Undivided: Encounters with America

Transcript: Episodes by Ambassador Richard C. Barkley
Berlin, March 20, 2009

1. Arrival in the GDR

I remember actually almost exactly twenty years ago when I first arrived. It was March 1989. My wife, Nina, and I were walking in the garden. I looked over and said, "You know this is probably the most boring country I've ever been in." Well, now the problem was, of course, we didn't foresee all of the things that were coming. In fact, they hadn't yet started to come. It still looked like Honecker was very much in control. I had called on almost all the members of the Politbüro. When I was out in the countryside, I didn't see [the changes], although I did start to get an ear full from academics and others about the lack of glasnost and openness, and the restrictions on this and that. They didn't talk so much about perestroika because they thought they had already gone through a sort of "Erneuerung" in the course of the past year, so they didn't need to do that. Perestroika was very big in certain quarters, but you never got it when you talked to the officials, you know, the old line communists. Many of them came out of the Soviet Union or had been there during the war, etc. Of course, I read "Neues Deutschland" -- what had to be the dullest newspaper on the face of the globe.

Things really started moving, actually, two months later when the Austrians and the Hungarians opened their borders. That's when things began to unravel. In the summer, other things happened. When Honecker was ill and disappeared from the scene, they seemed to be rudderless for a while. I do recall one interesting thing I did, although it had nothing to do actually with the events. When I came to the GDR, like every Ambassador, I would have liked to have seen some progress in our bilateral relationship. There was no interest at all in Washington. There were initial steps to try and eliminate some of the problems with Jewish reparations and other things. They wanted "most favoured nation" treatment and things like that. Anyway, there were limited possibilities.

After I arrived -- it was coming towards the holiday season -- I did something that we had done in other countries. I went over to the PX and got a number of Butterball turkeys. I sent one to Honecker and one to Fischer [inaudible]. I didn't hear a thing in return. On New Year's Day, they traditionally had a reception for the diplomatic corps. I went to the reception and was sitting there. All of a sudden, the chief of protocol came over and said that Mr. Honecker would like to see me. I went over and, of course, you know, this was a very small group. America's relations with East Germany were probably as bad as any nation represented there. As I walked over to talk to Honecker, all eyes were on us. He said to me, "You know I never properly thanked you for the turkey you sent for the holidays. I just want to tell you that it is probably the most delicious thing I have ever eaten." I don't know what possessed me but I said, "you know, Herr Honecker, those turkeys are the Marilyn Monroe of turkeys. They are all breasts and they are beautiful." He broke into laughter. The whole area was very, very silent. And then, he added something that I thought was really quite enlightening. He said, "You know, the problem I had was, the bird was too big for the oven in my residence. I had to send it down to that restaurant on Gendarmenmarkt (I don't know what the name of that restaurant was anymore, but I think it was the biggest one in Berlin) to have it cooked. But it was worth it!" Now, for some reason that little incident is still very much in my mind. I don't think I'd ever seen Honecker laugh before. He wasn't an outrageously unpleasant man, but he was a character that time. That incident is one that stuck in my mind.

2. Dresden, October 1989

On October 1, my wife and I and my sister and her little, little baby were in Dresden. We were on our way to Prague to spend the weekend with Shirley Temple-Black [the Ambassador there]. It was my habit to always take a long walk in the evening. So we had dinner and I took a long walk and crossed the bridge over the Elbe. It was a Sunday and there were a lot of people out.

It turned out this was exactly the same day that the train with the people who had sought asylum in the West German Embassy in Prague were brought through. They came right through Dresden. The presumption was that a lot of people were curious to see this whole event take place. They were downtown in that area. There were lots of people out on the bridge. On the far side of the river, there was a road and along that road came maybe 40 trucks loaded with Volkspolizisten. It was quite clear. They drove up into the area at the Semperoper and set up a base of operations, obviously fearful that there might be some disturbances - perhaps because there were so many people on the street, or for whatever reason. I don't pretend to know what was in their minds but I watched it happen.

I recall there was a young man, walking along with his wife. He looked down and he said, "God, that looks ugly." That's what he said, "It looks ugly." There was a certain crackle in the air. I had been in South Africa just before. I knew when demonstrations and people on the street were unhappy somehow. There is a crackle in the air -- and it was there. I went back and told my family that we are going back to Berlin - immediately. And we did, but that incident struck me rather poignantly.

This happened right before the 40th anniversary [of the GDR], which was a very, very big affair for the government at that time. The next day the traditional groups that had been meeting in the churches - they called it the Montagsandacht - were larger in number. I don't know whether they were emboldened by what was going on or saw that maybe the police had not come down on them hard. I am not exactly sure what it was, but it happened. A week later, the numbers increased dramatically -- I think both in Dresden and Leipzig. I wasn't in those areas at that time but the Embassy had people out and they were reporting fully.

On that same night in October, there were many, many more people out in East Berlin. You could see them, little groups on the corners. They were very tentative, obviously afraid. They didn‘t know what was going on. I remember for example coming home from the gala final evening at the Palast der Republik where of course they were celebrating with the diplomatic corps and all the high rollers. The leaders from different countries in Eastern Europe were assembled. Of course Honecker was the host. Gorbechev was there; and Ceaucsescu, Jaruselski, all of them. They are all gone now. The only one that is still around is Daniel Ortega. All the rest of them, including Yasser Arafat, are gone.

3. Gorbachev Look-Alike

As we came out that evening, we had to walk to our cars. I was walking with the Finnish Ambassador. My wife and I, and he and his wife, walked through a group of people. The East Germans were particularly good at organizing things and they had large numbers of people out. I have a very high forehead and when I walked by, some of them must have thought I was Gorbachev. I am not exactly sure about this but when we walked by, they broke into cheers. I looked at Urho, [inaudible], the Finnish Ambassador, and he said, "Oh, they think you are Gorbachev." I am not quite sure of that but nonetheless it showed that, even among the well-organized phalanxes of the party, there was a lot of popularity towards Gorbachev's policies, in the hope that they would probably be visited on them too some day. That was interesting.

4. Baptism

Then I have one other case I think I'll never forget. I decided to have my daughter, who was born in West-Berlin, baptized in East Berlin. So we got in touch with the pastor at the Pankower Dorfkirche, a fellow by the name of Werner Katschell, one of those remarkable fellows whose family I think have been pastors at this little church one time or another for the past 600 years. We invited a number of people, from East and West, to this baptism. This was by the way on the 15th of October, right before the collapse of the Honecker government. Nonetheless things were in the air. Katschell's son had gone out to West Germany via Hungary and Austria. He gave a very political lecture about having to look across the wall to see his son, who had left, and the hope that the Wall would collapse. It was time, he said, and all of these things. It was really a remarkable event. The occasion of my daughter's baptism became a sort of political statement from the church that I thought was quite remarkable. Of course the fact that there were some officials from the apparatus there and that he had the courage at the time to do this must have been rather telling. I don't know if they'd ever done it before or not. Those are some of the things I remember.