Checkpoint
Charlie
could be the name of a party bar. If there are any, they're surely named
after the original, which could be considered a "bar" only
in the far grimmer sense of Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar,"
which in the Berlin context meant an act of final transition made by
those unfortunates who were shot dead as they tried to flee the
eastern, Soviet-controlled, sector to the western side and freedom.
An
unlikely name for a killing ground. Charlie. A most casual name,
suggestive of carefree fun:
there're your good time Charlies, your Charlie McCarthys, your
Charlie Browns. It exceeds in diminutiveness even the technically
more diminutive of the diminutives for "Charles," that
being "Chuck," which sounds almost too inside baseball for
someone outside the game. Nope, "Charlie" is the one for
every occasion, except maybe being gunned down trying to dash or
sneak across the football-field-length of pitted pavement separating
the Communist guard shacks from those of the Western allies.
"Charlie,"
incidentally, came from the NATO phonetic alphabet for "C."
In retrospect, "Checkpoint C" might have had a closer
emotional connection with the high and low drama ever playing on that
stretch of political stage from 1959 until 1989, when the Wall came
down.
I
walked across that patch of "no man's land" into what was
then East Berlin in 1970. A couple of hours later I was surrounded by
a rifle squad and herded into the back of a canvas-covered military
truck. Watching these hard-faced young men, who looked to be in their
early teens, rack back the bolts on their weapons, which I'm thinking
were probably Stg-44 assault rifles inherited from the Wehrmacht
of
WWII, definitely got my attention.
They
jumped out the back of the truck, which had rumbled up and screeched
to a stop about a block or two from the Reichstag
ruins,
toward which I and three companions were walking. The whole scene was
strange. There had been no traffic on the streets-neither vehicular
nor pedestrian-throughout our stroll in the city.
The
only commercial outlets I recall were a bookstore, where I bought a
beautifully bound English-Russian dictionary for a fraction of what I
would have paid in the West, and a drab restaurant where someone in
uniform guarded the door until the four of us had given the manager
every German mark, U.S. dollar and cent in our possession in order to
pay the unspecified "cost" of our meal of cold cuts, cheese
and fruit juice.
The
Cold War was in full chill. I had gotten out of the Army three years
earlier and was bumming around Europe at the time. I was in West
Berlin expecting to meet a couple of friends from home - one, a
college buddy and the other a fellow I'd grown up with. Our schedules
didn't jibe, however, and we never got together behind the Iron
Curtain. Meanwhile, I decided to visit East Berlin on my own.
It
was a cool morning, I recall, but I can't remember the month.
Checkpoint Charlie was within walking distance of my hotel, which was
within view of the imposing Brandenburg Gate, with its Doric columns
and horse-pulled chariot atop. I spent about half an hour at Charlie,
walking through the little museum that featured photos of people shot
to death a few yards away as they'd tried to escape to the West. I
remember a small automobile in the museum, which had an ingenious
hidden compartment for smuggling escapees to the West. It didn't fool
the Soviets.
Touring
the museum, I met the three young people with whom I then crossed
over to the Eastern sector for what we anticipated would be a
leisurely tour of the forbidden city. My little group included two
U.S. college girls, who were enjoying a "junior year abroad,"
studying in London, and a young British male student.
Our
little jaunt halted when a military truck stopped next to us, and
rifle-toting teenagers hopped out and surrounded us. The two girls
with me immediately began crying when a smallish man in a gray-green
uniform approached and demanded, in German, our passports. This
prompted a running argument with the British lad, who spoke the host
language quite well. But he gained no ground, despite sounding fairly
sure of himself and nearly as authoritative as the smallish man,
whose manner and uniform insignia indicated that he was the leader --
I'm guessing a non-commissioned officer, most likely a sergeant.
He
ordered us into the back of the truck.
We
complied, as the troops -- about six or eight of them -- motioned
with their rifles the direction we should go. I had just sat down on
one of the wooden planks that served as seats along each side of the
truck when the leader barked out my name. For the first time during
the incident I noticed a prickling along the hairs on the back of my
neck.
"Herr
Paust!
Raus
mit du!"
came a shout, ordering me out of the truck. I complied. The little
man then strutted around from the truck cab, where he'd been going
through our passports, and handed mine back. He waved me away. The
troops climbed into the back of the truck, the girls wailing by now,
and the Brit still shouting and scolding in the language of his
captors. The leader strutted back to the cab and the truck rumbled
off.
I
stood there alone on the deserted sidewalk examining my passport,
which, I noticed for the first time, had "foreign service"
stamped across my photo. I'd gotten it when I was stationed in
Germany with the Army. Nuts, I thought, they think I'm some kind of
spy, and any second now a black limo will screech up beside me and
I'll be hustled off to God knows where for God knows how long.
I
began walking briskly, trying to appear nonchalant, back the several
blocks to Checkpoint Charlie. I reached the crossing point without
seeing a single motor vehicle or pedestrian. I had the sensation of
being in Kafka nightmare. OK, I figured, this is where they nab me.
They were simply waiting for me to arrive.
They
weren't. I made it through the gauntlet of East German and Russian
border guards without incident, although one of the Russians made a
small joke out of the fact that I'd grown a scruffy beard since my
passport photo was shot. I reported the incident to the U.S. MPs, and
waited on a bench outside the guard shack for about an hour before I
saw the truck rumble up to the gate on the Soviet side and my
erstwhile companions climb down and walk through the checkpoint to
join me on the bench.
The
girls were still crying, and the Brit was still indignant, although
now he spoke English.
He
said he and the girls were delivered to the "VoPo" (Volks
Polizei,
i.e People’s Police, no kumbaya) equivalent of a precinct station
where the East German equivalent of a magistrate berated them for
looking scruffy. Indeed, the youngsters had the slightly unkempt
appearance associated back then with "hippies," the Brit,
especially, with full beard and uncombed hair down to his shoulders.
I believe he or one of the girls wore a blanket or serape-type
garment. I wasn't especially kempt myself, but my hair and beard were
shorter. And I had that "foreign service" stamp on my
passport mugshot.
We
stopped somewhere nearby for a beer. The girls' emotional expressions
eventually eased back to sniffles, the Brit's indignation relaxed a
tad, we promised to write and we went our separate ways.
