one got the impression it was rarely used. (Sadly, no photo.)
 

This is another interesting photo.
Taken in East Berlin, this 'communications tower' was visible from most of West Berlin. (I wonder how many cameras were trained on me as I happily snapped my photos of this Eastern Bloc city? :)

These days, it doubles as a restaurant.


I left that small city-state with the sad feeling that this insanity might never end.

It was with stunned amazement that - only seven years later - I saw people on TV, dancing joyously atop the wall which had symbolized such bitter divisiveness between two cultures...