East-West Tale of a Sundered City

By Jill Smolowe.

It is 13 feet high and 28 miles long and cuts a historic city into two wounded worlds. More than a barrier made of concrete, it is a powerful symbol of the cold war tensions that continue to divide East and West. It is the Berlin Wall, the place where rival political and economic systems come together but cannot meet, and this month is the 25th anniversary of its erection. "In the beginning it was just a wall," says Peter Werner, 49, a designer- architect who lives in West Berlin. "Then they made it more and more perfect with an inner wall and cleared earth between them like a desert war zone." This unique piece of architecture is known among East German officials as the "antifascist protection wall." West Berliners call it the "wall of shame."

Whatever it is called, the Wall appears to Berliners on both sides as a palpable presence that divides friends, families and neighborhoods. A quarter- century ago, East German soldiers and laborers worked through the night to lay down a crude barrier of cinder blocks, mortar and barbed wire. The resulting barricade gave graphic meaning to the political division of Berlin that had been imposed by Moscow in 1948, sundering the local population and leaving occupying U.S., French and British troops on the western side while the Soviets controlled the east. "In August 1961 the curtain was drawn aside to show us an empty stage," former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt recalled in his memoirs. "It was then that we lost the illusions that had survived even after the end of our hopes."

East German officials claim that the Wall is intended to keep the West out. In reality, however, it was designed to keep East Germans in. To that end, the monolith has proved extremely effective. One week before the Wall went up, 2,000 people fled to the West in a single day. But over the next 25 years, only about 5,000 East Germans successfully made the journey, some scaling the Wall, others tunneling beneath it. Countless others failed, and often died, in their escape attempts.

The rampart has inevitably inspired false tales of bravado and derring-do. Two weeks ago, Heinz Braun, an East Berlin tire salesman, captured worldwide attention when he claimed to have escaped to the West by painting his car to resemble a Soviet patrol vehicle and dressing himself and three mannequins in Soviet army uniforms. Last week Braun admitted that his story was a hoax. His coconspirator, West Berliner Wolfgang Quasner, said the bogus flight was intended to dramatize the tragedy of the Wall on the eve of its 25th anniversary. But there is speculation that the two men staged the stunt in the hope of making a fortune by selling the rights to their story.

In their long separation, the two Berlins have acquired markedly different personalities. West Berlin (pop. 2.1 million) is a city with insomnia. By day the streets hum as dark-suited businessmen brush impatiently past roller skaters clad in little more than G-strings, and camera-laden tourists gawk at punk couples in Dracula makeup and matching spiky hairdos. So fast is the tempo that when a quarrel erupted recently between two West Berliners, the story goes, one snapped at the other, "Slap yourself for me. I don't have time." At night the city grows more manic still, with revelers jamming its cabarets, dance halls and 23-hour-a-day pubs.

East Berlin (1.2 million) has far less gaiety and far more of an Old World feel. Along Unter den Linden, the treelined central boulevard, the more relaxed pace encourages strollers to pause and admire the marble sculptures and to browse in modern art galleries. Quaint stores offer Meissen porcelain table settings, and dusty antiques shops display prints of men in ruffled collars and ladies in bustles. Come twilight, the streets clear and the city sinks into slumber.

The complementary charms of the two halves of what was one of Europe's largest industrial, cultural and scientific centers would make a beguiling whole. Yet each Berlin has managed to thrive remarkably well on its own. West Berlin, plucky and brash as ever, has survived the economic crises and political scandals of the 1970s and recovered a large measure of prosperity and self-confidence. The city boasted economic growth of 3% in 1985, the highest rate in West Germany. As it has flourished, West Berlin has become a major producer of electronics, engineering equipment, and cars and trucks.

The economic revival has attracted increasing numbers of young professionals to the city. Nearly a third of West Berliners are between the ages of 25 and 45. "I'm surprised by the climate of confidence in Berlin," says Joachim Putzmann, a senior executive for Siemens, the computer and electronics giant. "The feeling is that a new generation is here to stay." Many members of an older generation, however, are sorely missed. Dietrich Stobbe, a former mayor of West Berlin, concedes that as many as 20,000 of the top political and corporate leaders have relocated to other major West German cities.

West Berliners have managed to make an uneasy peace with the monstrous Wall. Almost every Berliner's emotional survival kit includes a wisecracking sense of humor. Standard encounter: an American, returning to Berlin after 60 years, asks his taxi driver to run down the events during his absence. Responds the driver: "The Nazis came, the war came, the Russians came. You didn't miss much." No less mordant are the graffiti spray-painted on the western side of the Wall. ALL IN ALL, YOU'RE JUST ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL, reads one bit of wisdom. DONALD DUCK FOR PRESIDENT, declares another. One of the newest decorations is a purple cake, divided in two by a brown wall. The inscription: HAPPY 25TH BIRTHDAY.

There are no clever messages on the eastern side of the Wall. East German officials regard the barricade with pride. To celebrate its anniversary, they plan to stage a parade and have already issued a commemorative postage stamp. "Since its construction," says Karl-Heinz Gummich, a representative in the East German Tourist Office, "the economy has grown strong, relations with West Germany have been stabilized, and the threat of war has been removed."

East Berlin has indeed prospered since it stanched the flow of refugees a quarter-century ago. East Berliners boast that they enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the Communist bloc, and almost gleefully contrast their official full employment with West Berlin's 10.2% jobless rate. The largest city in East Germany and the capital of the country, East Berlin is also the chief manufacturing center. City planners expect industrial production to expand nearly 10% a year through the end of the decade.

The Eastern side is now undergoing a much needed face-lifting. The city fathers have renovated some of the oldest and finest buildings, including the twin-spired St. Nicholas Church in the historic heart of Berlin. They have embarked on an ambitious construction scheme that aims to enliven the city with dozens of new gathering places and 117,000 apartments by 1990. "When the construction is finished, there will be more cafes, restaurants and beer gardens," says Rolf Liebold, a spokesman for the Berlin City Council. "No one will be able to say anymore that East Berliners are dour and unsocial."

A perceptible easing of hostilities between the sister cities has helped dispel the East Berlin reputation for gloominess. The process of normalization was set in motion in the early 1980s by Richard von Weizsacker, who was then West Berlin's mayor and is today West Germany's Federal President. Von Weizsacker became the first West Berlin mayor to meet with Erich Honecker, East Germany's Communist Party leader. Small signs of cooperation began to emerge on areas of mutual concern like waste disposal and pollution. Although the almost daily contacts are still conducted on an unofficial basis, the numbing silence of the early 1960s has ended. "The present climate is good," says West Berlin Senator Rupert Scholz. "One Berlin is Communist, the other is not. But when we speak together, it is Berliner to Berliner."

Still, tensions persist. The bitterest quarrel concerns the human tide of refugees that washes through the two Berlins. Drawn by advertisements for East Germany's Interflug airline and the Soviet Union's Aeroflot, the impoverished and the war weary from Africa and the Middle East have arrived in East Berlin in droves. Most of them then hop on the elevated railway that connects East Berlin's Friedrichstrasse station with West Berlin's Zoo station. Once over the border, the newcomers take advantage of a liberal provision in West German law that guarantees asylum to political refugees. In the first six months of this year alone, some 42,000 refugees, most of them Lebanese and Iranians, registered with West German authorities.

The result has been severe overcrowding. In desperation, West Berlin officials have commandeered a soccer field in the district of Neukolln and erected tents to accommodate the overflow. They have repeatedly demanded that their Eastern counterparts take steps to stop the traffic. But East Berlin, which earns valuable hard currency from selling airplane tickets to the refugees, contends that it is up to the Western allied forces, which still occupy West Berlin, to apply passport controls on their side. The allies refuse to do that on the grounds that it would amount to recognition of the boundary that divides the two Berlins as an international border. The irony, of course, is that West Berliners want East Berliners to close one door that has opened in the Wall.

Despite such frictions, many Berliners still harbor a dream that one day their city will again be whole. The wish is expressed openly on the Western side. "When the Wall was built, no one believed that the city would remain divided forever," says President Von Weizsacker. "That the Wall remains after 25 years is probably the most important proof of the fact that our feelings of belonging together are as strong today as in the past." On the Eastern side, officials insist that the "German question" is closed forever and denounce any suggestion of reunification. But the longing is not dead among the population. A visitor to East Berlin was consulting a city map on a park bench when an elderly woman asked if she could look. "We can't get maps that show the West," she explained, "and I just wanted to see the whole thing again."

The two cities will certainly not be unified anytime soon. West Berliners had hoped that next year, when the city celebrates its 750th anniversary, the two sides might enjoy some joint merrymaking. But East Berlin authorities have made it clear that they have no interest in such cooperation. "It's the anniversary celebration of a divorced couple," quips a senior West Berlin planner. Still, the physical barrier has failed to trample the yearning for unity on both sides. When West Germany scored its second goal in the World Cup soccer finals last June, a volley of flares and rockets lit the East Berlin sky. The gesture was more than an isolated celebration: it was a fraternal salute across the Wall from unseen friends.

With reporting by John Kohan/East Berlin and William McWhirter/West Berlin