Berlin Brats Alumni Association Newsletter 1 Berlin Brats Alumni Association Newsletter April 2018 Volume 14, Issue 2 Why purple? DoDEA “Purple Up! For Military Kids” event; “purple” in this case indicates that all branches of the military are supported; Air Force blue, Army green, Navy blue, Marine red, and Coast Guard blue all thought to combine together as a single color, purple. April is designated as the Month of the Military Child; a time to honor the sacrifices made by military families worldwide, with an emphasis on the experi- ence of the dependent children of military members serving at home and overseas. A 2015 military demographics report listed on Defense.gov counted nearly two million “total-force Berlin welcomes spring dependent children,” including more than 900,000 Army dependents, 400,000 Air Force dependents, nearly 300,000 Navy, and approximately 118,000 Marine dependents. According to a report by the Department of Defense, there are 700 military child development program facilities around the world, running approx- imately 155,000 child-care spaces, with another 3,000 family child care homes which provide in-home care. It’s estimated that military child development cen- ters welcome around 200,000 children daily. There are 300 youth and teen centers worldwide serving more than 645,000 youth through a variety of educa- tional and recreational programs. “Military brat” is not a negative, but rather connotes affection and respect. Children/teens of active-duty military personnel have a life- style of high mobility, as they follow their soldier-parent great distances to non-combat assignments during most of, or at least a significant portion, of their growing up years. It can cause a complex ‘mixed’ cultural identity, due to the resulting exposure to numerous national or regional cultures while growing up. 2 Berlin Brats Alumni Association Newsletter Berlin Brats Alumni Association Newsletter 3 5 February 2018 The Berlin Wall has now been down as long as it was up: 10,316 days by Briggs Burton the insidious West. Let them come to Berlin. at Dissident “The Wall will still be standing in 50 and even in 100 There are some who say that communism is the wave “Nobody has the intention years,” croaked the SED’s near-octogenarian First Sec- of the future. of building a wall,” said retary Erich Honecker in January 1989, “if the reasons Let them come to Berlin. Walter Ulbricht in June of for it have not been removed by then.” And there are some who say, in Europe and elsewhere, 1961. Perhaps no speech better captured the visceral sym- we can work with the communists. Ulbricht was the Gener- bolic power of the Wall than the one made by President Let them come to Berlin. al Secretary of the Socialist John F. Kennedy on June 26th, 1963, before an audi- And there are even a few who say that it is true that Unity Party (SED) of Ger- ence of 450,000 Berliners: communism is an evil system, but it permits us to make many—the hardline Stalin- “There are many people in the world who really don’t economic progress. ist movement that ran understand, or say they don’t, what is the great issue Lass’ sie nach Berlin kommen—Let them come to communist East Germany. between the free world and the communist world. Berlin!” By 1961, Ulbricht faced a dire problem: young people It has now been 10,316 days since the Wall fell. were desperately fleeing The anniversary was marked with a full front page picture in the Berliner Zeitung newspaper. the already-ossified East In an editorial, the paper said: Germany for the free and “These days are special days and this edition of the Berlin Zeitung is also special.” democratic West Germany. barracks loomed over it. Anti-vehicle trenches were People have been responding to the anniversary with their memories of the Wall, and what it represented: Ironically enough, West Germany had a tiny enclave carved out next to guard dog pens. Blinding search- Tony inside the heartland of the totalitarian East which these lights would knife through the stillness of the Berlin In the early ‘80s I lived in a flat overlooking the Wall. We enterprising youths could enter: West Berlin. night. Along the entire Wall ran a belt of cleared, flat could see the East German guards from our window and The attraction was irresistible. Three and a half ground in which border guards would have easy shots frequently waved at them. Some waved back, others pointed million people—20 percent of East Germany’s popu- at fleeing defectors—this was called the “death strip.” their guns at us. lation—fled to the West, especially educated profes- More than 140 people were killed crossing the Scots sionals, creating a serious brain drain. The SED dicta- Berlin Wall. The first casualty, Ida Siekmann, died of Me too, Tony, only waving without the gun-pointing. We lived torship called it Republikflucht—“desertion from the internal injuries after leaping from a window over the in Lindendstrasse in Kreuzberg, now part of Axel Springer republic.” And it had to be stopped. wall. Ingo Krüger drowned in the Spree River while Strasse. Went back for 1st time 2 years ago and the building And so, two months after Walter Ulbricht an- attempting to scuba dive his way to freedom. Winfried we lived in is still there. Ours was a kind of squat/disused nounced that no one had any intention of building a Freudenberg died after falling from a homemade hot fire station. The guards used to watch us with binoculars wall, the Berlin Wall went up. It stood for 10,316 days, air balloon. when we messed about at the windows and we used to watch between August 13th, 1961—“barbed wire Sunday”— Other people died when jumpy guards misidentified them back. I used to go through to the East on the Ubahn, and November 9th, 1989. Today marks the 10,317th them as possible escapees. Some people chose to com- Kochstrasse-Friedrichstrasse to buy whisky. Memory blanks day since its fall. mit suicide by walking toward the Wall and refusing to after that. The Antifaschistischer Schutzwall, or “anti-fascist stop. Daniel protection rampart,” was billed to the East German When the Wall finally fell, the people of Berlin and I used to live right next to the former wall. My neighbor was people and the communist bloc as a way of keeping Germany were elated. Late into the night of Novem- an old lady who had lived there since forever. She watched devious imperialists and fascist spies out. ber 9th, 1989, West and East Berliners came together as the wall was built, and she watched as it was torn down. “We have sealed the cracks in the fabric of our laughing, celebrating, hugging, and weeping. David From the same flat! To top it off, the street where I lived house,” said Ulbricht, “and closed the holes through Hasselhoff famously sang Looking for Freedom from (Heidelberger Straße) is actually semi-famous for being one which the worst enemies of the German people could atop a concrete segment of the rapidly-crumbling for- of the sites where an escape tunnel was built. But, what most creep.” tification. texts don't mention is that the street is actually divided into But it was clear to the world that the new wall was The stark and brutal Wall cut like an scar through three parts; the outer sections in Treptow (East Berlin) and erected only to keep the people of East Germany in. the old city and, in the eyes of the world, became a the middle section in Neukölln (West Berlin). I moved to the The Wall began as barbed wire sections and con- symbol for the stifling totalitarianism of East Germany. middle section some time after the Wall fell. The reason this crete barriers; soon, as defectors found more and more The world cheered those who escaped across it and is important is because on the Eastern side, it wasn't really ways to go over, under, or through it, the Wall became mourned those who died at its foot. And through it all, possible to live right next to the wall, due to the death strip. like the barricades of a fortress. Guard towers and the stentorian strongmen at the head of the GDR stiffly insisted that the Wall was a necessary defense against But on the Western side it was possible. 4 Berlin Brats Alumni Association Newsletter Berlin Brats Alumni Association Newsletter 5 Reunion 2012 promotion update Our 30th Stammtisch Jubilee from Herr Prigge and Charlie Since so many of us who attended the 2012 Bluem Reunion in D.C. witnessed our very own promo- How did we (Herr Prigge tion ceremony (at Saturday night’s banquet) of and Mr. Bluem) begin meeting Michelle Estes ’90 to LtCol by Berlin Brat two- monthly in March 1988? star General Rick Martin ’77 (pictured below). What really brought us to- We thought you’d like to know the latest….. gether then, since we had been Michelle just came out on the full Colonel’s colleagues for years? list this February. Currently stationed at RAF Did we team-teach together? Mildenhall, England, here’s Michelle getting the No! news: Had we planned a great big educational event together? No! So what really brought us to- gether that began our big 30th? Simply put, Herr Prigge need- ed a common sink with hot and Herr Prigge, Charlie Bluem, and Art Benson enjoying the summer sun during a Treff at cold running water because he Mich Kaffee café in 2017.