Berlin Terror

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.

[from my collection If the Woodsman is Late]