by James Wyllie
THE ARCHDUKE AND DUCHESS EMERGE FROM THE SARAJEVO TOWN HALL TO BOARD THEIR CAR, FIVE MINUTES BEFORE THE ASSASSINATION.
At 10.12 am, the cars pass the first assassin, MEHMEDBASIC, but he fails to act. As the convoy reaches Cumurija Bridge, NEDJO steps up. After leaving the pastry shop, Nedjo had spent the intervening period getting his photo taken for posterity at Josef Shrei’s studio, collecting six copies from the photographer before heading to Appel Quay. At 10.15am, if you are close enough, you will observe Nedjo take his bomb from his jacket and strike it against the lamppost, thereby priming it. However, instead of factoring in the twelve seconds it will take to ignite the fuse, he immediately throws it at the Archduke’s car.
As it spins through the air, the Archduke’s chauffeur, hearing the sound of the bomb being bashed against the lamp post, and thinking it is a gunshot, pulls the car a few inches forward, which means the bomb fails to land inside the automobile. Instead it hits the drawn-back roof and bounces off, landing in front of the fourth car, where it explodes, leaving a small crater in the road.
Once the bomb goes off, you have a choice of what to watch: either the chaotic scenes round the car or Nedjo’s farcical attempt to kill himself. The sharp-eyed will see Nedjo first swallow his cyanide, which is insufficiently strong to do the job, and then try to drown himself by jumping off the wall into the Miljacka River. Unfortunately for him, the river, known for its peculiar smell and brown water, runs very low in summer – only an inch or so deep – and after dropping fifteen feet Nedjo lands on its banks. He is quickly pursued by four men, including a gendarme brandishing a sabre and a Muslim detective with a gun at the ready. Together they easily take him prisoner.
On the other side of the road, as the smoke clears, there is panic and confusion. The Governor’s assistant has a head wound, an Austrian officer is slightly injured, seven spectators are suffering from shrapnel, and a woman watching from her balcony has a perforated eardrum. The Duchess has a slight graze on her shoulder.
After a short delay, the convoy sets off again in the direction of the TOWN HALL, its next designated stop, passing the other assassins, all of whom remain immobile, while the crowds hang around the scene, taking photos, gossiping excitedly, wondering what to do next.
THE SECOND ATTEMPT
Do not dawdle. Head straight for SCHILLER’S as casually as possible. News of the bombing has already reached the deli, and several customers, plus Schiller’s wife, are gathered outside, discussing the attack in animated tones. You, on the other hand, might want to nip inside for a stiff drink to steady the nerves. A shot of the local rajika brandy, made from plums, should do the trick. Be out front again by 10.43am, where you will see PRINCIP standing about six feet from the entrance. After Nedjo’s failure, Princip has the presence of mind to recall that the planned route for the royal convoy involved driving down Franz Josef Street, so he decides to try his luck there.
While you are waiting, spare a thought for the royal couple who will be carrying out their official duties at the TOWN HALL regardless of the traumatic experience they have just been through. Only once does the Archduke lose control of his emotions. The hapless Mayor, without time to alter his welcoming speech, is uttering the usual platitudes when the Archduke angrily interrupts him with a furious outburst: ‘What good are your speeches? I come to Sarajevo on a friendly visit and someone throws a bomb at me!’
By 10.38am, the Archduke and Duchess will be ready to leave. Though the rest of their official itinerary has been cancelled, and the Archduke’s advisors are begging him to leave the city without further delay, he insists on visiting the hospital to check on the wounded.
PRINCIP STEPS UP TO THE MARK. AN ARTIST’S IMPRESSION OF THE SCENE FOR THE COVER OF THE ITALIAN PAPER, LA DOMENICA DEL CORRIERE.
Fearing that there may be more assassins waiting to strike, they decide to avoid Franz Josef Street altogether and stick to APPEL QUAY. Tragically, nobody bothers to tell the drivers about this change of route; so when the first car reaches the Latin Bridge it turns right into FRANZ JOSEF STREET, followed by the Archduke’s automobile, arriving at the junction by SCHILLER’S at 10.45am.
Governor Potiorek, still in the car with the royal couple, suddenly realises they are going the wrong way and orders the chauffeur to turn round. Lojka stops and reverses the car, halting directly in front of PRINCIP. Barely able to believe his good fortune, Princip raises his gun, turns his head and fires twice. One of the bullets goes straight through the side of the car where the DUCHESS is sitting. It enters her right groin and lodges in her abdomen. The other bullet hits the ARCHDUKE in the neck, severs his jugular vein and wedges itself in his spine. (Both entry wounds are tiny, so don’t expect to see much in the way of blood or any other visible signs of injury.)
For a moment, the couple remain motionless, then their heads drop slightly before they slowly slump forward in their seats as their car gets moving again, heading towards the river. At the same time, Princip swallows his defective cyanide and turns the gun on himself, but a nearby spectator swiftly snatches it away from him, and Princip is instantly set upon by enraged policemen, soldiers and civilians, who pummel him to the ground.
As one of the most important crime scenes in history, you will naturally want to get close to the action. But beware: there are photographers in the crowd taking shots of the immediate aftermath. To avoid getting CAUGHT ON CAMERA, move well away from Princip as soon as he has discharged his weapon. To avoid getting mistaken for an accomplice, clear the area within ten minutes of the shooting.
DEPARTURE
You will depart at precisely 11.45am. If you are in a group, split up and take separate routes back to the safe house. At 11.30am, the city’s church bells will ring out, announcing to the world that the royal couple are dead. The streets will fill with angry, distressed people joining together for a spontaneous PROTEST, marching through town chanting anti-Serbian slogans. By then, you will be long gone, mission successfully accomplished.
However, if you wish to EXTEND YOUR TRIP and sample the charged atmosphere of a city entering crisis mode, there is a LATER DEPARTURE TIME available at 9.30pm. If you opt for this, you will probably want some refreshment after the morning’s action, so head to the TURKISH BAZAAR and treat yourself to a MEZE at a cafe, or try the delicious street food, which includes cevapi, a kind of kebab with sausages and onions in pitta bread, or, for the vegetarians, pita di spinaku, with spinach, cottage cheese and feta. During the afternoon you will inevitably be caught up in the DEMONSTRATIONS gripping Sarajevo; you may well share the crowd’s righteous indignation after what you have just witnessed.
By early evening, no doubt footsore and hungry, you will be after a proper SIT-DOWN MEAL. There are many decent restaurants offering regional specialities. Bosnian soups are particularly satisfying and filling. Beya is a chicken soup with carrots, okra, beans, potato, celery and parsley, while Sarajevo soup uses similar vegetables combined with veal and sour cream. Both are a meal on their own. The local BEERS are good and strong. BOSNIAN WINE packs quite a punch: a mix of sugar, water, yeast, alcohol and a shot of rum fermented for two weeks in a sealed container. Gentler on the palette and the head are the more refined Zilvakra (white) and Blatini (red).
The finest cuisine in town is served at the Hotel Austria, where visiting dignitaries stay. However, it will be in lockdown after the assassination. It could be more interesting to take a table at the Serbian-owned HOTEL EUROPE – which, next day, will be overrun and ransacked by angry mobs as an orgy of rioting is unleashed across the city.
Avoid the BARS, which will be crawling with secret police, spies and informers ready to snatch anybody who seems to be at all out of place. If that were to happen, you could find yourself lost in the black hole of the Habsburg criminal justice system – corrupt, venal and Byzantine – from which you might never reappear.
The Fall of the Berlin Wall
9–11 NOVEMBER 1989 BERLIN
‘WHAT HAPPENED IN BERLIN LAST WEEK was a com
bination of the Fall of the Bastille and a New Year’s Eve blowout of revolution and celebration’. That was the verdict of Time magazine in the immediate aftermath of the Fall of the Berlin Wall. In three extraordinary days the entire postwar history of Europe was rewritten and the Cold War in effect brought to an end. After nearly thirty years of longing, over a million East Germans poured through the Wall into West Berlin, turning the city into a vast street party of reunification, joy and wonder. You really have to be there.
BRIEFING: COLD WAR
At the end of the SECOND WORLD War Germany was divided into four sectors – one for each of the occupying powers (the United States, Soviet Union, Britain and France). BERLIN, lying deep inside the Soviet sector, was divided in a similar manner. Then, as Cold War tensions turned to active hostility, the US, British and French sectors combined to form the FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY (FRG), or WEST GERMANY. Simultaneously the Soviet Sector become the GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC (GDR) or EAST GERMANY. The old German capital of Berlin went the same way, creating the tiny enclave of WEST BERLIN inside communist East Germany.
THE WALL’S ‘DEATH STRIP’, VIEWED FROM WEST BERLIN IN 1986. GRAFFITI ON THE WESTERN SIDE IS BY THE ARTIST THIERRY NOIR.
Over the next few years a steady stream of migrants from East Germany – above all, the young, skilled and ambitious – headed for West Berlin and never left the FRG, thus placing an intolerable strain on the economic and political stability of the GDR. The State responded at midnight on 13 August 1961 by building the BERLIN WALL, known to the communist regime as the ANTI-FASCIST PROTECTION RAMPART. The wall, nearly 200km long, would eventually encircle West Berlin, combining a wall on the border itself and an inner set of barriers within East Germany, fortified and patrolled with minefields, guard dogs and a shoot-to-kill policy. Nonetheless many would attempt to escape across the wall, and over a hundred East German citizens would pay with their lives.
Twenty-eight years later the Wall still stood, but the regime that maintained it was faltering, its citizens’ loyalty exhausted by state tyranny, its economy a pale shadow of what was clearly visible on television beaming in from the West. The arrival of the reforming President Gorbachev in the Soviet Union had seen a wave of reforms begin across Eastern Europe. In early 1989, the opposition trade union Solidarity formed a government in Poland, while in Hungary the Communist Party initiated a massive series of reforms, opening its borders with Austria and refusing to police East German and Romanians who attempted to cross it. Over half a million East Germans would use this escape route, until the GDR responded by barring travel to Hungary. This encouraged another exodus of its citizens to the West German embassies in Prague, Warsaw and East Berlin, where they demanded asylum. In early October, sealed trains carried thousands of East Germans to the West and in desperation the East Germans closed their borders entirely. Its citizens were left with the choice between loyalty and voice – and over the next month, despite decades of morale-sapping surveillance and repression, they chose voice.
The protests began in Dresden, where a demonstration around the railway station turned into a full scale riot. In Leipzig, on 4 November, the Monday Marches, organised by tiny opposition groups and the Lutheran Church, swelled into a gathering of 100,000 led by Kurt Masur, the city’s orchestra conductor. The determined and sombre Leipzigers marched the entire length of the city’s ring road in a display of oppositional resolve.
Two days later in East Berlin, while an increasingly panicky Communist Party met in conference to discuss regulations on movement, over half a million citizens flooded into the centre of East Berlin to oppose them. In a complex series of events guided by misunderstanding, incompetence and panic, it was left to the hapless GDR minister GÜNTER SCHABOWSKI to give a press conference on the regime’s response, live on television in both East and West. This took place at 6.53pm on 9 November. Unable to formulate the precise nature of the regime’s policy, he blurted out that the new regulations (intended to be introduced very gradually) would begin immediately and be applicable to East–West Berlin crossings (also not planned in the original documents).
It no longer mattered. The people heard that the borders were open – and they acted upon the news.
THE EVENT
You will be arriving in EAST BERLIN at 6.00pm on 9 November 1989 in the hallway of 15 Finlandstrasse. The building is part of a whole street of empty houses cleared by the East German authorities after the Wall was built. You will find yourself about two hundred yards from the BORNHOLMERSTRASSE CHECKPOINT: step out onto the street, turn right and you will see the neon-lit watchtower and high wire fences of the border crossing. Please return to the hallway of 15 Finlandstrasse by midnight on the evening of 11 November. All three days of your trip will be bright, sunny and cold, with temperatures close to zero at night. Do wrap up, and stout footwear is recommended.
ROOMS, FOOD AND COUNTERCULTURE
A room in East Berlin has been booked for you at the HOTEL METROPOL on Friedrichstrasse, just north of the city’s most famous boulevard, Unten den Linden. Opened in 1977 as the modernist flag ship of Interhotel (the East German state tourist agency), the hotel is reserved exclusively for Western visitors and accepts only hard foreign currency. Its 1970s decor – orange plastic fascias and brown-patterned wallpapers – are a bit tired, but it remains a pleasant and tranquil oasis for this tumultuous weekend. Do note that the all rooms are extensively bugged, so be discreet in any reference to the agency, or indeed time travel, or events as-yet-unfolded. For the more adventurous, a roof over your head is also available amongst the SQUATS of PRENZLAUER BERG, heart-land of East German counterculture; try the crowd at 61 Lychenerstrasse or 7 Beherferlinerstrasse.
While in East Berlin, we strongly advise travellers to sample local food and drink. Nothing will taste the same again in post-Wall Germany. The hot dogs, in particular, have a sinister colour and consistency; the fizzy drinks are weird chemical conconctions; even the schnapps ain’t right.
We expect most visitors to focus on the action near the Wall, but if you want to take in a little of WEST BERLIN’S COUNTERCULTURE we suggest you make for the PIKE CLUB, in a back courtyard on Heinrich-Heine-Strasse, in the Kreuzberg quarter, just south of Checkpoint Charlie. On the night of the 9th, East German punk outfit DIE ANDEREN (The Others) are playing; oddly, a number of East German bands – even punks – have had permits recently. By the time you arrive it will be a beer-soaked, pogoing, manic punk party. Also well worth a visit over the weekend is DSCHUNGEL, a modernist 1920s café that pulls in the most louche cocktail drinkers in the city; recently guests include David Bowie and Iggy Pop.
THURSDAY 9 NOVEMBER: DIVIDED BERLIN
Having located the BORNHOLMER STRASSE CHECKPOINT, take a little time to wander the streets of the MITTE quarter with its fabulous crumbling architecture. Since the building of the Wall, the area has steadily emptied of its original working-class population and become a magnet for the most disaffected of the GDR’s citizens. In the many small bars and drinking holes in the streets around the checkpoint you will hear the locals discussing the meaning of the Schabowski press conference and wondering if the border really might be opened this evening.
Do not linger too long. From around 7.20pm onwards you will find a crowd beginning to gather at the Eastern entrance to the Bornholmerstrasse checkpoint. Two particularly vociferous young men – ARAM RADOMSKI and SIGGI SCHEFKE – will be shouting out questions to the perplexed-looking border guards, asking whether they can cross over to the West. The guards will be joined by a senior officer, more discussion will ensue, but no permissions to cross will be given at this point. If you can, try and look up into the brightly lit offices of the checkpoint where the figure of LIEUTENANT COLONEL HARALD JÄGER, the senior officer on duty this evening, will occasionally appear. He is square-faced with a side parting and, as you wait at the gate, he will be furiously phoning his superiors for advice on what to do as the crowd grows in size and in its sense of anticipation.
By 8.00pm
the crowd will have swelled to a few hundred and will be joined by an increasingly long line of vehicles full of people seeking to cross. At 8.30pm a police car will works its way to the front of the crowd. The officer in that car will address the crowd by megaphone, instructing them to go to a nearby police station to gain an exit visa. You should ignore this instruction, as will most of the locals. At 9.00pm the border guards will reappear and take the loudest and most persistent members of the crowd into the CHECKPOINT OFFICE. Following orders from an increasingly befuddled Stasi HQ, the plan at this point is to stamp their passports, show them the way to the West and expel them permanently from the country. Around thirty or so people will be let through on this basis; you should not try and join them. Stay with the crowd, now many thousands strong, reaching back down Bornholmerstrasse and spilling into the side streets. Listen out for the regular chants of ‘Open the gates!’
At approximately 11.30pm Harald Jäger, on his own initiative, will give the order to OPEN THE GATES. Two of his subordinates, Helmut Stoss and Lutz Wasnick, will appear by the main barriers and begin pulling them open by hand. Immediately the huge crowd behind the gate will start pushing forwards and force the gates open themselves. A great surge of humanity will follow as thousands of laughing, crying, shouting and jubilant East Berliners head through the gate and into the West. As you go, it is worth pausing to catch the looks of weary incomprehension on the faces of the border guards.