ONKEL DIETER UND TANTE GRETEL (Part 5 - final part of this story)
The Berlin Wall not only split Germany between the capitalist west and communist east, but also separated families and friends. It cemented into place the great divide that had ushered in a new world order that was destined to last approximately another thirty years. It demarcated the great ideological divide in the world.
Dieter had read the situation correctly and had joined the exodus from the GDR to the Federal Republic of Germany in the nick of time. The suddenness with which the GDR rolled out razor wire and built the concrete barrier preventing further haemorrhaging of its workforce to the west, took the world by surprise. Gretel found herself trapped in the less salubrious zone that would endure economic hardship for years to come. West Germany was plied with US dollars supplied under the generous terms of the Marshall Plan, whereas East Germany stagnated. The GDR took care of the most basic needs – free housing, medical care and education, and jobs for all – but lacked the wherewithal to compete with the generation of abundant wealth that was evident in the Federal Republic. A one party state with tight control over dissent, the GDR stirred resentment among free spirits who had looked forward to a better life after the devastation of war. It is true that the Nazis had been well and truly purged from the GDR and that the Federal Republic’s civil service, judiciary and large companies were awash with Third Reich contamination for years to come. However, that is one of the few kudos that the East German state deserved. The GDR was not a free society and distributed poverty fairly evenly across the populace.
From the moment that the Wall went up, Dieter was determined to help anyone who wished to make the harrowing journey to the West. By that time he was a civil engineering student at the Free University of Berlin. He, together with fellow students, put their skill and effort into devising an escape route for anyone who wished to leave the GDR. It was in a herculean task on which they embarked, to tunnel under an increasingly robust concrete outer wall, a patch of “no-man’s land”, tank traps and an inner perimeter barrier on the GDR side. They put their engineering skills to work and undertook a back breaking job to dig, conceal excavated soil, and set their bearings to emerge in a secure location out of view of the GDR’s soldiers and police patrollers. They encountered well-nigh insurmountable obstacles during the several months it took them to forge their way through soil and muddy slush caused by multiple ruptures in the sewerage and water supply lines at both ends of the underground tunnel. Above ground were border security guards with increasingly sophisticated listening devices to prevent the very thing Dieter and his mates were plodding away for months on end to achieve. It was a finely tuned operation, carried out with precision.
At the other end of the tunnel Gretel had been approached by student friends of hers who were recruiting folk interested in leaving the deprivations of the communist east behind. She became involved in a group of several dozen young people willing to risk life and limb to make a break for it and taste freedom and economic prosperity in the west. Students at the Free University of Berlin who were not actively tunnelling, made the dangerous trip across the border to recruit potential escapees and to plan the logistical exercise with typical German precision. It was a daunting task. In the months that the operation was under way other attempts at escape were foiled – resulting in arrest, torture, death and harassment by the GDR Stasi – arguably the most efficient state security apparatus in the world with a massive phalanx of informers (estimated to have numbered 91000 at its zenith).
During the many months of surreptitious digging and planning, other escape attempts made headlines. Border guards shot, killed and disposed of the remains of “runners”. A tunnel elsewhere along the wall broke ground in a guard hut – resulting in machine gun fire and a bloody trail of persecution for their relatives in the East. Attempts to cross the border concealed in modified West German vehicles that crossed for a legitimate day trip, were largely uncovered by the “Uber efficient” border security. There were some successful escapes, but it was a risky enterprise.
It was in the early ‘60s that Dieter and Gretel’s paths crossed serendipitously. The moment was planned to the second when dozens of GDR escapees gathered clandestinely in a building targeted for the opening of the tunnel to be effected. At the very moment the surface was broken, Gretel joined the first wave of families that entered the narrow, dank tunnel. Meeting her at the other end in a building filled to the rafters with excavated Berlin soil, was Dieter. They’d never met before, but she was the first of many he helped to the surface and the start of a new life in the west. Neither would forget the moment their eyes locked and he clasped her delicate hands to lift her to safety.
Gretel soon made use of the opportunities freedom from the GDR offered her. She moved to Cologne and pursued an academic career in Economics at the University. Her prolific writing of research papers caught the attention of academic institutions around the world, and the University of Cape Town extended an invitation to her to join their staff. After due consideration she accepted and left Germany for good.
Dieter had meanwhile become jaded in what he viewed as an ageing and stagnating “old world” in Europe. Opportunities for civil engineers beckoned elsewhere. He set sail for Cape Town in the ‘70s to join a large company engaged in bridge and road construction in South Africa. At that time the South African economy was growing rapidly and outpacing the ability of the academic institutions to produce sufficient skilled engineers.
It was in Cape Town that their paths crossed again. Their serendipitous meeting at the exit to the tunnel under the Berlin Wall had been forgotten by neither. They had never met (again), until a chance encounter at the apartment complex in which they both rented accommodation. They didn’t know each other’s names and had not spoken since their eyes had locked and their hands had clasped in the final quest for freedom at the tunnel’s exit. In Cape Town, in a shared apartment block they ran into each other once more. A relationship and marriage followed. It was with keen interest and much joy that they would learn at the end of the 1980’s that the Berlin Wall was finally dismantled.
Years later, they became acquainted with their young, bachelor, lawyer neighbour. A firm friendship was forged as they related their harrowing tale to a young man they “adopted” as a surrogate relative.
The course of life is truly unpredictable.
©Paul M Haupt
Photo credit: Deutsche
Welle
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