by Nina Willner
“We have a peaceful life,” Heidi wrote to Hanna, and meant it. “We enjoy every day.”
In the early 1970s, the United States and the Soviet Union entered a new era in which for the first time the two superpowers seemed open to working together to ease tensions. They began talks to reduce nuclear arms inventories; détente aimed to thaw relations. President Richard Nixon became the first U.S. president to visit the Soviet Union and Communist China.
In their apartment in Karl Marx City, as a part of their evening routine, Heidi turned on their flickering black-and-white television, allowing little Cordula to fall asleep to the soothing sounds and spritely antics of a tiny wooden, stop-motion-animation puppet. With sweet children’s voices singing tender songs of peace and contentment, Sandmännchen (Sandman), with his white yarn hair and beard, pointy hat, and curled shoes, took the little viewers around the world, to places they could not go themselves, places they could only dream of, riding on a cloud, piloting a rocket ship or helicopter or riding a magic carpet to meet a princess on the Golden Horn, nomads on the Kazakh steppes, reindeer in boreal Siberia. When he grew tired, Sandman sprinkled glittery golden magic sleepy dust from his sack, encouraging children to set aside their worries and drift off to a carefree slumber.
Sandman is free to travel the world and fly to other lands.
Courtesy of Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-1984-1126-312
Children, dear children, that was fun.
Now, quick to bed and sleep tight.
Then I will also go and rest. I wish you a good night.
As the population lived sparsely, under the watchful eye of the secret police and a rigid code of silence, East Germany’s political elite was living it up in luxury.
In a heavily guarded, secluded forested area spanning a square mile, privileged members of the regime lived on an exclusive estate that bordered a pristine lake. Unbeknownst to the people of East Germany, who assumed their leaders lived similarly spartan lives, the Wandlitz Forest Settlement housed some twenty mini-mansions complete with wide, manicured lawns and gardens. The compound was secured by a concrete wall with a sophisticated alarm system and guarded by more than a hundred heavily armed troops from the elite Feliks Dzerzhinsky security force. Instead of Soviet Chaikas, there were expensive luxury Volvos in the driveways.
Inside the houses, the communist leadership enjoyed spacious rooms decorated with marble from Italy and Renaissance furniture from France, and used appliances from West Germany. Foreign goods and foods filled the compound’s shops. Honecker, Stasi chief Mielke, and others enjoyed access to a state-of-the-art medical clinic, a cinema, swimming pool, saunas and spas, a recreational shooting range, a sports field, tennis courts, a restaurant, and even an underground bunker built to protect them should war break out. While millions of East Germans stood in lines for lesser-quality food, cooks on the compound prepared exquisite gourmet meals made from imported delicacies, accented by the finest French wines.
When Oma and Opa turned seventy, the local authorities told them that they were free to go. As pensioners, they could leave the East and travel or even emigrate to the West. They barely discussed it, not daring to take even a single trip out, fearing they would not be allowed to return, to ever see their loved ones again. And my mother did not dare to travel to the East to see them for fear they would somehow prevent her from leaving the country.
Roland, by now well into middle age, had built a highly successful career as an educator in the communist system. Years earlier he had been promoted to director of his city school and he now had his sights set on the position of school superintendent. In the eyes of the regime, he had a great record and, by all accounts, his prospects for promotion were excellent.
The rest of the family made their way in East German society: Manni, Tiele, and Tutti as teachers at various elementary and high schools, and Helga as a day-care worker. All raised fine families with one or two children. Heidi and Reinhard worked at their jobs in Karl Marx City and had another baby. At the age of four, little Cordula became a big sister when Heidi had another girl, Mari.
After leaving the army in the mid-1960s, Kai and his wife had had four children. He and his siblings remained close, but after a while they noticed that Kai became more distant, and no longer reached out to his family. Concerned that no one had heard from him in months, Manni paid him a visit and found him in bed suffering from a rare blood disorder, which was believed to have been caused from his work at the Peenemünde rocket production facility in northern East Germany, where he had been exposed to dangerous chemicals. At the age of thirty-four, their little brother, Kai, was dying.
15
DISSIDENTS AND TROUBLEMAKERS
OPA COMMITTED
(1975–1977)
You do not become a “dissident” just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society.
—Vaclav Havel
In 1975, the Vietnam War ended with the communist North defeating the U.S.-backed democratic South; in Chile, a U.S.-supported military coup overthrew a leftist president; in Ethiopia, a Marxist junta overthrew a pro-Western monarch; and in Cambodia, a communist regime allied with North Vietnam took power.
Détente continued. In an effort to end the space race, the two superpowers even agreed to pool their resources and scientific and engineering knowledge, and collaborated on the Apollo-Soyuz Project, a joint U.S.-USSR space flight. With the adoption of the Helsinki Accords in 1975, in which the Soviets promised to allow free elections in Eastern Europe, it appeared that warmer relations were on the horizon and things were heading in the right direction.
Following Moscow’s lead, Honecker too sought improved relations with the West. The two German states signed a treaty committed to developing normal relations, recognizing each other’s independence and sovereignty, and establishing a working diplomatic relationship. Relations marginally improved, if only on the diplomatic front. East Germany’s true intentions for improving relations were less than entirely genuine, and they took advantage of improved ties by recruiting scores of spies within the West German government. In Bonn, Günter Guillaume, a close aide to West German chancellor Willy Brandt, was discovered to be an East German spy.
Meanwhile, as Honecker’s consumer socialism supplied the people with more goods and basic necessities, people were encouraged when the economy appeared to inch forward. Fed by borrowed money from the West, East Germany began to make improvements in its basic infrastructure, upgrading roads and building more new homes. Basic food stocks became more affordable, and there were upgrades in the social infrastructure as well: universal health care, maternity benefits, preschool programs. The regime trumpeted its successes to the world, highlighting the advantages of the socialist system. To his people, Honecker described East Germany as a stable, safe country with low crime rates, where people’s needs were met, compared to West Germany’s unhealthy hyperconsumerism, over-consumption, crime, and social unrest.
With things seemingly improving inside the East and little access to the realities of the outside world, for the first time many people came to believe that the regime now actually had a plan to make things better. By now some even considered themselves lucky to be part of a society they saw as orderly and peaceful, with leaders who were making progress and taking care of them.
In Washington, Hanna readied yet another package to send to her family, this time including a box of cigars for her father.
Opa wrote, “Thank you for the cigars, but since we could not afford to pay the customs, we had to return them.” Not surprisingly, the cigars never made it back to the States.
“Maybe if you send ten cigars,” Opa had written as a postscript, “we could afford to pay the customs.” She did so but he never got the cigars.
But then, to the astonishment of families separated by the Wall, as part of the plan to improve East Germany’s reputation, the regime selectively relaxed some o
f its laws about contact between citizens of West and East Germany. Suddenly letters and packages from West Germany were cleared to reach East Germans. My mother sent packages to a friend in West Germany, asking him to forward them on from his address in Frankfurt.
For the first time since the fur coat made it through in 1958, an unopened, intact box made it through to the family in the East. Oma sent a letter back to Hanna thanking her for the presents and detailing the exact contents of the package to let her know she had received everything: “sweaters and scarves, coffee, chocolate, grapefruits and oranges, soap, lipstick, pantyhose, children’s clothing,” and—Opa had counted—“forty-eight cigarettes.” At the end of the letter, clearly delighted, Opa had written, “I have already smoked one of the cigarettes.”
For the first time in twenty-seven years, the gray fog of distance seemed to dissipate a bit and there seemed to be a real connection with the family.
My mother sent more packages to the East and, to her great joy, more letters came out. Over the next year, she received more letters and photographs than she had received in the nearly thirty previous years altogether.
“We received your package,” wrote Opa. “It was undamaged and customs free. Thank you for the tobacco and especially for the cigars.” Oma wrote, “Thank you for the cosmetics and creams, the statue of Buddha, the calendar, oriental golden wall-hanging and the knitting wool,” adding, “I plan to make a dress with the beautiful flowered fabric.” Hanna read and reread those letters. Was it possible, she wondered, that things in East Germany were turning? For the first time, she had regular correspondence with real news about the family. She was beside herself to get a tiny glimpse into their lives when Opa wrote,
At this time we are busy with canning green beans and cucumbers and are looking forward to a visit from Heidi, Reinhard and the girls. Despite the lack of rain, all the vegetables in our garden are still all right, so that our garden can still offer a lot of vitamins. . . .
Roland is a director and supervises seventeen teachers. All the other children are doing well. I am very proud of all our children. They are all very close, they work hard and aim high. Unfortunately they cannot correspond with you for official reasons, I’m sure you understand.
Heidi too wrote plenty of letters, in which she spoke of little Cordula, baby Mari, and Reinhard, and said that her job and life were good. While Oma and Opa wrote most of the letters, a few of my mother’s siblings wrote at least one letter, but everyone knew it was still too risky for working-age people to think their correspondence with their sister in America would not come back to haunt them. Hanna longed to hear something, especially from Roland, whom she missed terribly, but he was doing well within the system and had to be careful about making contact even when it appeared the regime did not seem to mind.
Letters and photographs from the family in the East in the mid-1970s
Courtesy of the Willner family
Everyone self-censored their correspondence—everyone, that is, but twenty-five-year-old Helga, who wrote:
I am proud of my country that I can speak freely. It is very difficult for me that I can only dream of seeing you again. This will always trouble me. I am not surprised when I hear that young people risk their lives to flee to the West. But that takes a lot of courage and I could never do it.
Courtesy of the Willner family
Surprisingly that letter made it out, owing possibly to less monitoring, since she worked in a fairly benign job as a day-care worker. Another letter came shortly thereafter, in which she wrote:
I no longer think . . . I can speak freely. I have a colleague who is very outspoken, also the hardest worker, an outstanding professional. He has said openly that he believes some things in the West are good. Now suddenly he cannot apply for a promotion. Now everyone talks negatively about the colleague. I have decided that one should look reality in the eye or, at least, not close the eyes to reality.
That letter was followed not long after by one from Opa, who wrote: “If you have not heard from Helga lately, it’s because she has had some arguments with the mayor.”
Despite what appeared to be a softening of diplomatic relations between East and West Germany, the regime upgraded security at the Wall, creating the most sophisticated version yet.
Metal spikes were added, as were nail beds, and fences with touch-sensitive, self-firing mechanisms that set off alarms and fired rounds when they detected a presence along the wire. Heavy concrete watchtowers replaced the old wooden ones and loomed ominously over the death strip, giving border guards better views and easier lines of sight to their targets. Tripwires let off signal flares that alerted guards to the movement of an escapee; the sandy death strip was now wider and had floodlights that could highlight fresh footprints. Three-ton concrete barriers reinforced the concrete wall; electrified fences were added, and more attack dogs. Any attempt to cross the heavily fortified border was now suicidal.
By the mid-1970s, untold numbers had been shot dead at the Wall, including Johannes Lange, who was fired on 148 times by eight border guards before being hit 5 times in the head and body. The guards involved in that murder were rewarded with promotions and the Medal for Exemplary Service at the Border and were presented souvenir wristwatches.
With new fortifications in place, would-be escapees traveled to other Eastern Bloc countries, then tried to sneak through on what they thought might be an easier route, through Hungary or Bulgaria. Others came up with ingenious schemes. The Bethke brothers, Ingo and Holger, had escaped from East Germany but wanted to return to rescue their other brother, Egbert. Both flew ultralight aircrafts, similar to powered hang gliders, over the Wall back into East Berlin. While Holger circled overhead, distracting the guards, who were utterly confused when they saw a red star painted on the underbelly of the plane, Ingo landed and picked up Egbert and flew off, the three making it to safety in West Berlin.
Others tried to make their way through the waterways. In the Baltic Sea, one diving instructor managed to make it to Denmark using a brilliant homemade backpack-mounted propulsion device, turning himself into a mini human submarine, able to travel below the surface of the water without detection. Those trying to swim to freedom through Berlin’s Spree River now found deadly metal spikes hidden below the surface.
By now prisons like the Hoheneck Castle were filled to the brim, packed with attempted escapees and nonconformists. In order to alleviate the overfill, in some cases prisoners were released, then kicked out of the country, forced to leave their children behind—the latter taken by the authorities and placed in state children’s institutions or to be raised in a “proper communist household.”
With a network now of nearly 200,000 civilian informants to spy on the East German population of 17 million, the Stasi perfected the sinister game of manipulation and control. While the Honecker administration worked to improve relations with the outside world, behind the Wall, Stasi psychological torture tactics increased. The secret police compiled dossiers on nearly everyone and used the information to hatch meticulously planned psychological attacks aimed at keeping people off balance: entrapping innocent people, then forcing them to turn on one another, creating deceptions to sow distrust. Professional manipulators and master gaslighters, the secret police upped their use of ambient abuse to intimidate and terrorize, creating a murky cloud of mistrust that hung over the East. It’s no wonder then that the goal for average citizens by this time was to try to live a life in peace, avoiding, if at all possible, coming up on the Stasi radar.
In July 1975, Honecker surprised his countrymen again. In the presence of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, U.S. president Gerald Ford, and West German chancellor Helmut Schmidt, Honecker signed the Helsinki Accords, providing East Germany with the international acceptance it craved. The agreement recognized East Germany’s borders, but also called for respect for human rights and freedom of thought.
Shortly thereafter, in an astounding show of rapprochement with his people, Honecker annou
nced “freedom of movement and travel” for the citizens of the East. This led immediately to hundreds of thousands of overwhelmingly excited East Germans applying for permission to emigrate. But the euphoria did not last when the great majority of applications were rejected. The exercise, however, was a valuable one for Honecker and the Stasi, for they could now finger those who had betrayed the country by expressing a desire to leave.
After years of conforming to the rules of a repressed society, people’s lives had normalized; they didn’t miss material things they didn’t know existed or knew they simply couldn’t have. Some, though, perhaps for the first time, felt a discontent rising among them and no longer believed what they were told. Some still wondered how much their circumstances really differed from their West German counterparts. Others secretly tuned in to the West for news, progressive fashion, and social trends at a time when it was in vogue in the West to question authority. Some East Germans even began wearing their hair longer or sporting muttonchop sideburns and wearing bell-bottoms.
Under the constant gaze of the secret police, formation of an organized opposition was impossible. However, a few brave citizens risked everything to speak out against the regime in hopes of provoking political and social change. They fought alone for the rights of all citizens. The Stasi devoted an untold number of man-hours to keeping track of dissidents like Ulrike Poppe and Bärbel Bohley. Agents were posted around the clock to spy on them.