Remembering the Iron Curtain
My August 18, 1972 visit to Communist East Germany (Berlin)
through Checkpoint Charlie
As a member of the Central Catholic High
School Marching Band from Ft. Wayne, Indiana
 Sign on front of the school that showed fund raising progress towards our goal of raising $40,000. Pic scanned from yearbook. Click on image to see full sized version. |
Germany is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Iron Curtain that surrounded West Germany during the cold war. I am among a very small number of Americans who had an opportunity to visit communist East Germany during the cold war, several years before the wall was torn down. It seems a fitting time to share as much as I can remember about this trip with others out of appreciation for our country's veterans. As time permits, I will keep adding to this page more details, and as many pictures as I can find in my boxes of sentimental artifacts from my past.
 Entire band posed for this picture in the school gymnasium. Picture scanned from yearbook. Click on image to see full sized version. |
In 1972, I was a 14 year old freshman in high school at Central Catholic High School in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. Our marching band was one of 14 bands across the United States originally invited to participate in the pre-Olympic festivities leading up to the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany. According to media reports, only 11 actually went. Thanks to the generosity of the citizens of Fort Wayne who donated $40,000 to pay our way there and back, we were able to make this historic trip. Central Catholic High School closed its doors forever in June of 1972. We took this trip in August, 1972, approximately 2 months after the school had closed. While we were on the trip, we were representing a school that technically no longer existed. That's the reason why I couldn't scan any pictures from our yearbook for this page because no pictures of the trip appeared in the final 1972 edition of our school's yearbook called the "Echo".
We visited several cities in Holland and Germany, performing in marching band parades in several of them. At one point during the trip, we spent two days in Berlin. Our hotel was fairly close to the famous border crossing between West and East Germany called Checkpoint Charlie. According to a post card I sent back home, the hotel we stayed in was called the Stuttgarter Hof.
 Band preparing to depart for Germany. Click on image to see full sized version. |
Our tour company somehow managed to arrange a day long trip for us into communist East Germany. Our trip from West Berlin into East Berlin occurred on a rainy day on August 18, 1972. As we entered into the famous border crossing called Checkpoint Charlie, an East German guard carrying a machine gun came onto our tour bus to check all of our passports. He then warned us all to avoid taking any pictures while we passed through the checkpoint. He said that if anyone took any pictures, everyone's camera's would be confiscated. I don't recall if I just had a sense of adventure, or thought I was James Bond, but for reasons I still can't remember for sure, I held my 8mm movie camera up near the window of the tour bus and filmed for several seconds as we passed through. Several of the other band members on the bus began to tell me to stop doing it because they didn't want to have their camera's confiscated. I didn't make a lot of friends during those few moments, but for me, it was a small personal victory. In my mind, I had poked the communists in the eye and was proud of what I had done in spite of how much concern it had caused with other members of the band. I suspect I got away with it only because it was raining, and it probably made it more difficult for the guards in the towers to see what I was doing.
 Band preparing to depart for Germany. Click on image to see full sized version. |
As we passed through Checkpoint Charlie going into East Germany, I remember looking up at the guard towers and seeing the guards and their machine guns. 1
I was in disbelief that I was actually in a bus traveling freely through the same iron curtain where others had been shot and killed trying to escape through. When we got into East Germany, we didn't go very far into it that I can recall. There were cameras at the top and on the sides of nearby buildings, most likely there to watch us. The few East Germans we encountered would barely make eye contact with me. In fact the only ones I can recall who made any attempt to communicate with me were vendors selling overpriced film for our cameras. We were escorted to a former Nazi concentration camp. I don't recall the name of it, but somewhere in my boxes of artifacts I still have the brochure I got from the camp that day that detailed its history. It's all written in German, so I've never been able to read a word of it. If I can find it, I'll scan it and post it on the page.
 Band returning from Germany. Click on image to see full sized version. |
While in the concentration camp, we visited the firing squad wall where many prisoners had been executed. I recall rubbing my finger into some of the chips in the wall that had been created by the impact of a bullet. I wondered as I touched the chipped concrete who had died in the spot I was standing in. I wondered what it must have felt like to be standing in that spot blindfolded, and waiting for the cracks of the rifles that would end my life. I thought about what kind of cruel system of government could do something like this to innocent people. We later toured a room where prisoners were hung from hooks on the ceiling by wrapping piano wire around their necks. Then we saw one of the cremation chambers. I remember thinking that it was fitting that the East German communists had allowed us to visit this house of horrors, because they weren't any better than the Nazi's who ran the camp years before.
At some point during our excursion into East Germany, they took us to see Brandenburg Gate. We also had an opportunity to see it from the West German side the next day. It was a strange feeling to realize that again, we were among a very small number of Americans who had seen this world famous landmark from both the east and west sides during the height of the cold war.
We only spent the day in East Germany. Then it was time to leave and go back to our hotel. We again passed through Checkpoint Charlie. I remember feeling sad for the people we were leaving behind who would have given almost anything to have had the freedom we did to pass freely through the checkpoint back into a free society. When I got back to the hotel, I reflected on the days events as I looked out my hotel window at the rubble below. In Berlin, they had intentionally left some of the bombed out buildings still in a state of rubble as a reminder to the German people to never again lash out against their neighbors as the Nazi's had done. Half of our hotel was bombed out and destroyed during WW II, and half was still standing. When we looked out our windows down below, we could see the left over rubble from when it had been bombed.
I felt a strong desire to go back and take another look at the iron curtain. Our hotel was a short walking distance away from Checkpoint Charlie. I walked a few blocks until I came to a stairway that was about 15 - 20 feet high if I recall correctly. At the top was a viewing platform that allowed you to see over the top of the iron curtain. I stared in near disbelief as I looked at the tank traps, mine fields, barbed wire and guards armed with machine guns on the other side of the wall. I noticed that a couple of the East German guards had their binoculars trained on me watching me very intently. I couldn't believe that they were watching a lone, 15 year old kid (I had turned 15 by the time we took this trip) with such keen interest. They didn't stop watching me until after I departed the platform and went back down the stairs. It was a chilling experience.
At one point while I was on the platform, almost as if it had been a scene from a Hollywood movie, I saw an American made F4 fighter jet flying by a mile or two away in the distance. I know it was an F4 Phantom, and I think it had American markings, but I couldn't see it well enough to be certain if it had American or West German markings. I just recall after looking at the faces of evil who were staring at me with binoculars, that I felt a strong sense of pride and gratitude to whoever was flying that fighter. I stood atop that platform and fought back tears as I watched it disappear in to the distance. My hatred for the evil animals who were oppressing the innocent people of East Germany grew very strong that day. At the same time, my pride and profound gratitude for my relatives who had served in the Armed Forces swelled to a point that I could barely contain. I recalled my uncle Roy who suffered from PTSD his whole life. I remembered how he had been shot twice as he escaped his burning tank, and how he carried those two German bullets inside of him until the day he died. I recalled my uncle Joe's many bombing missions into Germany, and my uncle Al's stories about running for cover during the German bombing raids in Great Britain when he served there in the Army. And I though about all the other soldiers who fought bravely during WW II and all the other great wars our nation has fought to maintain our freedom, or the freedom of others. I was never so proud to be an American as I was that day. I wanted to shake my fist at the German guards who were watching me, but was afraid to because I was genuinely scared they might start shooting at me. In retrospect it was a silly thing to think that, but when you're 15 years old and had just seen what I had that day, it didn't seem at all out of the realm of possibilities that they might take a few shots at a lone kid who was taunting them with no apparent witnesses around to witness the event.
Later that evening, most of the band decided to go out on the town and visit some of the local bars. Apparently the drinking age for 1% alcohol beer in Germany was only 14 or 16 years old (I think it was 14), so most of the band went out to sample the local brew. I wanted nothing to do with going to bars so I stayed by myself in my hotel room. At some point during the evening, I heard what sounded like a small brick of firecrackers being set off outside, coming from the direction of the iron curtain which was only a few blocks away. A few minutes later, three of the girls from our band were outside my hotel door pounding furiously on it. When I opened the door they burst into my room. They were upset and crying. They too had heard the same pops that I did, and thought that someone had been shot and killed trying to escape from East Germany. I had actually set off bricks of firecrackers at home during the 4th of July. I knew what they sounded like, so I was pretty sure it was firecrackers we had heard, not gun shots. Still, to set them at ease, and calm them down, I called the main desk downstairs and asked them if they knew what was going on. They confirmed my suspicions that it was indeed most likely firecrackers, not gunshots that we had heard. Just to be sure, I went outside to see if I could see or hear anything unusual but didn't see anything other than what appeared to be normal city activities.
When I got back home from the trip to Germany, almost immediately I went to the Allen County Public Library and checked out as many movies as I could about the horrific crimes the Nazi's had perpetrated in Germany in the concentration camps. I had read about these things in dry, stale history books, but after having seen what I saw on that trip, history had come alive and I wanted to know as much about it as I could. I used my library card to get an 8mm movie projector, and I took home several 8mm black and white movies of what appeared to be copies of captured Nazi movies. I watched in stunned disbelief as I saw bodies being pulled out of cremation chambers, and huge piles of dead bodies being bulldozed into huge pits. I was aghast as the horrific levels of pure evil that I was witnessing.
I resolved then and there to never again take my freedoms for granted. I also resolved to hold the members of our armed forces who were protecting us from this kind of vile evil in the highest regard, and to never forget the sacrifices they have and continue to make for us. Being a young kid, I didn't yet realize that I had overlooked being thankful to our greatest protector, God. It wasn't until many years later that I finally realized that it wasn't just our military who had been protecting us all these years. God had a much larger role than the military did in keeping us safe from our enemies. However, it is unfortunate that was we as a nation continue to turn our backs on God, and he appears to now be lifting that veil of protection we once enjoyed (see our link titled Is America being chastised by God?). We need to continue praying for our nation, and for the members of our military and their families for the extraordinary sacrifices that so many of them are still making for us today.
There is much more I want to add to this page, especially some of the pictures I took, postcards I sent back home, and scans from our year book. If I can find a way to stream any of the 8mm movies, I'll add them too. Some of them were damaged several years ago by a water leak, so I don't know how many of my movies from Germany survived. If you are a member of the Central Catholic High School band that took this trip, and you have pictures or stories you'd like to share, please send me an e-mail at our contact link above.
Founder of the Young Earth Creation Club
Pictures
Fund raising for the trip
|
|
|
Artifacts from the school
I did some volunteer work in the school library. As a result, I befriended Sister Mary Teresa Miller, the school librarian. On the final day of school in 1972, she gave me a glass book case and several books from the school library. I no longer have the bookcase, and only have one of the books still in my possession. The book I still have is a very interesting one from a historical perspective. It's titled "The History of Fort Wayne". The author is Wallace A. Brice. It was published in 1868. I've scanned a few of the first pages, and the Index page in the back of the book and have made them available for download in the .PDF file below. I am not able to find any copyright or ISBN number markings anywhere on or in the book. I have seen this same book for sale on the internet for less than $50.
The History of Fort Wayne book.pdf
References
| 1. | Some of the pictures I've seen on the internet of Checkpoint Charlie don't appear to show elevated guard towers like the ones I remembered seeing. I remember a border crossing that looked much more menacing than what those pictures appear to show. I can't explain the differences between what I saw and what's in these pictures, but I'm pretty sure that I'm recalling what I saw correctly, and that we did indeed pass through that particular checkpoint. |