THE WALL: BEFORE AND AFTER (Satis Shroff)

THE WALL BEFORE AND AFTER (Satis Shroff)

The Wall was erected in 1961

To keep the people in.

The folks called it fondly:

The anti-fachist-protective-rampart.

Anyone who fled the barbed-wire republic

Was shot by snipers or automatic guns.

The common bonds, language, history

Were erased overnight.

Germans became split into: them and us.

A folk was divided into the haves in the West

And have nots in the East.

Berlin became an island,

In the middle of the Soviet occupied zone.

Families were separated.

On August 13, 1961 the Soviets and East Germans

Built an in-depth fortification: the Wall.

* * *

In Berlin Kudamm with Scandinavian friends

After the Wall fell thousands of East and West Germans

Met and higged each other at last.

The same language, cultural heritage,

Yet worlds apart only because of another ideology.

I took off in a light plane from Hessen's highest peak:

The Wasserkuppe airfield (950m).

'The Rhön ist schön' goes the song.

I flew over the the Fliegerdenkmal, Wasserkuppe,

Steinwand, Rotherkuppe and Kreuzberg (932m)

To celebrate the fall of the wall.

* * *

Eighteen year old Peter Fechter was shot

As he sprinted across across the 'death strip.'

If you went to Berlin-West

You were controlled at the border.

A sickening, nauseating smell of angst

Hung during the controls at the checkposts.

The vopos understood no nonsense.

There was no joking,

No western coolness.

Everything was dead earnest and obsolete.

The bureaucracy, long stern faces,

A suppressed, scurrying people confronted with:

Arbitrary disruptions, chicanery, imprisonment.

* * *

Went to a former Stasi hotel.

Placed outside on the lawn was a goulash cannon,

A big field-kitchen made of metal

To feed soldiers of the GRD and Russia.

It wasn't in service anymore.

The soldiers were gone.

The wall had fallen.

* * *

A soldier was given a medal

For exemplary border service.

He'd put his 'gun to use masterfully,'

And shot Ernst Munst in the head.

Those trying to escape were shot dead,

Buried anonymously.

All the people were equal,

According to Marx.

But the party bosses and their clans

Were more equal than the others.

Socialism led to catastrophic losses

In living standards.

They ate their bread with butter and jam.

Western products were expensive and forbidden.

There was the yen to have marks and dollars.

But only the westerners and SED-bosses

Had the dough to buy in the Intershops.

* * *

There was a dance and we celebrated sylvester,

As New Year is called in German.

With beer, wine and schnaps coursing in the blood,

The Ossies became friendly and talkative.

'Thank God, the wall has fallen.

If it weren't for Hungary, Gorbachov,

Kohl and Genscher,

The Stasis would still be in control.'

Now they are jobless and have to look around.

* * *

I went to the West Berlin theatres with academicians,

Bertold Brecht's 'Tod und Elend im Dritten Reich,'

Saw Minna von Barnhelm,

Went to Checkpoint Charlie,

To watch the socialist world beyond.

My mind compared it to watching the Tibetan Plateau,

While flying over Everest.

A forbidden land where the people

Were told lies about the west,

Where the Politbureau was the real government

Inside the GDR.

Brother kisses with Russians.

You could go to East Bloc countries on holidays,

But were obliged to return home.

If you ran away to the west,

Your near and dear ones you left behind,

Were interrogated and treated badly.

Till 1961 3,5 millon East Germans fled to the west.

* * *

My friend Heinz proudly introduced his Ossie gal,

Rosemarie, a brunette with beautiful blue eyes.

As a momento he'd even bought a Trabbie,

An East German car: 'For a song' he emphasised.

Owning a BMW was one thing,

But driving a Trabbie was fun:

This old symbol of socialist innovation.

Rosemary shunned the Trabi:

It was like clinging to a past status symbol.

She wanted to look forwards in life,

With her newly acquired freedom.

She had plans to move to the west.

* * *

As a medical student I wanted to see

An East German apothecary.

As I entered the shop my nostrils smelt the iodine tincture,

And caught a whiff of aromatic plants and medicinal herbs,

For they made the salves, potions and medication with the hand.

The wound dressings looked yellowish,

And the apothecary was not customer-oriented.

None of the western marketing strategies,

Just plain East Bloc products: cheap and unattractive.

There were glasses filled with deformed embryos

Preserved in formalin like in a zoological museum.

* * *

It's 2017 and the signs of separation

Have been swiftly removed.

Of the long Berlin Wall only a few metres are left.

Where the much prized Palace of the Republic?

Razed to the ground.

The traces of separation have disappeared,

What remains are only fuzzy memories of 1989

And the Solibeitrag.

* * *

Where once the Stasi watched the west,

Are now tourist attractions with guides.

Children are looked after throughout the day.

Shots against flu are compulsory in the former East.

Many children went to see the west and stayed.

The elderly have remained in the East.

Brain drain and manpower to the west.

The Ossies have Existenzangst.

The dream of a good life after the unification has sunk.

* * *

The Wessies were scared of the Eurocrisis,

East Germans were relaxed.

They knew what a change could bring.

Prithee, why did the socialist Germans

Take to the streets in 1989?

Freedom of opinion and travel.

They also fought for the wessie consumer goods

In the old inner German borders,

The towers and barbwires are still there.

Do we still have walls in our minds?

Chancellor Merkel said, 'Wir schaffen das.'

Opinions change with the times.

Will our scars disappear?

The death zone alias Todesstreife,

Has become a protected area

And acquired a national park status.

* * *

At the memorial in the border

Between Bavaria and Thüringen

Written on a board:

'Here is Germany still divided:

The other side is also Germany.'

On a big block of stone are the words:

'The entire German folk

Behind the Iron Curtain

Beckon to us,

Not to forget them!

We will not rest

We won't relax

Till Germany

Is united again

In peace freedom.

(Conrad Adenauer,

13th of August 1981).

Glossary:

GDR: German Democratic Republic

vopos: Volkspolizei, people's police

Solibeitrag: tax money to show solidarity in rebuilding East Germany after the socialist economy had destroyed it.

Ossie: a term to describe East Germans

Wessie: Germans living in the west part of Germany

* * *