CHAPTER 5 to Westerners, East Berlin Was a Place Where Political Thrillers Were Set, but Where Most People Did Not Travel. East
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
CHAPTER 5 EAST BERLIN DURING THE GDR TIMES To Westerners, East Berlin was a place where political thrillers were set, but where most people did not travel. East Berlin was terra incognita. The GDR government certainly did not make it easy for Westerners to enter, setting visa regulations and set exchange fees, and other restrictions at the border crossing that bordered on harassment. East Germany lived up to its image as a controlled totalitarian society that made life hard for everybody. However, for those who dared to enter the East, there was a fascinating country engaged in a socialist experiment. Unfortunately, this system had locked itself in a permanent state of resistance to no change. Tourist trips to East Germany were impossible, but day trips to East Berlin were allowed and often quite common, including vacations to West Berlin. A visit to East Berlin was permitted for one day on a tourist visa as long as you were back by midnight. Although there were several crossing points for cars, bureaucratic regulations made it difficult to get permission to enter by car. Therefore, most Westerners took the train to Friedrichstraße station where papers were checked in a building called the “Tear Palace” (Tränenpalast), because so many heart-breaking goodbyes took place there. Once inside the checkpoint, visitors had to pay a transit fee and exchange a set amount of money before they were ready to go (#13 on map). On exiting Friedrichstraße station visitors could turn left and go north on Friedrichstraße, which would eventually turn into Chausseestraße. Here they would find many of East Berlin’s famous theaters, among them Brecht’s Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, where the Berliner Ensemble premiered his famous plays (8). Brecht, Germany’s best-known twentieth century playwright, had lived in Los Angeles during WWII, but returned to East Berlin in 1947, because he was to be questioned by the McCarthy committee for being a communist. Watching a Brecht play at the Berliner Ensemble was on the must-do list for most visitors and often the only reason to enter the East. Brecht’s museum and burial place on Dorotheenstädter Friedhof were also on Friedrichstraße’s northern extension, Chausseestraße (10, 11) and often included on a visitor’s tour. Another very popular evening entertainment place on northern Friedrichstraße was the Friedrichstadtpalast with its lineup of showgirls (12). However, for a day-visit most tourists would first turn right on Friedrichstraße when leaving the station, and then walk south. At the intersection with Unter den Linden they would turn right and take in the sights of neo-classical Berlin. It was an exciting experience to stand on the eastern side of the Brandenburg Gate looking west towards the wall, this being the closest anyone could get to the wall from the eastern side (1). Close to Brandenburg Gate sat the imposing embassy of the Soviet Union (16). Walking back on Unter den Linden tourists would marvel at the many reconstructed neo- classical buildings, among them the Hedwig’s Cathedral at the Bebelplatz (27), Humboldt University (33), the Staatsbibliothek (32), the Opera House (35), and finally the Museum Island with its most important tourist attraction, the Pergamon Museum (46), that housed antique temples. The change of the guard, Soviet style (36) at the guardhouse (Neue Wache), which had become a GDR memorial to the victims of fascism normally attracted the largest crowd on Unter den Linden. The Palace of the Republic (31) and the GDR State Council building (“Staatsratsgebäude”, 30) were two sights not to be missed since they were also flanked by guard soldiers, and both buildings carried the ominous GDR state seal on their front. In order to establish its claim to represent a new Germany, the GDR leadership had decided to destroy the Prussian Royal palace and to replace it with the new Palace of the Republic in 1951. The palace square (Schlossplatz) in front of it was then renamed Marx-Engels-Platz. Further east Unter den Linden changed its name to Karl-Liebknecht-Straße after the assassinated communist leader. Although Karl-Liebknecht-Straße went right through the center of what used to be medieval Berlin, most of it was destroyed in WWII and the entire medieval center was turned into a gigantic park, the Marx-Engels Forum dominated by a big Marx and Engels statue (66). The park resembles the Washington Mall in its dimension and was flanked by the Palace of the Republic to the west (with the Spree River in between), Berlin’s city council house (Rathaus) to the south and the Alexanderplatz station to the east. The highlight of the Marx-Engels Forum was the huge TV tower (61), which can still be seen from any place in Berlin, a landmark for this flat city built on the sands of Brandenburg province. In the evening the copper-colored windows of the sightseeing deck reflect the sun in the form of a giant cross. Although the communists tried to eliminate this effect by recoating the glass, the cross can still be seen today. Next to the TV tower stands one of Berlin’s oldest churches, the Marienkirche built in 1292, the only building in the Marx-Engels-Forum. Its position at an awkward angle in relation to the otherwise rectangular forum shows it as the only remaining part of the medieval center. Alexanderplatz, next to the TV tower (57) was completely redesigned after WWII. In an effort to present itself as a new and different country the East German government chose East Berlin’s prominent architect, Hermann Henselmann to design the TV tower and the Palace of the Republic. Henselmann’s original concept for Berlins central district (Mitte) had called for a combined central structure of palace and TV tower as the center for East Germany’s parliament, merging socialism with technology. However, eventually TV tower and parliament building were separated. The new Alexanderplatz was radically different from the old - it was a gigantic pedestrian-only square with several modernist buildings surrounding it, Haus des Lehrers (58), Haus des Tourismus (57), and the Interhotel Berlin with the Centrum department store (60). A similar square went up a few blocks away at the Lenin-Platz with a gigantic Lenin monument whose removal became the key symbol in Wolfgang Becker’s 2003 movie Good Bye Lenin (84). Henselmann also designed the layout of the center of East Berlin’s Stalin-Allee, now called Karl- Marx-Allee (83). This stretch of road, previously known as Frankfurter Allee, was chosen as the main Communist boulevard because the victorious Soviet troops had entered Berlin here in April 1945. Stalin-Allee, built between 1952 and 1960, was lined by luxurious apartments for privileged workers, shops, restaurants, cafés, a hotel and a first-run movie theater, the Kino International. The older part of the almost 2 km long boulevard is lined with monumental eight- floor buildings in the Soviet style emulating classical architecture, a return to Schinkel’s neo- classicism. At each end Karl-Marx-Allee features dual towers, at Frankfurter Tor and at Strausberger Platz (86). Because of its prominent place in East German history, Stalin-Allee became the focus of an uprising of the construction workers on June 17, 1953. Stalin-Allee was used for East Germany's annual Soviet style May Day parade, with goose-stepping soldiers and tanks and military hardware rolling alongside. The role of literature in a communist country differed dramatically from that in the west. Since the communists were interested in educating the working class they gave financial support to various forms of culture such as inexpensive classical literature, theater tickets and museums. Writers were trained to explore the social and political issues the communists were involved in. The disadvantage of state support for the arts was that criticism was persecuted and subsequently critical writers excluded from official forms of subsidy. As a result of this and due to the proximity of West Berlin, a vast underground literature circulated in East Berlin. In order to follow criticism in the absence of any political opposition, “reading between the lines” became an obsessive sport for any serious reader in the East, and therefore literature was greedily consumed for important information as a form of survival in a one-party state. After Soviet forces occupied Berlin in April 1945, they went on quickly reestablishing culture in the war-torn city. Radio, newspapers, theater performances, museums and libraries were quickly reopened. War-weary Berliners accepted the Russian offerings eagerly as they provided much-needed distractions from the hardships of life. Food was scarce, normal activities were disrupted, and housing end employment were lacking. When in August 1945, the Western sectors of Berlin were occupied by the United States, Britain and France as agreed in the Potsdam Treaty, the Americans continued the cultural activities begun by the Russians. Subsequently the years 1945-48 saw an intense cultural competition between East and West Berlin. Literature written in Berlin during those five years was uncensored and politically neutral in all four sectors, as the Communist system was competing with the West in winning over as many Berliners as possible. Because many intellectuals had been left-leaning and were now returning to East Berlin from various countries they had emigrated to, initially, Russian cultural politics was highly respected at first. The most prominent of them was Bertolt Brecht who returned from the United States. After the GDR was founded in 1949, the East German Communists founded an office for furthering cultural politics (Kulturpolitik) as a copy of Soviet practices. This office would eventually supervise and censor all East Berlin authors through its writers association (Schriftstellerverband).