Читаем Berlin полностью

As it turned out, Kennedy’s private tirade proved to be more predictive of U.S. policy on Berlin than his public stance. He too was hoping for a “change” in the Berlin situation that would eliminate it as a dangerous bone of contention in the Cold War without necessitating a huge sacrifice of Western prestige.

By the spring of 1961, it was clear that some kind of solution would have to be found soon. In 1959 the number of East Germans fleeing to the West through Berlin had dropped somewhat, but since early 1960 the exodus had turned into a veritable flood, increasing from month to month. Factories in the East were curtailing production for want of workers; some shops had closed because their clerks had gone west. The Soviet threat to sign a peace treaty with the East only increased the flight, since people reasoned that they had better get out while they still could. Berlin, to return to Khrushchev’s pithy metaphor, might indeed have been the tender testicles of the West, but it was also the loose sphincter of the East.

The People’s Army soldier Conrad Schumann leaping to freedom, August 15, 1961

9

THE DIVIDED CITY

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.

—Robert Frost, “Mending Wall”

DURING THE YEARS when Berlin was divided by its internal barrier, air travelers approaching the city had to strain to see the famous Wall. As Peter Schneider observes in his novel, Der Mauerspringer (The Wall Jumper, 1982): “Seen from the air, the city appears perfectly homogenous. Nothing suggests to the stranger that he is nearing a region where two political constructs collide.” Once on the ground, however, the differences became very perceptible indeed. East and West Berlin looked different, smelled different, and above all felt different. The two halves of Berlin had been growing apart since 1945, but the Wall ensured that the dual cities were more distant from each other than if they had been separated by a continent. Saved by its sealed border from continuing to lose its best people to the West, East Berlin solidified its position as capital of the GDR and show window of East German communism. West Berlin, now cut off more thoroughly from West Germany and the Atlantic world, became a somewhat marginal player in the political and economic framework of the Federal Republic.

Despite their differing fates in the post-Wall world, there were surprising parallels between the two Berlin’s. Both were lavishly subsidized by their national governments, which were anxious to hold them up as symbols of the superiority of their respective systems. Both thought they had reasons for self-satisfaction: East Berlin touted itself as the most prosperous city in the Eastern bloc; West Berlin saw itself as the only “real city” in the Federal Republic. At the same time, both suffered crises of identity: East Berlin because it had difficulty gaining recognition or respect from the West; West Berlin because its primary function was simply to survive and show the flag. Both claimed to be full of cultural vitality, but in reality the artistic achievements were spotty, illustrating the dilemma of building a first-rate culture through subsidies and government incentives. Dissident elements in both cities claimed to perpetuate Old Berlin’s vaunted tradition of opposition to established authority, but in each case the claim was somewhat spurious: in East Berlin antiregime forces remained largely quiescent until the last months of the GDR’s existence, while in West Berlin political protest degenerated into sterile and self-indulgent terrorism.

Operation Chinese Wall

On August 11, 1961, the rubber-stamp parliament of the GDR announced, somewhat cryptically:

The People’s Assembly confirms the impending measures to protect the security of the GDR and to curtail the campaign of organized Kopfjägerei [head-hunting] and Menschenhandel [traffic in human lives] orchestrated from West Germany and West Berlin. The Assembly empowers the GDR Council of Ministers to undertake all the steps approved by the member states of the Warsaw Pact. The Assembly appeals to all peace-loving citizens of the GDR to give their full support to the agencies of their Workers-and-Peasants State in the application of these measures.

Upon learning of this announcement on the following day, West Berlin’s mayor, Willy Brandt, spoke of “Ulbricht’s Enabling Law,” a reference to the blank check for dictatorial measures given to Hitler by the Reichstag in March 1933. Brandt predicted that the ominous pronouncement would dramatically increase the number of East German citizens fleeing to the West through Berlin. “They will come out of fear that the walls of the Iron Curtain will be cemented shut,” he said.

The Berlin Wall