Ich bin ein Berliner

(from June 2019)

This is being written at Tegel airport. When Berlin was divided into four sections by the allies at the Potsdam conference, they all needed their own airport. Tegel was originally the French one. We are here with time on our hands because we didn’t want to take any chances with the Berlin transport system getting there in time. This was daft really, because the Berlin transport system has been excellent all round. Four means of public transport (overhead railroads, buses and trams at ground level, and then the Tube/Underground/Metro/Subway – take your pick – all integrated, clean and on time.

We have been in Berlin for a religious convention and also as traditional tourists. I could write lots on the history of Berlin and also the history of the group who in the past were generally known as Ernste Bibelforscher, or Earnest Bible Students. The group fell foul of German militarists in World War 1, then Adolf Hitler and finally the GDR (the communist government in East Germany). However, these subjects have been covered extensively elsewhere, and far better than I could.

So this is a tourist snapshot of impressions. Of course, as tourists, we visited historic sites including ancient churches, remnants of the Berlin wall, and the Brandenburg Gate. Napoleon and his troops marked through it, Hitler and his troops marched through it, and in 2019 the Occasionals stumbled through it. That doesn’t have quite the same ring about it but it is one for the family photo album.

We stayed in the former eastern part of the city. The main memory of those times was the line of the Berlin Wall (1961-1989) with small sections still preserved, and also the trams and blocks of flats still overdue for demolition in the former eastern sector. Under the GDR most people had a flat and a job of sorts. When the wall disappeared and Germany reunited many from the eastern sector had difficulty adjusting to the cut and thrust of the capitalist system. West Germans paid an extra tax to help the East after reunification.

So some highlights? One was talking to someone who used to smuggle religious literature into the east for a banned group, who was betrayed and arrested. Years later after the fall of the communist sector he was able to look at his Stasi file (old secret police) and see who betrayed him – actually a friendly West German policeman who was a paid informant for the East.

The most moving experience was visiting Sachsenhausen concentration camp – around 900 Bible Students passed through its gates and many died there. The first conscientious objector to be executed in Nazi Germany in 1939, August Dickman, died there and you could see both a memorial stone and several information boards with his story and that of others of his faith. On the day we visited there were 20 coachloads of visitors. They arrived at different times but all 800 left together singing the song/hymn Forward You Witnesses, which had been written by Erich Frost, while an inmate in Sachsenhausen.

On the history front we travelled a couple of hours to visit Magdeburg. The Bible Students had their European headquarters there from the early 1920s, but the Nazis confiscated the property when they banned the group in 1933. The Jehovah’s Witnesses as they became known finally got it back in 1945, but then in 1950 the East German communists took it off them again.The group remained banned until the Berlin wall came down. Much of the property is rented out but we had a social event in part of it. We were all taught by rote a presentation to use on the bemused citizens of Magdeburg inviting them to the convention. There was much hilarity, but fortunately the locals’ English was a lot better than my German.

The most surreal experience of the trip was on rhe first day. Travelling in an East Berlin hotel elevator, a woman got it, looked at me and said “I know you…” It turned out she had heard me ‘sing’ at a gig back in Southern England.  There are background reasons why we were both there at same time, but it was still one of those weird coincidences in life. The words of Rick from Casablanca came wafting back: “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine. Play it, Sam…”

So some overall impressions? The Germans seem really keen on recyling. I remember the howls of protest in parts of the UK (although not in Wales) when they started charging for plastic bags – it was Plasticbagageddon! But in Berlin, the bags we were given were paper and the disposable plates were either paper or very thin wood. Plastic water bottles are still in abundance, but they all carry a refundable charge of 25 cents. In the supermarkets there are special machines that accept the bottles, count them, and then spit out a coupon with a credit toward your next shopping experience. If you just leave them around or put them in the trash then the homeless will quickly retrieve them to get the money back. Everyone benefits and maybe there is a little less plastic in the sea as a result.

So we went to a convention with 38,000 in the Olympic Stadium, on the site where Jesse Owens infuriated the Nazis by winning so much in 1936. You can read about this elsewhere if you have a mind to. And we spent nearly two weeks in Berlin. A very clean city (in comparison with other places I won’t mention) with huge squares, wide roads, numerous parks and green spaces, and numerous waterways. We were very impressed and one day would like to go back and fill in more of the gaps.

Coda

On the airplane home the cabin crew as usual used a series of pre-recorded messages to tell us to fasten seatbelts, follow safety instructions and be prepared for the merchandising trolley that would soon block the aistle for anyone desperate to reach the rest room. Someone pressed the wrong button and mellifluous tones informed us that we could now disembark from the front and rear exits.

We were flying at 35,000 feet at the time…

I have never been on a plane full of strangers before who symultaneously all burst into nervous laughter.