Forty Autumns

by Nina Willner

  On September 30, their fate still uncertain, West German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher appeared on the embassy balcony and looked over the crowd. Terrified but hopeful, on pins and needles, East Germans stood waiting in complete silence, hanging on his every syllable.

  “Dear fellow Germans,” he began slowly. “We have come to you in order to inform you that today, you are free to leave for West Germany. . . .” But before he could finish, the crowd erupted into a thunderous uproar. Wild, elated cheers drowned out Genscher’s address as people burst out crying and hugging one another. Genscher concluded by directing families with babies to be on the first train bound for freedom in West Germany.

  With Poland and Hungary grabbing their freedom, and East Germans beginning to rebel, there was no indication from Honecker that he would relinquish his reign and release his people. In the United States, my family assumed that the likely outcome would be a violent crackdown.

  In Karl Marx City, Heidi and Reinhard watched West German newscasts of the refugees spilling out through Hungary. Like us in the United States, they too followed the whirlwind developments taking place in Austria, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, not fully comprehending or even believing that any of it was actually real.

  I protected myself from being overly optimistic, reluctant to think more than forty years of totalitarianism could simply disappear overnight.

  Without an invitation from Honecker, Gorbachev visited East Germany and took to a public stage. A very pensive Honecker stood by his side. The people of Eastern Europe, he said, had a right to choose their own futures. Honecker wore a blank stare but Gorbachev’s words set the crowd ablaze.

  They began to chant, cautiously at first, their calls quickly gaining momentum. “Gorby, Gorby, Gorby!” they yelled louder and stronger, the cadence picking up as more in the audience chimed in and the chant grew more defiant.

  “Gorby, Gorby!” With the support of the leader of the Soviet Union seemingly now on their side, the crowds were suddenly unafraid of their own leader and they continued to drum in unison, as some voices cut above the din, yelling, “Gorby! Save us!”

  With much of East Germany wondering how or even if their leaders would mark the fortieth anniversary of the founding of East Germany, Honecker refused to be sidetracked. The stage was set as Honecker prepared to mark forty years of communist progress in East Germany, hail the country’s achievements, and promote his plans for the future.

  On October 7, 1989, as people were fleeing through Hungary and Czechoslovakia, Gorbachev arrived in East Berlin, having agreed many months earlier to be the guest of honor for East Germany’s biggest and most important celebration ever.

  In Karl Marx City, the festivities kicked off with their homegrown champion, Cordula, and her home team participating in a race down the center of the city. No sooner had celebrations begun when spontaneous demonstrations erupted. VoPos descended. Convinced that violence would ensue, Cordula escaped the explosive city center and rode to her parents’ apartment to wait for Heidi, Reinhard, and Mari to return home.

  Over the next days, Cordula, her parents, and Mari watched news events on Western television as police all over East Germany tried to push back demonstrators with physical force, using batons and water canons. As East German marchers recalled the 1953 uprising, many realized that this time things were different. They felt empowered knowing they had Gorbachev’s support and the West on their side, and that they were riding the momentum of other Eastern Bloc countries in transition. Still, watching the events unfold on television, Cordula, Heidi, and Reinhard could not help but wonder where it was all headed and how it would all end.

  People throughout East Germany took to the streets, disrupting anniversary festivities everywhere. With disorder now spreading, Honecker, acting as if nothing out of the ordinary were happening, declared the show must go on.

  On a crisp, chilly day in East Berlin, Karl Marx Allee was lined with thousands of spectators holding flags as they stood in front of six-story-high billboards proclaiming “40 Jahre DDR” (Forty Years of East Germany).

  In the VIP box, Soviet leader Gorbachev took his place next to Honecker, who wore a strangely beatific smile as he cast his hand in a royal wave over the assembled masses. The main streets, topped out in full-propaganda blossom, were lined with enormous red banners that whipped in the wind. With speakers in place, dignitaries seated and attentive audiences prepared to celebrate, the parade began.

  A bell sounded, signaling the start of ceremonies, and spit-polished military and paramilitary personnel marched. Behind them, bedecked FDJ and Young Pioneers, bands, and other communist groups followed as the crowd looked on and cheered. Military equipment rolled past.

  Over the next few hours, as hundreds of demonstrators attempting a peaceful march on the outskirts of the gathering were grabbed by the VoPo and shuffled away, the two leaders, oblivious to the mayhem, stood side by side, watching the parade. In an eerie state of denial, Honecker rattled on, regaling an annoyed Gorbachev with delusions of his country’s achievements, affirmations that now only few believed. Not long after the parade, Gorbachev would tell Honecker, simply, “Life punishes those who delay.”

  Despite the unrest taking hold, and euphoria sweeping the country, the great majority of East German citizens were still completely perplexed and chose to keep their distance from the turmoil. Many chose not to take part in demonstrations, believing it could only mean trouble for those who did.

  Many, including Heidi, still believed the events were staged, part of an elaborate hoax intended to root out the disloyal. Even if the demonstrators gained momentum, they thought, the state was all-powerful, and any act of rebellion was doomed to failure. To many, the whole thing felt like a twisted psycho-thriller film in which the entire country’s population was the cast, so they stayed away, trying to follow news of the events from the safety of their homes.

  From Leipzig to Dresden, demonstrations broke out as hundreds of thousands of people now marched, calling for change.

  In Leipzig alone, 300,000 citizens with banners affirming “We are the people!” marched in the streets. They stormed past the local Stasi headquarters, shouting their hatred for the regime, demanding an end to secret police control. Honecker called for the protest to be put down immediately, and the Stasi chief ordered his forces to suppress the mobs. But as police and local authorities watched the mass of demonstrators advancing on the Stasi headquarters, they were overwhelmed and chose not to intervene. In East Berlin’s Alexanderplatz, the crowd swelled to half a million, carrying signs that read, NO LIES, NEW PEOPLE, and FORTY YEARS IS ENOUGH!

  25

  THE WORLD IS STUNNED

  “SCHABOWSKI SAID WE CAN!”; OR, THE WALL FALLS

  (November 9, 1989)

  What is right will always triumph.

  —President Ronald Reagan

  Just eleven days after Gorbachev uncomfortably joined Honecker for the forty-year celebration of East German rule, an event that was supposed to mark a shining achievement for the Honecker regime, the East German Politburo, in an effort to reinstate calm, and with Gorbachev’s approval, forced Erich Honecker from office.

  Honecker was replaced by his deputy, Egon Krenz, who tried to quell the crowds and get things back under control. Krenz called on the population to remain calm, promising change in East Germany. But it was too late.

  Across the country, people took to the streets. In East Berlin alone, the numbers of demonstrators marching peacefully for change swelled to an estimated one million, remarkable for a country of 16 million.

  In early November, Cordula and the national women’s cycling team were back training at Marzahn in East Berlin.

  “You might notice things happening in the streets of Berlin,” the trainers told the girls, “but that is none of your concern.” With that, the athletes promptly returned to training, made to focus solely on timed trial cycles, speed work, and strength exercises.

  In Karl Marx City, Heidi and Reinhard
watched in awe: the demonstrations, the crackdowns, the chaos, people fleeing the country. Opa’s prophecy about the regime falling apart seemed to be coming true.

  In early November, the East German leadership finally took to the airwaves to address the citizens of the East about the chaos. Heidi and Reinhard and the great majority of East German citizens were utterly unprepared for the earth-shattering announcement their government would make that day. It would change their lives forever and alter the course of history.

  Alarmed at the hemorrhaging of East Germans through the now-open borders in Hungary, the Krenz administration scrambled to come up with a plan. With East Germany’s very existence now at stake, Krenz called the country to order and promised a loosening of travel restrictions, saying that, with the proper permissions and paperwork, citizens would find it easier to travel outside of the East.

  Günter Schabowski, a Communist Party official, was given the task of relaying Krenz’s policy to the press and to the public. At a quickly assembled international press conference on November 9, before a roomful of reporters, Schabowski, who had not been present at the meeting with Krenz, mixed up the original intent of the new policy when he stated, “The regime has decided to invoke a ruling to allow every citizen of the East German republic to emigrate through East German border posts.” In essence, he essentially mistakenly conveyed that all travel restrictions were being lifted, making it sound like the citizens of East Germany were free to leave.

  But then Schabowski halted, seemingly perplexed about what he had just read, unsure as to what exactly the order really meant or if he had gotten it right.

  Heidi and Reinhard looked at each other.

  When a reporter, believed to be NBC journalist Tom Brokaw, asked when the decree would go into effect, a confused-looking Schabowski answered, “As far as I know, immediately.”

  In that one instant, the order that promised to relax travel procedures dissolved them.

  Within a half hour of the broadcast, West German news announced that East Germany had opened its borders.

  Puzzled and suddenly feeling light-headed, Reinhard turned the television channel to West Germany’s ARD news just as the anchorman began.

  “This is a historic day,” he said. “East Germany has announced that, starting immediately, its borders are open to everyone. [T]he GDR is opening its borders. The gates in the Berlin Wall stand open.”

  It didn’t take long for East Germans to rush the checkpoints between East and West, including Checkpoint Charlie, demanding that border guards immediately open the gates. The guards, unsure of what to do, made frantic telephone calls to their superiors, who ordered them to finger the “most aggressive” people at the gates and mark their passports with a stamp revoking their citizenship and barring them from ever returning to East Germany. The guards turned back to face the crowds of tens of thousands who now demanded to be let through, calling “Schabowski said we can!” and rattling the fence, shouting, “Open the gates! Open the gates!”

  Border personnel, greatly outnumbered and completely overwhelmed, had no way to hold back the huge crowds and finally gave in, opening the checkpoints and standing back, allowing the crowds to flee through to the West. As throngs of East Germans poured through the gates, they were greeted by West Germans waiting on the other side of the Wall with flowers, champagne, and even money, giving pats and hearty brotherly embraces and greetings of “Welcome to West Germany!”

  Heidi watched the scene unfold on television, saw people dancing on the Wall, but simply did not believe any of it was real. Reinhard was confused. Even as they watched television coverage of the masses of people streaming through the borders, Heidi trusted none of it. Having lived her entire life within the East German system, her defenses remained sharp and she was convinced it was a fake newscast, part of an elaborate ruse orchestrated by the East German secret police to gauge citizens’ allegiance and ferret out enemies of the state.

  Even when she heard loud music, elated voices drunk with happiness, and cheers streaming out from her apartment complex, from up above and down on the street below, Heidi remained sure it was just a matter of time before the regime would crack down and all would become as it had been before. In Salzwedel, Dresden, and Naumburg, Manni, Tiele, Helga, and Tutti watched in awe.

  In East Berlin, still sequestered in the sports hall, Cordula and her teammates were oblivious to the masses leaving the city just a few miles away; their trainers demanded their complete focus on training. That evening they directed the girls to turn in to bed early so that they would be fresh for the next day’s workout. Once the girls were asleep, the trainers slipped out of the building and took off to see for themselves what was happening at the Wall. They crossed into the West and partied with the thousands of others who had gathered; by early morning, as the sun was rising, they returned back to the sports hall.

  That morning, in the pale light of a new day, Cordula awoke to a knock at the door, a trainer telling her and the other girls to get up and assemble immediately.

  Once the team had gathered in the common room, the trainers, with wide grins, stood before them, barely able to contain their joy. One of them said, “The border is open.”

  They looked at each of the girls in turn, waiting for their reaction. But the girls did not react. They looked at one another. Cordula wondered what kind of a joke the trainers were playing. Were they testing the girls for their loyalty, as they sometimes did? The trainers took the girls to a television and turned to Western coverage of the masses at the border and people atop the Wall.

  The girls stood silent, shocked and in complete disbelief.

  “We were out there last night,” one trainer said excitedly pointing to the scene playing out in West Berlin.

  “Wait,” Cordula said, suspicious, knowing even a quick unauthorized trip to the West could get one tossed in prison for years.

  “What does that even mean, the borders are open? For how long?”

  “For forever!” yelled the trainer into Cordula’s face, his intense stare boring right through her. “Listen to what we are saying to you!” he pleaded. “The border is open! We are free!”

  The girls reacted differently to the news. Some of them were elated, wanting to waste no time in joining the throngs investigating their newfound freedom in West Berlin. Others, like Cordula, were more cautious. She tried to process the information rationally. What did it actually mean? How would it impact her and her family, her life as an athlete in the short term and in the long term, and what would if mean for the future of all East Germans?

  It was, by any measure, an extraordinary day. In an instant, the Berlin Wall, the impenetrable concrete barrier that had divided Germany for decades, simply ceased to exist.

  In the blink of an eye, 16 million East Germans were finally and unexpectedly set free.

  Within a matter of just a few hours, the people of East Germany suddenly found themselves citizens of a country and an ideology that no longer existed. Tens of thousands rushed the border to the West in a combination of disbelief, euphoria, and anxiety, not quite sure what they would find on the other side. Where just hours earlier, anyone daring to attempt to scale the Berlin Wall would have been shot or hauled off to prison, all of a sudden thousands stood atop it, celebrating as others took sledgehammers and chisels to it, trying to destroy the world’s most recognized and hated symbol of Cold War oppression.

  In the end, amid all the changes that were rapidly being unleashed by the actions of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the all-powerful East German state, a regime that had tried to control and claim responsibility for every aspect of its citizens’ lives, didn’t have the answer for its own survival.

  In the United States, no one in my family could fathom that it was true. By now the mother of a toddler and a newborn, I was astounded as I watched the news from the sofa in our apartment in Fort Meade, Maryland: people dancing, drinking champagne, partying on the Berlin Wall, on the Ku’Damm, and throughout West Berlin.<
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  In Washington, my parents, Hanna and Eddie, watched in silence, staring dumbstruck at the television.

  “I’m Peter Jennings in New York. Just a short while ago, some astonishing news from East Germany where the East German authorities have said in essence that the Berlin Wall doesn’t mean anything anymore. The Wall that the East Germans put up in 1961 to keep its people in will now be breached by anyone who wants to leave.”

  Forty years after my mother had escaped, the thought of finally being able to see her family again overpowered her. Dazed, she sat down to try to process it.

  Heidi was the first to call. From Karl Marx City, she phoned my mother in Washington. The sisters, at first overcome with emotion, greeted each other gently, haltingly. It was a bad phone connection, but even through the buzzing, fading signal, they managed.

  Heidi told Hanna that she was confused, that she could not fathom that East Germany had really fallen and no longer existed. Like a big sister comforting her little sister, my mother reassured her that it was indeed true. When Heidi said she had still not been to West Germany to have a look around, my mother encouraged her to go, to take just a short trip at first, so as not to become overwhelmed.

  26

  DAWN

  LEAVING THE EAST

  (Autumn 1989)

  Remember tonight . . . for it is the beginning of always.

  —Dante

  It took yet another couple of weeks for Heidi to fully absorb that East Germany had indeed fallen, and to comprehend that she was really free to go.

  One weekend in late autumn, on a clear, crisp morning, Heidi and Reinhard got up at sunrise and packed the Skoda for a daylong trip. Instead of going to the bungalow that weekend, they set out from Karl Marx City and drove toward the East–West border.

  Born into the East German communist system, they had spent their lives behind the Iron Curtain, told that the West was filled with criminals, warmongers, and evildoers bent on destroying them.