by Nina Willner
Opa read the postcard, noticing there was no return address.
Seven-year-old Kai asked, “Is Hanna ever coming home?”
“She’ll be back,” Opa answered.
The rest of the children perked up looking at him, wide, inquiring eyes all around. “It’s not that easy out there,” he said, looking at each of them separately, squarely in the eye, “to be on your own, so young and all alone with no one to help you. Here at home you have everything you need, a family that loves you. Out there, who knows how she is making money to live. And there are so many dangers. She is surely having a hard time. I’m sure she regrets her decision.”
Oma knew that Hanna was struggling, but she also knew she was not coming home, so, unbeknownst to Opa, Oma put in an application to travel to find Hanna in Heidelberg. Two months later, the authorities provided her an answer: DENIED.
Not long thereafter, Oma’s heartache for her oldest daughter temporarily abated when she learned that, once again, she was pregnant. At the age of forty-four, she prepared to give birth to her ninth child.
Deep inside the East Zone, the Berlin Airlift was coming to a close. By April 1949, hundreds of daily Allied flights had successfully supplied West Berliners with all sorts of lifesaving provisions, including flour, coffee, milk, cheese, even coal and gasoline. After nearly a year, the airlift had delivered more cargo than had previously flowed into the city by rail. The Soviets, who had repeatedly claimed the resupply effort would never work, were humiliated. Eventually Stalin conceded defeat and lifted the blockade as ground, rail, and air access routes were reopened for regular business.
The Western powers’ victory over the Soviet blockade reassured the people of West Berlin that the United States, United Kingdom, France, and eventually the whole of NATO would not abandon them and would keep their promise to defend their city against the Soviets.
Meanwhile, the United States and the Soviet Union worked to build their nuclear arms capabilities. The U.S. program was initially at an advantage, having already developed nuclear weapons detonated in Japan to end World War II. The Soviets jump-started their own program by stealing secrets from the United States. Then in August 1949, the Soviets surprised the Western world, which believed the Soviets were not yet nuclear-capable, when they detonated an atomic bomb in the remote steppes of Kazakhstan.
The competition for world supremacy had begun. Changed from a weapon to be used to end a war, nuclear weapons suddenly became a tool of containment, a mechanism that both sides could use to keep the other at bay, fueling a rivalry that became a competition for superpower dominance.
The nuclear arms race, which would be at the heart of the Cold War for the next forty years, was on.
On October 7, 1949, East Germany was officially established as a satellite state of the Soviet Union, with East Berlin chosen as its capital. A few months earlier, West Germany had been established, with Bonn, located far west of Berlin, named as the seat of government.
The Soviets installed East German leaders but retained de facto control. Walter Ulbricht became East Germany’s first leader. Ulbricht preferred a title in line with his Soviet counterpart, Joseph Stalin, so he officially became the general secretary of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, and the leader of the Communist Party.
A secret police was formed. Trained by and taking its lead from the Soviet Union’s KGB, the East Germans established the Ministry for State Security, the MfS, or Stasi for short. The Stasi was charged with preserving the security of the regime and conducting espionage in country and abroad. Its most sinister task, however, would eventually become the wholesale manipulation and control of the citizens of East Germany.
Erich Mielke, a former member of the brutal Soviet secret police, became the Stasi chief. In just a few short years, Mielke would become the most feared and hated man in the country, equipping his agents with a full range of disturbing physical and psychological torture tactics, urging his Stasi officers to execute if necessary, even without a court judgment. Ruthless and unaccountable, from the outset the Stasi operated above the law, relying on clandestine operations and using fear tactics and intimidation to reach its goals.
Though the Soviets retained ultimate decision-making authority, by early 1950, East Germans had taken over all major administrative and functionary posts in the government, as authorities and bosses at factories and schools and as guards along the border. Scores of East German citizens were recruited to become Stasi agents.
Recruited from all parts of society, including the FDJ and police force, new Stasi officers and employees were top leaders in the Party, the most promising young communists in society, as well as tradesmen and technicians. Many were pulled from underprivileged or proletarian segments of society. After being vetted for their political loyalty and intellectual capacity, they attended intensive training programs in which they learned Marxist theory as well as how to pressure, brainwash, and manipulate their targets, the people of East Germany.
The Stasi organization’s goals grew quickly. Stasi agents operated broadly and without bounds. They infiltrated West German and other foreign intelligence activities. Inside East German borders, they targeted anyone they believed could be a threat. Before long, there were separate departments for surveillance, blackmail, arrests, and torture. In addition to monitoring “the class enemy,” anyone who opposed the regime, they also began to keep track of those who could be a potential danger and those they could manipulate to be of use to them in the future. With limited initial manpower to keep track of everyone they wanted to monitor, they launched a campaign to have East German citizens spy on one another.
Though the Stasi had not yet set up a presence in Schwaneberg, the local authorities and VoPo police continued to keep close tabs on the family. In light of his daughter’s escape, the authorities and Mayor Boch began to take advantage of Opa’s vulnerability, manipulating his influence with the villagers and leveraging what they called his “black marks” to force him to do exactly what they wanted for the regime.
But the Schwaneberg authorities realized that they had a problem the day Opa spoke up to represent the plight of the local farmers who, in the early 1950s, were being forced to give up their land to the state.
The order was a devastating blow to farmers, many of whom, like Kallehn, whose land had been in their families for generations, were now directed to hand it over to be developed into state-controlled agricultural collectives. Some farmers rebelled, setting in motion another law that forced those who did not cooperate to give up their livestock and then, if they persisted, everything they owned of value, including their most prized personal possessions. Those who continued to resist were arrested and imprisoned. In Seebenau, Kallehn learned to keep his head down and avoid the authorities, but it was only a matter of time before he would be confronted too and the notion of giving up his land continued to pain him deeply.
One day, the farmers in and around Schwaneberg assembled to express their outrage in a town meeting. The community leaders, including Opa and Mayor Boch, attended the gathering, as did scores of farmers. Since well before the arrival of the Soviets, it had long been Opa’s role and civic duty as one of the village leaders to listen to the concerns of the people and represent their interests to the local government, which Opa did with great pride and genuine concern. If anyone could have an impact, the farmers believed, it would be Opa, who had an excellent track record for initiating action and making things happen on the community’s behalf. Confident that his recent membership in the Communist Party was evidence of his support for the government, Opa expected those in charge to respect and take into account what he had to say. But when he confronted the state on behalf of the farmers over seizure of their land, and for villagers regarding their private property, the authorities simply ignored him. Opa was stunned. Then he did something that made him a marked man.
One of Walter Ulbricht’s first addresses to the people as the new leader of East Germany encourag
ed them to believe that the Ulbricht government intended to use democratic principles to establish the communist state.
“The nature of a democracy,” he said, “consists to an important degree in the right of the people to criticize problems and mistakes. I ask you,” he continued, “to let the government know immediately when you see serious problems or mistakes that stand in the way of our great community endeavor.”
Perhaps naïvely, Opa chose to take advantage of this so-called open-door policy, either hoping or truly believing that the Ulbricht administration sincerely sought feedback, especially from community leaders, to help them mold and shape the new society. Livid at what he saw as disrespect for the village leaders and neglect for the interests of the farmers, the backbone of the country, and taking it as a personal affront to his position, Opa decided, unbeknownst to Oma, to appeal directly to the leader of East Germany, Walter Ulbricht himself, by writing him a personal letter in which he presented a compromise between the government’s plan to force agricultural collectives and the farmers’ interest in keeping their land. After all, had not Ulbricht himself encouraged people to speak up where they found problems? Several days later, the authorities came around.
They warned Oma and Opa that they were walking on thin ice. Oma, shocked at what Opa had done, took the admonishment stoically, but Opa could not. He responded by pouncing back, raising his voice, and objecting to their hypocrisy. The authorities were astounded at his audacity and called him a troublemaker.
After that, Opa was marginalized by some of the villagers, who, even if they believed he had been right to speak up, also knew that continued association with him risked getting them into trouble. As villagers observed Opa’s predicament, many felt conflicted between their long-standing respect for him and his apparent need to stand up to the authorities, but for certain, almost everyone began to see him as an example of how not to behave. Some who had always held their school headmaster and teacher in high esteem began to wonder why he insisted on confronting the system, and they believed his days as a village leader were numbered.
At home, Oma pleaded with Opa to control his temper and to keep his outbursts and criticisms of the government to himself.
In 1950, the family in the East finally received a letter from Hanna that showed a return address. In Heidelberg, Hanna was overjoyed to receive her first news from home. Oma’s letter was brief and lacked detail; clearly she had kept her true thoughts to herself so as not to draw attention from the authorities who were likely reading the family’s outgoing mail. There was one bit of big news that came as a complete surprise. Oma had given birth to another child.
One year after Hanna had escaped, in July 1949, the same year that East Germany had officially been established as a new and separate state, Oma wrote that Hanna had a new little sister.
From the start, the tiny newborn with a shock of black hair and wild, flashing eyes had a remarkably hearty cry. She was a lively, alert baby. Her brothers and sisters doted on her. Oma was refreshed with a new sense of purpose. She named the baby Heidelore and called her Heidi.
East Germany’s new leaders tried to gain wider support by appealing to the German psyche and trying to win people over. Now villagers were allowed to keep the proceeds of their small backyard gardens, and one could celebrate Christmas provided it had no connection to religion. Those insisting on keeping their ties to the church were allowed to do so, though later they would be marginalized for their association. And more emphasis was given to engaging the youth.
Membership in the FDJ and Young Pioneers was officially voluntary, but in actuality it was required when one considered the consequences for not participating, the regime having made it clear from the beginning that there was no real choice for those who cared about their future. Worked into the framework of the school day, it was hard to avoid membership in the youth program. Not joining would draw unwanted attention since school officials were instructed to report refusals and disinterested youth to the authorities.
Though designed to be fun, the youth programs were actually engineered to embed orthodox communist doctrine. Socialist teachings with a revolutionary bent infused both blatant and subliminal propaganda messages meant to graft a new mind-set. Engaging activities and seemingly nurturing lessons on becoming happily fulfilled members of society, would in time, the regime hoped, build an entire generation that would see the East German communist regime reach its goals. At schools and youth meetings, children learned to celebrate communism and to report others for their antigovernment thoughts, comments, and jokes that were out of line with regime thinking.
Children were encouraged to report rule breaking at home, such as whether their parents listened to forbidden West German radio or made disparaging remarks about the system. Vigilance in reporting others for their failings came with rewards: public accolades, special treatment, promotions in their youth group, the authorities all the while carefully noting who was and was not fully investing. In time, many children and adults would come to view these invasive behaviors as a normal, required aspect of life, of doing one’s part to contribute to the country’s communist development.
In Schwaneberg, the youth program blossomed like a garden bringing forth new buds. Using the motto “Freedom and Friendship,” Mayor Boch pulled the children in. Manni moved up to the FDJ, and at seven years old, Kai was summoned to his first Young Pioneer meeting. Like all children throughout the East, he was instructed to learn the new East German anthem and other songs that praised socialism in the East.
He came home stumbling over the words, trying to recite the Pioneer pledge: “We love our socialist fatherland. We are friends of the Soviet Union and . . . oppose the lies of the imperial . . . I had fun today,” he broke off. “We had a race and I beat Markus.” Handing Oma a paper with the creed, Kai said, “We have to learn this and you have to get me a scarf.” Then he darted off to play.
It pained Oma to watch her children enter the youth movement. Nothing good, she thought, could come from the East German regime manipulating the minds of the country’s vulnerable youth. She could see how such pledges filled with propaganda had taken the place of prayers and hymns in the way that they invited worship of an ignoble and sinister power. Above all, it bothered her to know that children, in particular her children, were promised rewards for turning against their teachers, neighbors, and, even worse, their own siblings and parents.
What will become of a country, Oma wondered, when a mother cannot even trust her own children, and they, in turn, cannot trust their own families?
Despite the fact that Opa had already tried to preempt the issue, telling his children, “Informing on your parents and one another simply will not happen in this family,” there was a real concern in every family that such an act of betrayal could occur. Sadly, in some cases it did; parents saw prison terms after being turned in by their own offspring whom the regime then publicly praised and promoted for their allegiance and commitment to the cause.
At home, the children had only to look at their mother to understand that loyalty to family meant everything to her.
“We are a family and that is that,” she told them. “No matter what anyone else ever tells you to do, you know how to do what is right. Do not do anything you know is wrong because someone frightens you into it. The right way is in your heart and in your soul. And that is what is most important.”
In the first five years of East Germany’s existence, more than a million Germans fled toward West Germany. Besides a huge loss of farmers and workers, the state suffered a significant “brain drain” of skilled and well-educated specialists, leaving, for example, towns without doctors, research institutes without scientists, universities without professors. Mass defections came from all communities and even included members of the Communist Party, border guards, and the FDJ. The chief of Soviet security himself, Lavrenti Beria, remarked that the increase in the number of defections to the West was due in part to increased hostile propaganda directed at E
ast Germans by West German subversives. It was also attributed, he said, to peasants avoiding committing to agricultural collectives, and to the youth avoiding service in the East German armed forces. Owing to the shortcomings of the regime itself, he acknowledged a problem with the supply of food and consumer goods to the population.
Regardless of the reasons for it, one thing was clear: East Germany was hemorrhaging its much-needed intellectual and labor forces.
In 1952, the regime finally responded to its uncontrollable exodus problem by building a barrier to halt it. In what would soon become the world’s most heavily fortified border, all along the East–West German divide, now referred to as the Inner German border, Aktion Ungeziefer (Operation Vermin) forced tens of thousands to move inland, then demolished their homes and cleared the area of trees and brush to make way for the construction of what would eventually become a thirteen-foot-high concrete and barbed-wire fence fortification along the entire 880-mile border separating East and West Germany, from the Baltic Sea in the north to Czechoslovakia in the south.
Once only protected by rolls of barbed wire and roving patrols, the border was upgraded by the installation of a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire, guard dogs, and wooden watchtowers, which allowed for better observation of a thirty-foot-wide strip of carefully groomed sand to detect footsteps along the border.
Suddenly farmers near the border were permitted to work only during daylight hours, and then only under the watch of armed guards. Though obstacles prohibiting escape faced inward, designed to prevent East Germans from escaping, the government announced to its people that the fortifications were necessary to stop the flow of “imperialist enemies and spies” sneaking into the East. Where once guards were given the discretion to fire warning shots, now they were instructed to use deadly force to prevent escapes.
Those still hoping to escape would have better luck fleeing into West Berlin, where the city was not as firmly controlled owing to postwar treaty agreements to keep open access throughout the city. And so they did, fleeing into West Berlin on foot, by car, by underground rail, through the sewers, anyway they could.