Forty Autumns

by Nina Willner

  Opa was called to the police station. This time, in addition to the usual police authorities, there was a man who identified himself as being from the Ministry of State Security, the Stasi.

  “Is it true your new son-in-law is an American army officer?”

  “Yes,” Opa replied.

  “Is it true that he is an American army intelligence officer?”

  “I don’t know,” said Opa, realizing instantly that any shred of truth in this news would further complicate things for the family.

  “Well he is,” the Stasi man informed him, “and that makes him an enemy to our country.” Then he resolutely stamped some papers and said, “I am giving you two wonderful days in beautiful Heidelberg with your daughter and new son-in-law. Learn what you can about your son-in-law, about his work and his access to classified materials.” And with that Opa was dismissed.

  On a cold December morning, the train left the station in the East and headed southwest. By evening it reached Heidelberg. Hanna easily spotted Opa, with his large frame, broad shoulders, and great height, towering over the other passengers on the platform. He helped Oma, who was wearing her fur coat, to descend from the train.

  Oma beamed when she saw Hanna and the two fell into each other’s arms. Releasing their embrace only to look each other over, Hanna saw that her mother’s hair had begun to fade to a pearly gray. With a wide smile, Oma pulled Hanna close.

  Unsure about to how to greet his new son-in-law, an American military officer, a man who represented the epitome of what the Soviet Union and East Germany considered their most ardent enemy, Opa looked haltingly at Eddie until Eddie approached him. The two shook hands: the tall East German and onetime soldier in the Third Reich meeting his new son-in-law, an Auschwitz and Buchenwald survivor and now a U.S. Army intelligence officer.

  Then Hanna turned to face Opa. The last time they had seen each other was ten years earlier, when she had set off to register for teachers’ college and had never returned. He was terribly irate then and for years afterward had felt betrayed by her. He had become conflicted, but over time his feelings of anger had given way to a hollow emptiness. Now he just missed his daughter.

  Hanna stood before Opa, wondering if his disappointment in her had abated. She would have understood if it had not. He stood there in silence, towering over her, and for the first time in her life, she saw a wounded expression in his eyes. She went to embrace him and the two walked slowly and silently arm in arm to the car.

  As they rode to Eddie’s U.S. Army officer quarters, an apartment in Patrick Henry Village on the base, Opa shed his insecurities and seemed to come alive as he looked over every detail in Eddie’s new light blue and white Chevrolet.

  With childlike delight, he pored over the interior, smoothing his hand over the leather seating, caressing the armrest, turning the crank handle to open and then close the window, stretching his neck to see the configuration of the dashboard panel, becoming enamored of everything about the car, especially since cars were a rarity in East Germany. At the apartment, Opa was fascinated especially with the refrigerator. In Schwaneberg, it was blocks of ice from the door-to-door iceman and a wooden box that kept their perishables cold.

  That first evening, Oma brought out homemade cards, drawings, and notes that each of the children back home had written congratulating the couple on their marriage, welcoming Eddie to the family, and sharing a bit about their lives.

  Hanna was most excited to hear news from Roland, but his note was short. Pained not to be able to associate with his sister who had defected and her new American husband, but realizing the risk that any contact could have for his rising career and his family’s livelihood, he wrote only that he truly hoped Hanna was well. Sadness washed over Hanna as she read her beloved brother’s all-too-brief message, and she silently cursed the regime that had forced them to grow apart, the hurt made even more acute when she saw the photograph of him standing with his wife of eight years. He had filled out and was still handsome at thirty-two.

  Sweet messages and photographs followed. There was sixteen-year-old Kai, dressed in his FDJ uniform, his boyhood platinum hair gone brown; his face had thinned but he was still recognizable. Klemens had become a teacher, married, had a child. Manni, a conscript in his NVA military uniform, had also married. The little girls, Helga and Tutti, who were two and three when Hanna left, had grown up, were now almost teenagers, and Tiele, a young woman, was engaged to be married.

  Finally, at nine years old, there was Heidi, with her long, dark braids, looking just as inquisitive in her Young Pioneer photo as she had four years earlier in Heidelberg. Heidi had drawn a picture of two girls holding hands in front of the Heidelberg Castle and wrote how she missed Hanna and hoped to see her again soon.

  Eddie showered his new mother- and father-in-law with affection. They spent the next day driving in and around the city and taking in the sights. Hanna delighted especially in showing Opa the castle.

  As they walked the grounds of the fortress, he carefully examined its architecture. In the interior corridor, he took his time to indulge in the details of the intricately designed wooden ceilings and statues of nobility of the royal court. He ruminated on the castle’s history and looked over every detail with professorial focus, finally musing that, despite war and fire, the castle had survived complete destruction. Hanna looked back at him and it was as if she were a young girl again, in Opa’s classroom or in his study.

  That evening, Opa played the piano, Eddie’s wedding gift to Hanna. He played old German folk songs from his youth, and waltzes and classics, Bach’s Minuet in G, Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, as they all talked and sang into the evening, drinking Eddie’s homemade erdbeerebowle, a potent punch made with champagne and cognac-sugar soaked strawberries. The evening grew more festive as it went on, the four of them becoming completely at ease in one another’s company, realizing that every moment together was precious. Oma smiled her gentle smile nearly the entire time.

  During the two-day visit, Opa became impressed with Eddie, not only for his comfortable U.S. Army officer lifestyle, but more important, for the depth of his character, and especially his remarkable ability in having rebounded from his tragic past. Opa was drawn to Eddie’s joie de vivre and positive outlook for the future.

  By the morning of the second day, Opa had clearly relaxed. He was slow to come to breakfast, which was very out of character for him; he was always an early riser. In the kitchen, Eddie reported to Hanna that, during the night, someone had gone into the refrigerator and finished off the remaining erdbeerebowle. Hanna laughed, happy to know that her father had made himself at home.

  They spent the next afternoon walking in downtown Heidelberg. When the sun began to set and evening rolled in, it became colder, so they sat bundled up and close packed together to keep warm on a bench on the Philosophers’ Walk. They lingered there, talking in the cold night air under a full moon as they gazed out over the city and at the castle, which was illuminated in a lustrous golden glow.

  Back at the apartment, Hanna prepared dinner, a succulent beef rouladen from Oma’s recipe. Eddie served French wine. Dessert was cognac crème followed by even more French wine. Opa felt like a king.

  During the course of their last evening, Hanna finally had enough courage to ask how things were at home. Oma said, “They’re fine. We’re getting used to it.”

  Opa interjected, “Actually they’re not fine and it’s getting worse every day.” Wanting to avoid distressing talk, Oma reminded him that they had only one evening left to enjoy one another’s company. As the evening drew on, not wanting to dilute the richness of the time they had left with empty conversation and idle chitchat, they found themselves sitting for long stretches in silence.

  The next day, at the train station, Opa seemed genuinely happy knowing his daughter had established a fine life for herself. Despite mixed emotions over the last decade, he had finally made peace, perhaps even taking solace in the fact that he had likely played a role in en
abling his daughter to follow her dreams.

  Oma, in her fur, with Opa and Hanna in Heidelberg in December 1958

  Courtesy of the Willner family

  Oma too seemed comforted. She pulled Hanna close, looked into her eyes, and said, “You made the right decision. I am happy you are free.” And with that, mother and daughter took a long time to let each other go. When Hanna embraced Opa, she couldn’t help but feel that he too was trying to show that he harbored no grudge and was in fact finally prepared to release her.

  They delayed the departure as long as they could, finally boarding at the whistle. When the train started to move eastward, Opa, pulling himself up to his full height, stood motionless gazing out the window at Hanna and Eddie with a melancholy expression. Oma waved, smiling through her tears.

  It was the last time Hanna would ever see her parents.

  Upon their return from Heidelberg, the Stasi summoned Opa to ask him about his new son-in-law, to which Opa simply replied that he could not get him to talk. The Stasi man looked back in a dead stare, then shook his head and added another black mark of disloyalty to Opa’s growing list.

  Though Oma applied several times after that day to visit Hanna again, all subsequent requests for travel were denied. Oma and Opa’s failure to help the Stasi obtain information about or create a contact in American intelligence had made it clear that Opa was not willing to play the game.

  PHOTO INSERT

  Oma, behind the Iron Curtain

  Courtesy of the Willner family

  The Heidelberg Castle, West Germany

  Courtesy of Reinhard Wolf

  The Hoheneck Castle, East Germany

  Courtesy of Stiftung Sächsische Gedenkstätten

  In East Germany, two years after Hanna has fed, a new family portrait is taken. (Front row, from left:) Klemens, Oma with baby Heidi, Opa with Helga, an aunt with Tutti, and Kai. (Second row, standing:) Roland’s wife, Roland, Tiele, and Manni.

  Courtesy of the Willner family

  East Germans, young and old, fee into West Berlin on August 12, 1961.

  Courtesy of Habans/Getty Images

  East German soldiers and workers build the Berlin Wall on August 13, 1961.

  Courtesy of Lackenbach/Getty Images

  Two families escape to the West in this homemade balloon.

  Courtesy of Günter Wetzel

  An unsuccessful escape attempt, Invalidenstrasse, East Berlin

  Courtesy of Polizeihistorische Sammlung

  Beyond the Berlin Wall

  Courtesy of Mathias Donderer

  Operations, Tempelhof Airport, West Berlin

  Courtesy of the author

  Checkpoint Charlie

  Courtesy of Roger Wollstadt

  East German border guards look into the West.

  Courtesy of Keystone-France/Getty Images

  Oma in her garden in Klein Apenburg

  Courtesy of the Willner family

  Albert with Opa

  Courtesy of Michael Nelson

  Albert with the family in Klein Apenburg

  Courtesy of Michael Nelson

  Paradise Bungalow in 2005

  Courtesy of the Willner family

  Heidi in Paradise Bungalow in 1984

  Courtesy of the Willner family

  Cordula wearing the bathing suit

  Courtesy of the Willner family

  Cordula at international road race

  Courtesy of the Willner family

  Nina

  Courtesy of the author

  U.S. president Ronald Reagan (right) with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

  Courtesy of AFP/Getty Images

  Anniversary parade, Karl-Marx-Allee, East Berlin in October 1989: “40 Years East Germany”

  Courtesy of Picture-Alliance/dpa

  Soviet leader Gorbachev and East German leader Honecker attend forty-year celebration of East German rule, East Berlin in October 1989.

  Courtesy of Picture-Alliance/Sven Simon

  Heidi and Reinhard leave the East in the Skoda.

  Courtesy of the Willner family

  Hanna reunites with Manni.

  Courtesy of the Willner family

  Heidi (on the left) reunites with Hanna having only met once before, briefy during the Cold War when Heidi was fve years old.

  Courtesy of the Willner family

  Albert, Cordula, and Nina run the Berlin Marathon in 2013.

  Courtesy of Marathon Foto

  Family reunion in 2013

  Courtesy of the Willner family

  Hanna and Heidi in 2015

  Courtesy of the Willner family

  Courtesy of the Willner family

  PART THREE

  11

  “A WALL WILL KEEP THE ENEMY OUT”

  A WALL TO KEEP THE PEOPLE IN

  (1960–1961)

  No one has any intention of building a wall.

  —East German leader Walter Ulbricht

  In Schwaneberg, the Stasi knew Opa had lied to them. They made note of his disobedience but it didn’t stop them from pursuing Eddie in Heidelberg. The very next year, they dispatched Opa’s nephew, Edgar, to spy on Eddie and try to recruit him to work for the Stasi. But after Eddie fed Edgar a few beers, he started to cry and confessed to his spy mission.

  “If I don’t get the information they want, they’ll cause big problems for me and my girlfriend,” he said, utterly distressed. “We have a child. I don’t know what to do.”

  After a while, he finally looked up and said, “I can’t go back.”

  Hanna and Eddie dropped him off at the Heidelberg train station. A few months later, they got a postcard from Edgar, who had made his way to Paraguay.

  In Seebenau, inasmuch as he was still able, Kallehn, now in his seventies, adjusted to communist life, though in truth, he suffered in silence. Few in the family had been able to visit him since the enactment of the now five-year-old rule that had shut off border towns to all but the residents of those areas. To make matters worse, as he grew more fragile with age, Kallehn could no longer travel to see his family in Schwaneberg, which virtually banished him to a life of isolation and internal exile.

  By 1960, the year of the “socialist spring,” the East German government collectivized the remaining independently managed farms. Farmers who had avoided giving up their land were now forced to do so. Kallehn had resisted, holding on as long as he could, but, not wanting to go to prison and lose everything, he finally gave up and handed over his family’s land. Exhausted and dispirited from it all, in late 1960, Kallehn passed away. For a while, Ama Marit remained in the farmhouse, but then moved in with her daughter Frieda, who still lived in her little house on the edge of the border.

  By the 1960s, tensions between the two superpowers were escalating. Cuba had aligned with the Soviet Union and adopted Marxist ideology, which resulted in the United States cutting ties with that neighboring island. At a meeting at the United Nations, a Western dignitary, the head of the Filipino delegation, made a speech in which he stated that the peoples of Eastern Europe were being deprived of their freedom, and that their countries had been “swallowed up” by the Soviet Union. Soviet secretary Khrushchev responded by bolting to the podium, banging his shoe, and calling the diplomat “a jerk, a stooge,” and a “toady of American imperialism.”

  In May 1960, the Soviets shot down a U.S. spy plane that was flying in Soviet airspace. The pilot, Francis Gary Powers, spent a year in a Soviet prison. The United States initially denied the downed plane was used for spying, but after Khrushchev produced evidence, a humiliated President Eisenhower had to publicly admit the plane was on an intelligence mission. The incident was a key moment in the Cold War and is credited in large part with the collapse of arms control talks that were taking place between the United States and the Soviet Union in Paris.

  The two rivals continued to grow their nuclear stockpiles and by the early 1960s, the Soviet Union had joined the United States as a bona fide nuclear superpower.


  The space race continued. Following the successful Soviet launch of the first satellite, the Americans launched their own. But then the Soviets upped the ante. Less than one month later, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space, a victory for Moscow and communism. The United States followed by sending astronaut Alan Shepard into space, to which the Soviets responded by sending the first woman into orbit and then raised the bar higher by conducting the first spacewalk. That was followed by an American spacewalk; not long after that, John Glenn became the first man to orbit the earth.

  In East Germany, escapes continued. By 1960 an estimated three and a half million East Germans, nearly one-sixth of the population, had fled.

  As people found ways to get out, the East German authorities feared that West German agents were making their way in. Thus the Stasi began arresting hundreds of East German citizens and charging them as foreign spies. With a heavily fortified border separating East from West Germany now a huge deterrent, and the authorities still unable to control access into West Berlin, Berlin remained the best hope for those who wanted to escape. By now the Marienfelde Refugee Center in West Berlin was processing some two thousand East Germans a day. With East Germany’s population dwindling and its economy on the brink of collapse, the time had finally come, Ulbricht decided, for something drastic to be done to stop the outflow once and for all.

  There was no word at all from East Germany. In Heidelberg, Hanna had not heard from her family in more than two years, since her parents had visited. In Schwaneberg, the authorities prevented the family’s letters from leaving the country, likely due at least in part to Oma and Opa’s failed mission.