b e r l i n
[kudam] Stefan was a 22 year old West German from Cologne who had never been to Berlin. This was a slight shock because I thought most Germans had been to Berlin, even if they lived in West Germany, but come to think of it, I've lived all my life in California and have never been to Maine. We crossed over to East Berlin on the day of the first East German election. The Marx-Engelsplatz was filled with thousands of people, taking photos, strolling along, pushing babycarts, all enjoying the beautiful and sunny first day of democratic rule.

We walked to the Wall and Brandenburg Gate and climbed up where two months earlier we would have been shot by armed soldiers. The same armed soldiers now willingly pose for tourist pictures like militaristic Disney characters. Huge lines were forming on both east and west sides - both cities seemed anxious to experience what it was like on the other side.

As we ventured further east, away from the center city, houses still showed war damage from forty years ago. Still further east, we entered a suburban area - a neighborhood of widely spaced twenty story apartment complexes, each done in the same forbidding urban renewal style that swept the world in the 1960's. Stefan explained the government was willing to let the old housing decay in order to move the popoulation out into the suburbs, where surveillance was easy.

I began to wonder about the German unification and what it would be like for the residents of these towers. Dropping them unprepared onto the Ku'damm in West Berlin would amount to dropping a medieval monk into Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. In fact, many East Berliners visiting West Berlin that day were returning through Zoologischergarten U-bahn with huge boxes - color TV's, stereos, and other electronics.

We ended our tour at the Alexanderplatz, the huge ten acre plaza in the center of East Berlin. We walked into the Kaufhaus, their version of Macy's. An entire wall was lined with television sets, made in East Germany. They were new and improved, an advertisement said. Solid-state transistors - no more radio tubes - although most were still only black and white.

Back to the Grand Tour. . . . 
back to fountain
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june 1996