January 2005
Berlin
Checkpoint Charlie, Arrested on the Border, and the Hospital
So, I had planned to tell you all about my Christmas, and my trip to Berlin… but a few things happened to get in the way. On the way home from the Berlin area, I started to have some very bad abdominal pain. Before Monday was half over, I was admitted to the Hospital in Heidelberg, and undergoing treatment for Gall Stones — I had a complete common bile duct obstruction. I eventually had the gall bladder removed. Several days on, I'm still trying to recover from the surgery, but the Gall Bladder is gone, and I can already feel the improvement from having it removed.
Christmas was a wonderful service, following my 24 hour shift. Christmas day, my parents and I went to a wonderful restaurant near where we used to live. In the week following Christmas, we did more travels here and there — seeing people who could remember me, but I could not remember, or could barely remember. One day we went back to Rothenburg ob der Tauber to get some nice pictures in the snow. We went on to Bamberg to visit old friends there that evening.
New Year's eve, we drove out to a quaint little town on the west side of the valley, before going to a party with friends in Oftersheim. We toasted the new year with Champaign, and fireworks. There were some really intense fireworks that evening — it almost felt like a war-zone.
January 3rd, Monday, I signed out on leave, and we headed up the Autobahn to Berlin, retracing the steps of our trip there in 1987 — when the wall was still up. Back in the days of the Cold War, the only way we as Americans could travel to West Berlin was either by Air, by Rail, or by Autobahn — along one corridor. In 1987, we drove up to Helmstead, and processed through Allied Checkpoint Alpha. Barbed-wire fence, watchtowers, and armed guards were clearly evident. East German Secret Police either watched or followed us for the whole route.
This time, we stopped at the old Checkpoint Alpha — almost unrecognizable, converted to other uses. We could have just breezed right through on the 6 lane super-autobahn that runs all the way to Berlin. Here and there along the side of the Autobahn were Media Markt's, Ikea's, McDonald's, Burger King's, etc. None of the old Watchtowers were left.
We took the S-bahn to Potsdamer Platz — once the busiest square in Europe. In 1987, it was a desolate corner of Berlin, with the wall splitting it in two. We came up the steps from the underground station, and I was unable to figure out where I was. We stood in the shadow of a fairly decent sky-scraper. About 20 feet from the stairs, I saw it: a lone, graffiti coated segment of the Berlin Wall. On the segment of wall, were painted the words “An dieser stelle enstand 1989 die erste lücke in der Berliner mauer” — “On this site in 1989, the first hole in the Berlin Wall was made.”
We approached Checkpoint Charlie after sunset. On the actual border, a few feet beyond the checkpoint building, there now stands a large internally lit sign. Facing from the West side, it is a Soviet soldier. Facing from the East side, it is a U.S. Soldier. Running down either side, on the East Berlin side, is a reconstruction of the wall as it appeared before the fall. Immediately on the other side of the wall, on both sides, countless black crosses stand in white gravel — facing in random directions, a stark contrast to the orderly white marble crosses of the American Cemetery in Normandy.
Standing in this place, seeing these crosses, remembering what it was, I was moved to tears. “Here is where the people of the United States of America effectively vowed to stand up for basic rights.” Those tanks facing off across the checkpoint, as well as the tens of thousands of troops facing off across the inter-German border — the very reason I grew up in Germany — wasn't about power or conquest. It was about a promise. We are here with you. We have not forgotten you.
We also drove north towards the Polish Baltic city of Stettin. We parked just short of the border control point, and crossed the border by foot at the Grenzstein — border stone — about 100m south of the control point. I finally got to beat my parents into a country — by about 2m and one minute. We were detained by the Polish border patrol for about an hour while they got German and Polish control people to come check our passports. They determined that we were not international drug smugglers, and let us go.
Today, my color has cleaned out, my incisions are itching, and the medications are making me high… but I'm healing.
Charles.