The Hole in the Wall

The sweetest Christmas music Berliners have heard in more than two years had nothing to do with Bach or Handel. It was the ugly stutter of jackhammers tearing gates in the Berlin Wall, the whine of cranes removing zigzag barriers from heavily guarded crossing points. Then, late last week, the candy-stripe customs poles went up, and thousands of grinning, gift-laden West Berliners swarmed through the Wall for their first reunions with eastern sector relatives since August 1961. A long row of glowing charcoal braziers warmed the approach to the Oberbaum Bridge, and two brightly lit Christmas trees guarded its western end. On the other side of the River Spree, even the trigger-happy East German Vopos wore grins above their cradled submachine guns.

Only till Midnight. Ironically, Communism's grudging Christmas present to West Berlin seems to have originated in the toy factory of Nikita Khrushchev, who resembles Santa Claus only in shape. Chilled by the reception East Germans gave him last summer at the Wall, and aware that the spirit of detente had not yet thawed the frozen pivotal point in East-West relations, Khrushchev talked East German Boss Walter Ulbricht into opening negotiations for the Christmas visits.

Ulbricht was apparently in no mood to be generous. The hole in the Wall is a tiny one by any measurement. Only those West Berliners who have immediate relatives in the Communist part of the city may pass through the five special entry points designated by the East Germans. Passes, issued by East German postal officials, are good through Jan. 5, but only from 7 a.m. to midnight, except on New Year's Day when the pass holders may stagger back as late as 5 a.m. Though some 800,000 West Berliners qualify for the passes, many of them are Fluechtlinge--refugees from East Germany who would be nabbed by the Vopos the moment they crossed the Wall and therefore will not dare to try it.

Tears & Brandy. But despite restrictions and Red tape, some half a million West Berliners will probably make the sentimental journey before the holiday season ends--many of them more than once. Tears and brandy flowed as the first visitors crossed the Wall. Grandparents sized up snowsuited two-year-olds they had never seen except in photographs. "Does the baby meet the family standards?" asked one proud West German mother. "Ja, schon," wept the grandmother. Although the West Berliners arrived laden with everything from Lebkuchen to long underwear, not all the gifts came from their side of the Wall. One East German lad blew a year's savings on two geese, a sweater and a bottle of brandy to welcome his long-immured relatives.

Some Western diplomats felt the Communist Christmas present was wrapped in blackmail, nervously awaited Ulbricht's next move. But though the hole in the Wall will be sealed up after the holiday season, it will never seem so impenetrable again. After this brief, tantalizing breach, the Wall's ugly masonry will look all the more intolerable--to East and West Berliner alike.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.