by Nina Willner
Roland, Tiele, and all my mother’s other siblings and their families attended the annual parade in the cities and towns where they lived. Heidi, Reinhard, Cordula, and Mari, now a Young Pioneer, as usual, attended in Karl Marx City.
In East Berlin, I was one of a handful of official U.S. representatives authorized to attend the parade. On a sunny, chilly morning, tens of thousands of people packed Karl Marx Allee in East Berlin, having been bused in from districts in and around the city. The crowds were tightly packed, spanning five rows deep. With plain-clothes Stasi and police militia integrated into the assembly of people and milling about to keep an eye on the spectators, a sea of paper flags waved: sky-blue ones with white doves; flaming red ones with hammer, sickle, and star; and the national flag, the tricolor red, black, and gold with hammer and compass, encircled by a wreath of wheat. Up above, red banners proclaimed, “Starker Sozialismus, Sicherer Frieden,” “Stronger socialism, more secure peace.”
Off to the side, a whole section of archetypal communist youth, fresh-faced children, dressed in bright, spotless clothing and red and blue bandannas, waved, cheerleaders for the assembled masses. Up above in the reviewing stand stood the master of ceremonies, the country’s leader, Erich Honecker. Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko and rows of Party officials acknowledged the crowds with nods and waves as people cheered loudly in a forced show of enthusiasm on mostly blank faces. Beyond the reviewing platform of important dignitaries, concrete-block-styled buildings in various stages of disrepair lined the street in odd juxtaposition to the exaggerated display of confidence and capability playing out on the parade route below.
A general festooned with rows of medals offered an official welcome in a tinny address that reverberated through the cranked-up sound system. While Party officials gave propaganda-laden speeches, criers planted in the crowd told the assembled when to cheer, when to applaud and wave their little flags, while police and undercover security monitored the scene, keeping an eye out for troublemakers. To my right stood a group of teenage boys looking bored. When one noticed they were being watched by a plainclothes monitor, the boy nodded and suddenly feigned interest, waving his flag back and forth, his friends following his lead.
Finally the parade kicked off. Drummers, bands, flag-bearers, NVA troops squared off in blocked groups of gray uniforms, wearing white gloves and flat gray helmets, rifles clasped across their chest, chins raised in resolute loyalty, made their way up the parade route, jackboots precision-stepping to the beat of blaring nationalistic music. Rows of soldiers marched past, followed by the most powerful weapons in the East German arsenal. Soviet-made self-propelled howitzers and T-72 tanks as MI-24 gunships flew in an impressive tight formation over our heads. Few seemed to notice me as I stood inconspicuously among them. Instead, people focused on what they were supposed to be doing: paying attention, cheering, and waving their little flags.
Along with the crowd, I watched as the equipment rolled by. I had already seen some of it close-up. Three hours earlier, as the vehicles were being staged farther down the road, our team had been taking pictures. We had carefully jostled around young East German soldiers who had tried to prevent us from getting close to the equipment. At one point, my team members feigned sudden interest in something in the distance and excitedly hurried off, distracting the East German soldiers who hurried off in pursuit of them. Their stunt worked and I was left unguarded to take close-up pictures of a new model of a Soviet-made, tracked, infantry fighting vehicle.
At the end of the parade, after the last vehicle had passed and the crowd began to thin out, I wandered around a bit and came upon a gathering of important-looking dignitaries. I approached to investigate. About a hundred stately looking officials in dark suits—Party elite, I assumed—stood clustered near a war memorial. They stood in stoic silence and appeared to be waiting for something or someone. I casually walked over to the group, bypassing security guards, and slid in to take up a place among them, as they inched back up into one another to make room for me, apparently believing that I was meant to be there.
ZSU 23-4 antiaircraft gun, East Berlin
Courtesy of BRIXMIS Association
After a few minutes, a fleet of shiny, black Russian-made limousines shot up to the curb, stopping with great precision just inches away from one another. Men in black scrambled about, hurriedly opening doors for gray-haired dignitaries. Among them was a wiry, bespectacled man, his white hair neatly combed, glasses set securely on his temples, framing a pale, solemn face.
I recognized him immediately. It was Erich Honecker and he was standing ten feet away from me. Tightly surrounded by a keenly attentive security detail, Honecker, his deputy Egon Krenz, and others moved swiftly up the path as one unit, bypassing me and the rest of the crowd, and made their way to the memorial. No one moved; there was no applause, no sound, only silence.
Stasi and East German security keeping a close eye on the author in East Berlin
Photograph by author
At the memorial, Honecker placed a wreath and ceremoniously bowed his head in silent tribute. Seconds later, he and his entourage began the walk back to their waiting motorcade. As Honecker walked back up the path, when he was just a few feet away, I half-stepped out from the crowd. For a split second, the leader of East Germany and I made eye contact, and I snapped a picture.
It was an epic moment for me. It lasted just seconds. I was there. He passed by. He looked at me. And then it was over.
Back at the office, the photo revealed the contemplative gaze of a man lost in thought.
To his people, Honecker appeared confident and in control. In truth, however, he was worried. By now the Solidarity labor movement in Poland was building momentum and the East German leadership feared the growing protests there might spread to East Germany. To make matters worse for Honecker, the Soviet Union had a brand-new, youthful reform-minded leader. Mikhail Gorbachev, acknowledging that his country was in decline, corruption was rampant, and the country was being smothered from the weight of it own inefficient communist bureaucracy, decided to implement a series of political, economic, and social reforms in the Soviet Union.
East Germans started to take notice when they heard Gorbachev’s speeches. With great interest, they followed his ideas about change in the Soviet Union, hoping to one day see similar reforms in their own country as well. But Honecker had no intention of following the Soviet leader’s example. He rejected Gorbachev’s ideas, opposing any change that might put an end to his totalitarian regime. But now he would have to find a way to address a puzzled public who had been conditioned to view the Soviet Union as a role model and a big brother to emulate. The East German leadership could hardly criticize the Soviet Union, but neither could they encourage their citizens to follow Gorbachev’s model. So Honecker clarified his position: following the Soviets, he said, no longer meant following their every move. With that sentiment, the East German government dug in its heels, determined to hold out.
In West Berlin, I and a few other officers met up with Major Nicholson, who took us to the historic USMLM house in Potsdam. From West Berlin, we made our way into East Germany over the strictly controlled Glienicke Bridge.
As we drove over it, the lone car on the vacant stretch of that storied landmark, Major Nicholson talked about the role the bridge played during the Cold War. Half in the East, half in the West, the Glienicke Bridge was known as the “Bridge of Spies” for being a place of choice for major Cold War spy swaps and prisoner exchanges, including the famous 1962 exchange of U.S. pilot Francis Gary Powers for Soviet spy Colonel Rudolf Abel.
At the Potsdam House, we toured the carefully groomed grounds, and inside the residence saw the mansion’s spacious rooms, where the mission hosted diplomatic receptions for U.S. and Soviet dignitaries. We toured the house and ate lunch before crossing back over the Glienicke Bridge and returning to our offices in West Berlin.
Less than a hundred miles away, in quiet, remote Klein Apenburg, Opa’s health had d
eclined. At eighty-six years old, he was weakened from old age and diabetes. Roland took him to the Apenburg hospital, where, as a result of complications from the disease, he had surgery to amputate his leg. On the operating table, my grandfather passed away.
Now the patriarch of the family was gone. Opa’s life had spanned most of the twentieth century in a period that had seen incredible change. He had been a soldier in both world wars, had tried to adapt first to Nazism—privately he called Hitler “a madman who despised human beings”—and then to communism, only to ultimately end up fighting the system. The family laid him to rest beside Oma in a cemetery near Apenburg. Roland announced Opa’s passing to Hanna in a letter.
Cordula took the loss of her grandfather very hard. She attended the funeral but had to report back immediately for training. Women’s cycling had become an Olympic sport in 1984 and her trainers had just given her the opportunity to switch her sport from swimming to cycling. Though Cordula had had little experience other than the riding she had done on the family’s old single-gear utility bicycle, she disciplined herself to focus and showed remarkably fast progress. She worked hard to master the East German Diamant road race bike and before long was competing in races throughout East Germany.
Major Arthur Nicholson with Soviet counterpart at BRIXMIS reception
Courtesy of BRIXMIS Association
In the Soviet Union, General Secretary Gorbachev emerged as a new kind of leader. President Reagan recognized in Gorbachev a different mind-set and the potential to help forge a new era in U.S.-Soviet relations, one of genuine progress between the two major world powers. Though there were still fundamental chasms between the two superpowers, for the most part the relationship took on a more civil tone and for the first time there was a real sense that change might indeed be possible.
Then something unexpected happened in East Germany, which once again spiked tension in Soviet-U.S. relations.
One morning in late March 1985, I came in to work to prepare for the day’s operations into East Berlin and was informed that there had been an incident involving a USMLM tour officer who was on a mission in East Germany. Major Nicholson was dead.
21
BEYOND THE CHECKPOINT
PASSAGE
(1985)
We can only hope that the Soviet Union understands that this sort of brutal international behavior jeopardizes directly the improvement in relations which they profess to seek.
—Vice President George H. W. Bush, upon the return of Arthur Nicholson’s body to the United States
Major Nicholson had been shot by a sentry near a Soviet military training area while on a mission near Ludwigslust, in northern East Germany. With his driver providing eyes and ears lookout, Nicholson had stepped out of his vehicle and approached storage sheds used to house tanks. Neither Nicholson nor his driver had been aware that they were being observed by a Soviet soldier, a young conscript armed with an AK-74 rifle who followed the two in his sights from his hidden position in the wood line.
Without warning, the young soldier aimed his rifle and pulled the trigger. The first bullet whizzed over the heads of the tour. The second struck Nicholson in the abdomen, dropping him to the ground. When the driver jumped out of the car with his medical bag, the sentry closed in, rifle pointed at the driver’s head, screaming for him to get back in the car. While the sentry held the driver at bay, a dozen Soviet officers and soldiers arrived on the scene, but no one made a move to approach Nicholson, who lay on the ground bleeding to death. More than one hour after the shooting, a medic finally appeared, crouched down to Nicholson, took his pulse, and said, simply, “Nyet.”
Major Nicholson’s body was delivered back into U.S. hands over the Glienicke Bridge.
Fatal Shots Without Warning,” “Casualty of the Cold War,” “Soviets Offer Apology in Killing of U.S. Major.” The incident made headlines around the world and brought the progress of Soviet-U.S. relations to a screeching halt as Secretary Gorbachev faced his first crisis as leader of the Soviet Union. The Reagan administration confronted Moscow, warning that the episode jeopardized the improving relations between the two countries. Before long, however, the incident was downplayed as an unfortunate event that should not disrupt such a critical period in superpower relations, at a time when both sides anticipated the first real strides toward an end to the Cold War.
In the Soviet Union, Gorbachev began to institute his plans for restructuring (perestroika) and openness (glasnost).
As Gorbachev explored change at home, he began to reach out to the United States and other Western nations. The United States welcomed the new Soviet leader’s desire for change. The world watched as a new optimism took hold and relations between the two superpowers showed signs of improvement.
True to his plan, Gorbachev began to institute change in the Soviet Union, urging other Eastern Bloc countries to follow his lead. The Soviets now admitted to a crumbling economy, decaying infrastructure, poor housing, food shortages, alcoholism, and increasing mortality rates, as well as the country’s infamous history of state crimes against the population. Topics like the legacy of the KGB, once taboo, were being openly debated.
Honecker, meanwhile, admitted to none of his country’s shortcomings. He remained unmoved, refusing to alter the status quo in East Germany, publicly saying, “We have done our perestroika. We have nothing to restructure.”
Despite appearing unmoved in public, Honecker felt betrayed by Gorbachev. Honecker eluded talk of reform and instead started to censor Soviet media in his country, even banning the Soviet magazine Sputnik and Soviet films, and ordering that new school textbooks avoid the topic of the transitions under way in Russia.
Obdurate and dogged, Honecker remained rooted to his cause, vowing if necessary to be the last remaining leader of hard-line communism in Eastern Europe.
By the time she turned sixteen, Cordula’s cycling career had taken off, and she entered the ranks of the East German national team. The newest and youngest member, she trained three times a day, six days a week, alongside her more experienced teammates, all tried and tested Olympic athletes and hopefuls whom Cordula worked hard to emulate.
Her days were spent sequestered in intensive training, her schedule completely regimented. She did everything with her new teammates: training, eating, sleeping, and back again to training. Wind sprints, weight lifting, gymnastics, and constant track, stationary bike, and road work commanded her days. Bedtime was nine o’clock, lights out at ten sharp, wake-up well before dawn. The sports program invested completely in its athletes, sparing no effort and overlooking no detail to monitor every facet of the girls’ lives in an attempt to propel success. Outside influences, including television and film, were screened, and not allowed if they distracted and did not serve to inspire and motivate. Aside from the occasional sweets, the girls were not allowed to consume anything that would interfere with shaping an extraordinarily superb sports psyche and optimal physique.
East German teenager Eike Christine Radewahn attempted to swim to freedom across the Danube River in Romania. Border guards shot at and then arrested her. She was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment in East Germany’s Hoheneck Castle Prison.
Courtesy of Eike C. Radewahn
For Cordula it was a promising beginning. Over the next months she made remarkable progress, her diligence and determination rewarded when she was chosen to ride in her first two competitions in Poland and Czechoslovakia. To the great satisfaction of her coaches, she continued to win medals at local and national events throughout Eastern Europe.
Then one day, the family got some utterly stunning news. Heidi took the call Cordula made from the athletic training facility in Leipzig.
“Mutti,” she said, “I made it. I made the team.”
Numb, Heidi slowly sat down. East Germany had bestowed one of its highest honors upon Cordula. She had landed a coveted spot on the Olympic training team. Catapulted to the top level of the elite world of East German sports, she would now
compete in world championships and contend for one of three spots on the Women’s Olympic cycling team.
Membership in the elite East German sports system would mean Cordula would have to buy in not only to the rigors of training and the pressures of performance, but to the ideals of the regime. On the other hand, thought Heidi, it would mean that Cordula would likely get a chance to travel to the West. Just maybe, Heidi thought, her daughter would be able to see what Heidi herself had once seen when she was five: what life was really like on the outside. There was great pride in the entire extended family when they learned that one of their own, their daughter, sister, niece, cousin, Cordula, had earned a rare opportunity, one that most could only dream of, and they hailed it as a huge victory for the entire family.
At the track, Andrea, one of the stars of the team and an unofficial leader, and the rest of the members of the women’s cycling team congratulated Cordula with a businesslike welcome that underscored the seriousness with which they took their roles. It was a day Cordula would never forget. Her country believed she had the potential to be a world-class athlete, that she was among the best her nation had to offer, that she could bring home gold for East Germany. By East German standards, she had made it to the top.
A few weeks later, after much deliberation, Heidi finally made a painful decision. Not wanting to jeopardize Cordula’s once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, she severed all communications, her once every year or two letter exchange with the big sister she hardly knew but had come to adore.
Sitting in her little apartment in Karl Marx City, Heidi penned a final letter to Hanna, telling her only what she could, knowing the Stasi might examine it carefully for clever wording and surreptitious double meanings.
“Cordula has been given a chance at a good life,” she wrote, “so this will be our last contact. I know you will understand.” If the authorities read the letter, they were no doubt satisfied, but Heidi was heartbroken.