Undivided: Encounters with America
Transcript: Dialogue - John Koenig and Peter Claussen on the Fall of the Berlin Wall with Berlin Talent Campus students
Berlin, February 10, 2009
JK: Important to be aware of the sensitivities connected with the issue still existing among Germans, for example:
The term "Wende" may not be appropriate, as it was used by Egon Krenz to trivialize what happened in order to keep the communist part alive (Matthias Platzeck).
Concentrate on the positive things associated with the U.S.: music, popular culture.
PC: Pink Floyd concert. 5000-6000 people listening to the concert on the eastern side of the Wall in Berlin
JK: Cowboy/Western & Indian movies and Karl May stories were very popular in the GDR as they demonstrated the sentiment of freedom. Many Indian clubs existed in the GDR and continue to exist now. The peaceful fall of the Wall was an unprecedented and unique event.
JK: We did not expect or foresee the Wall to fall. Reagan's speech did not play a role in the GDR. Gorbachev's bad relationship with Erich Honecker and the peace movement anchored in the church were more significant.
PC: Honecker's meeting in Bonn in 1987 and his wish to have a similar meeting in Washington eased the pressures. It was possible to create the Fulbright program and attend the Leipzig book fair, where is was possible to carefully get in touch with people.
JK: It would be important to talk to people to find out what they did and how they experience the week leading up to November 10, 1989. Not everybody left the GDR immediately. People had stakes in their lives in the GDR and there exist misleading feelings in the west and also in the U.S. of what life was like in the GDR. For the most part lives were satisfactory in the GDR.
PC: It's important to recognize the social nuances. People learned to trust each other based on social networks (example from the film "Das Leben der Anderen.")
JK: Describes how he joined the Foreign Service.
PC: Decribes how he joined the Foreign Service. Fall of the Wall was a high watermark in my life. It showed me that nothing lasts forever and things go away.
JK (0:25 min): On travel - no sound. The world was shrinking around GDR citizens. Travel restrictions were source of greatest frustration.
PC: Life for a western diplomat was unique in Berlin. We worked in East Berlin and partied in West Berlin.
JK: West Berlin was a lot livelier in West Berlin in these days. The East seemed pedestrian. TV was essential and the GDR government recognized this and brought to the Dresden region (Tal der Ahnungslosen) by cable because people left.
PC: Drab colors of vegetables in East Berlin Kaufhaus compared to colorful vegetables displayed 100 meters down the street in Kreuzberg on the Turkish market made a striking difference.
JK: Friendships were possible. People who worked in culture had lots of freedom, were allowed to travel, could have contact with foreigners, earned hard currency.
PC: Made some friends with people active in the arts and the church (dissidents). I noticed that conversations change in tone when I tell people that I lived in the GDR. It gets more relaxed ("hey, I grew up in that neighborhood.")
JK: Stasi always watched us but East Berlin was not heavy handed. They used to go into our apartments & move things about. A colleague who was in charge of relations with the church and had two daughters was more troubled. They would go into his house and blindfold his daughter's dolls. They made people uncomfortable. If you were close to the border the Stasi was right on top of you and followed you openly. West Berlin was saturated by Stasi. They followed us when we went to West Berlin. Example: Frank Meehan story. Subtle messages to control people.
PC: Things changed a little later but we always assumed that we were being followed and watched. I had a chance to look at my Stasi file later (500 pages). Lots of little incidents were recorded but the interpretation was all wrong and they did not get the storyline right. Example: Party story in Erfurt.
JK: In the shop you bought things right away because you would never see them again. Workers creating a social society was the myth. Buchenwald memorial story was that of workers vs. dictators. No reference to Jews, just communism & ideology and you could believe it if that was all you ever heard.
PC: People lived in the past (post WWI). There was no motion forward.
JK: Architecture. Building of Hertie school of governance is a good example. East Germans feels a loss of their monuments. Palast der Republik should have been maintained.
PC: Fall of the Wall unleashed lots of dreams of personal futures. Expectations died later. Dissidents did not come away as winners. Great TV after the Fall of the Wall because rules & restrictions did not apply anymore.
PC: GDR regime had a hard time dealing with photography. Example of a sanctioned photo exhibition showing portrait pictures of people in the morgue (dead GDR citizens all smiling).
JK: Different learning levels existed.
PC: Cultural dialectic (Prussia vs. Saxony).
JK: In business, managers were from the West initially. Young women leave because they are more socially mobile. They leave young men behind who turn to right-wing extremist groups.
JK: On GDR institutions - daycare was important as social equality between men & women was fostered in the GDR. This is one of the things about the East that was progressive.
PC: Theatre students were powerfully trained performers and very good. You don't ask people whether they are from the East or West.
JK: I admire East Germans who stand up for something in GDR society, like the one-tier school system (as opposed to the three-tier system in the West). It shows that it was a relevant experience and demonstrates that people believe what they lived through, and that they don't just have to believe what came about after 1989.
PC: USIS had lots of money when it was perceived as a Cold War fighting machine. A steady stream of cultural figures came through Berlin.
JK: Access to information was important and the embassy library provided that (PC: CSCE accord) West German TV image of the U.S. prevailed in the GDR.