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The Berlin Wall: A Proposal (1989)

Though I've written about Berlin before, I have an idea for a travel essay I've not done in the past (and haven't seen from anyone else). That would be an elaborate discussion of Der Mauer, which is the local name for the Berlin Wall. It would at minimum touch upon the following topics:

1) Its origins, evolution, and reasons for being, from both Western and Eastern perspectives. (Remember that the East claims it was constructed to prevent an invasion from the West. That accounts for why the uniformed soldiers in the guard towers are constantly training their binoculars on the West.) Most of the current Wall actually replaced earlier structures.

2) What the Wall looks like, from both sides, with barbed wire and then open space on the Eastern side and graffiti on the Western side. (I have marvelous photographs of the latter.) In a recent news weekly, you should know, was a photograph captioned "East Berliners Walking Beside the Wall," but that would be impossible. East Berliners can't get anywhere near their side of the Wall.

3) Where the Wall goes (and why), including its passing through the middle of a lake or under an elevated subway. Here I would describe Steinstucken, which is an enclave a few miles outside West Berlin but legally tied to it. Once physically isolated from West Berlin, Steinstucken is now connected by a road surrounded by high walls on both sides.

4) How to pass through it, both legally and illegally, from both West to East and East to West. This would include a summary of the procedures for three categories of Western visitors--West Berliners, West Germans and andere sta ten--as well as the East German rules on different categories of their citizens traveling West. Here I would describe the Museum at Checkpoint Charlie that documents some of the more elaborate illegal departures.

5) How it is experienced, with testimony from both sides. My sense is that West Berlin has been rebuilt to eliminate experience of the Wall. I know from having lived there for nearly a year (in snatches) that you must be reminded of the Wall's existence. Most West Berliners go about their daily business without thinking about it and in general are scarcely affected by it, except for certain subtle anomalies--in midsummer the city's streets are filled with people, because few in West Berlin is ever invited to spend a boring weekend at a country home.

6) The mechanics of maintaining the Wall. Since it is on East German property, they from time to time send over two guys with whitewash who clean off the graffiti in the presence of two armed East soldiers, all of whom return to the East. Also, not long ago, East policemen came through to arrest and take back a West Berlin graffiti artist, and I heard that since he was captured defacing East German property on East German territory there was nothing West Berlin could do about rescuing him.

7) I would like to do something about Heidelbergerstrasse in Neukölln, which is one of the few places where West Berliners and East Berliners live in sight of one another and, indeed, hang out on their windowsills talking to one another over the East German protection space.

8) The foolishness of Ronald Reagan's demand to "tear down the Wall." This gets us into legal differences on how each regards the other. To the West, East Germany is a lost province. To the East, they are separate countries, now and forever. Therefore, a telephone call from West to East is billed at the same rate as a call within West Berlin. By contrast, a call from East to West is billed as "international." Therefore as well, East Germans immigrating to West Germany are entitled to employment and welfare, without discrimination. Were the Wall to come down tomorrow, there would be a flood of East Germans expecting jobs and thus a lot of economic problems in the West! (Little did I know that the Wall would fall through Eastern initiative, nonetheless producing economic problems.)

Drawing upon my experience of Berlin, in addition to friends living in both the West and the East, I want to write a rich picture of a unique situation whose ramifications and implications can hardly be imagined until you are there.