More people remember the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 than remember its construction in August 1961, fifty years ago. Maybe I am the exception because I was preparing to begin the study of theology in Germany the following month. Many were predicting that the Wall meant war. In the event it didn’t. In fact it probably averted war. For the Communists of East Berlin it blocked the escape of their citizens into free West Berlin, and the Western Powers were not prepared to challenge it.
The brutal severing of neighbourhoods and families and the shooting dead of many who dared to attempt to escape survived for nearly thirty years. Although I never visited Berlin nor saw the actual wall, I learned from the lives of some people I came to know the pain that Wall caused. Hans-Josef had grown up in a small country village in the east of Germany and as a boy had known the tyranny of both the Nazi and the Communist regimes. Sunday morning was always a difficult time for him as he was routinely beaten. He was confronted with a dilemma: he was obliged to attend the Hitler Youth at eight o’clock but Mass in the parish church was at the same time. He went first to Mass and afterwards attended the youth meetings where he had to submit to humiliating beatings from Nazi leaders of his own age. Later when the Communist Pioneer Youth replaced the Hitler Youth the routine beatings continued.
He was a bright boy and later studied biology in the East Berlin University but he baulked at taking an oath of allegiance to the Communist State and he defected to the West before graduating. He feared reprisals against his family and after he was ordained in 1964 he travelled home but still in fear. Long-time friends were sent to berate him for ‘betraying the people’ but once they had ‘done their duty’ they eagerly questioned him about life in the free world and stayed for his First Mass in his native village.
This hunger for freedom was apparent for me another time on the border that ran through an open field with a watch-tower looming in the background. Two young Vopos, East German Guards, armed with machine guns watched us curiously but were eager to question my friend about his native Colombia. Their hunger for information was palpable. They offered cigarettes. A packet was thrown to us but landed in no man’s land. My friend stepped confidently onto that forbidden land and recovered the cigarettes. They eyed each other suspiciously. If either moved to defect, the other could open fire.