Army Brat, Berlin, August 1961

Growing up as an Army brat was a unique experience, moving around the United States and the world, staying often for only six months at a time before moving on again.

The first 20 years of my life I moved on the average of once every 11 months, and that includes a two year stay in Rolla, Missouri while my Dad attended the Missouri School of Mines , a stay in Hanau, Germany for two years, busing to school in Frankfurt my last two years of highschool and three years in Berlin, Germany.

There were a lot of six month "stops", Monterey, California; Long Beach, California; Austin, Texas; Mineral Wells, Texas; Alexandria, Virginia; Montgomery, Alabama; just to mention a few.

From 1959 to 1961 my Dad was assigned to Berlin, Germany during my 9th to 11th birthdays.

Dad was in Army intelligence during our stay in Berlin and while I didn't really understand what that meant exactly, sometimes he would be gone for several days and come home looking like a German, in German clothes and carrying a briefcase with his lunch in it like many Germans.

It was only years later I learned he was a "spook", who would go into East Berlin and make contact with individuals that were interested in fleeing East Germany. These were educators, scientists, mathematicians, the brains of East Germany.

At the time there was a serious brain drain on East Germany as the top educated were fleeing East Germany by going to East Berlin and walking across the streets into West Berlin, where they were then taken to the Templehof Airport and flown into West Germany, escaping the communist rule of East Germany.

It was through Berlin that East Germany was bleeding out their best educated and brightest minds of their society.

Since the end of WWII, Berlin had been split into four sectors. Half of Berlin was under control of East Germany. The other half was split three ways, between the British, French and American sectors.

Since the end of WWII there had always been a barrier between East and West Germany and there was a barrier around West Berlin, separating it from East Germany, but there remained free travel from East Berlin to West Berlin.

It was a serious problem for East Germany and for Russia, educated doctors, scientists, scholars were traveling to Berlin, walking across the street into West Berlin and then being flown out of Berlin to West Germany where they were free from communism.

By August 1961, the problem had reached a to new high numbers.

A thousand people a day during the week and over two thousand a day on the weekends, were walking out of East Berlin into West Berlin and fleeing East Germany communism.

There were rumors that East Germany was going to do something, but no one knew exactly what, and those rumors spurred even more people to start fleeing to the West.

On August 13th, 1961, everything changed. Suddenly. Drastically.

THE TELEPHONE AT NIGHT

There were some nights when the telephone would ring in the middle of the night and Dad would get up and go to work. That wasn't that uncommon.

But on August 16th, 1961, when the phone rang, this was different. Dad was dressed in full combat uniform with his helmet and his gun strapped to his side wearing his helmet, instead of the usual slacks and shirt or sometimes a suit.

I also noticed a lot of lights going on in the four story building across from us, and other fathers leaving for work. That was very unusual. It was about 2:30 a.m. by the clock.

What I didn't know until morning was that East Berlin Vopos (peoples police) and military, had started stretching barbed wire across the middle of Berlin, putting concrete barriers in the streets to block traffic and armed Vopos preventing anyone from leaving East Berlin.

Many Germans had family in both East and West Berlin and they were now separated. Many East Germans worked in West Berlin and now had been cut off from their work. Parents living in East Berlin were separated from their children living and working in West Berlin.

When the buses took us to school the next morning, instead of leaving as they usually do, back to the motor pool, they stayed in the parking lot, in anticipation that they might have to whisk all the kids to the airport in a moments notice to evacuate American families from West Berlin.

We had a "fire drill" where we all left our classes and got on our buses as fast as we could. Then returned to class.

When we got home there were Army buses parked in the parking lots of each building prepared to whisk families to the airport at a moments notice. Each family was allowed only one suitcase and the suitcases was already on the bus so that if we had to evacuate, we simply ran to the bus in the clothes we were wearing.

During the coming week, the East Germans began erecting barriers down the middle of some streets, separating East and West Berlin. Buildings in East Berlin were cleared of all residents and workers began bricking up windows and door, turning the buildings into walls.

The barbed wire was also being replaced by brick walls, as desperate East Berliners still tried to flee, driving through the barbed wire or trying to jump over it.

In one famous photo an East German Vopo in uniform, that is supposed to be guarding to prevent escapes, takes a running leap over the barbed wire coil and escapes himself.

People were jumping out of third story windows of their East Berlin building as the window in the apartment next door was being bricked up by workers.

THE ADVENTURE

I had this German friend, Peter, and he was concerned that Americans were going to leave Berlin and that war was going to break out. We talked about events in the news and what was happening.

He bought me a pair of German Lederhosen as a gift and I returned that with buying him a pair of Americn bluejeans at the PX.

Things were going along for a couple of weeks this way, a lot of tension and not knowing what was going to happen.

Then the East Germans closed off Check Point Charlie which was the only way out of West Berlin by road.

Check Point Charlie was in the American sector. So the US Army rolled tanks up to Check Point Charlie in a line. The East Germans did the same on the other side in East Berlin, and the tanks stood essentially gun barrel to gun barrel as the US forced a car to go through the check point into East Berlin and then back again with a jeep escort.

The buses were back in the parking lot at our buildings and one suitcase for family loaded onto the buses.

The school buses stayed in the parking lot at school.

It was on a Saturday and Peter came over and we were walking and talking.

"Let's go to Check Point Charlie." said Peter

"How are we going to get there?" I asked.

"We will take the U-Bahn (subway train)" said Peter.

"I can't take the U-Bahn. My parents told me I'm not allowed, because it goes into East Berlin" I said.

"I know when to get off the train" said Peter, "and no one will even know we went."

Back and forth we went for a while and finally I conceded to go, but pointed out I had no money for the fare.

"I have enough to get us there and back and some more for snacks." said Peter.

So off to the U-Bahn station we went on our adventure to Check Point Charlie, Peter in his new American blue jeans and me in German lederhosen.

While riding the U-Bahn two men got on the train and sat in front of us. They were American and talking about Check Point Charlie. From the conversation I learned that they were going to see where to set up cameras for a news broadcast later in the day.

Peter and I struck up a conversation with them.

"You speak excellent English" said the one man, amazed that I could carry on a conversation in English, thinking I was German because of the lederhosen.

I told Peter in German "Schiessen diene mund." (shut your mouth) about me being American.

Peter asked in German "See if we can go with them at Check Point Charlie."

So I asked "Can we go with you when we get to Check Point Charlie?"

The two of them talked to each other about that for a bit then the one said "If you stick right beside us and no one asks, sure."

So when we got off the U-Bahn we stayed right beside them as they pushed their way through the crowd at the corner, a block away from Check Point Charlie.

We stayed right beside them when they went under the police rope holding the crowd back and right beside them when to German police officers came up to them and they showed them their press credentials.

The German police allowed them to pass and we stayed right beside them walking down the street to Check Point Charlie, walking along beside the line of tanks.

We got to Check Point Charlie and were looking across at the East German tanks on the other side and talking to an American soldier on one of the tanks and suddenly the two newsmen were half way back up the block.

The German police captain saw them...saw us...and yelled..."Machen der kinder, raus" (Get the kids out of here.)

Two German police grabbed us by our collars and marched us back down the street to the corner and pushed us back under the ropes.

Peter and I were thrilled. We got to see Check Point Charlie like no one else in Berlin. We congratulated each other all the rest of Saturday and all of Sunday. We got away with it and no one would know.

BUSTED

On Monday I came home from school and my Dad was home at 3:30. That should have been a clue to me that something was up because he's never home until 5:30. But I was only 11.

"I thought I told you not to take the U-Bahn" Dad said very sternly in that voice that you knew he meant business.

"I...I...I didn't ride the U-Bahn" I stammered.

"How did you get to Check P0int Charlie" he said surprising me.

"Ah ...I ...I didn't go to Check Point Charlie" I stammered again. Admitting that would be admitting I took the U-Bahn.

Dad pulled an 8x10 glossy photo out of his brief case and showed it to me. There stood Peter and I, looking up at a tank by the Check Point Charlie booth.

Busted in a lie. Not one lie, but two lies. And grounded.

"This photo was being circulated around the office and everyone wanted to know how two kids managed to get past the barriers, German Police and Army Military Police to Check Point Charlie" said Dad.

"That is going to take three days of paperwork to explain and maybe get me in trouble" said Dad.

Peter was shocked that my Dad had found out and shocked that there was a photo of us at Check Point Charlie. We both had a better understanding about what Army intelligence was about.

YEARS LATER

A couple of decades later I got to thinking about that photograph and was wondering how I could get a copy of it.

I asked my Dad, "Do you think I could get a copy of that photo of Peter and me at Checkpoint Charlie through the Freedom of Information Act request?"

"What picture?" asked my Dad with a straight poker face.

"The picture of me and Peter when we took the U-Bahn to Check Point Charlie" I said.

"Never happened." said Dad, firmly.

Apparently that photo "disappeared" rather than three days of paperwork.