Berlin: Checkpoint Charlie - July 1975
Due to Dads ill health, my parents decided to return to England. I had just rented a flat as I had decided to stay.
This was I thought a good move as I had a job that was interesting and I was earning a lot more in the Pathology in Cologne than in the hospital in London. Also as an only child, it was psychological advantageous that my parents were leaving me and not the other way round.
Before they left Germany they wanted to see Berlin. As this was probably the last time I would spend a holiday with them, even if it was only three days, I decided to tag along. The itinerary was to see all the standard sites in West Berlin and take a bus tour to East Berlin. For the trip into the east block we all bundled into a coach and headed for Checkpoint Charlie.
[Ed: The name Charlie came from the letter C in the NATO phonetic alphabet; similarly for other Allied checkpoints on the Autobahn from the West: Checkpoint Alpha at Helmstedt and its counterpart Checkpoint Bravo at Dreilinden, Wannsee in the south-west corner of Berlin. The Soviets simply called it the Friedrichstraße Crossing Point (КПП Фридрихштрассе, KPP Fridrikhshtrasse). The East Germans referred to it as the Grenzübergangsstelle ("Border Crossing Point") Friedrich-/Zimmerstraße.]
The passports where collected from our guide and just as he returned with them to his seat at the front of the coach we arrived at the soviet control point. On stopping a woman in military uniform entered the coach, collected the passports from the guide and slowly wandered through the coach scrutinising each person in turn against the passport pictures. When she finally got to me the length and intensity was a touch longer than with the others.
Ok, I must mention at this point, that I was the youngest in the group and most of the people on the coach where my parents age or older. I had my hair at this time down to my shoulders - going thin on top - but down to my shoulders. I had on jeans and a Pink Floyd tea shirt under my NATO Anorak.
In any case I stood out in more ways than one. Not the attire my Dad approved off. I got an earful later especially following the incident, but I was at a stage where this didn’t influence me to any extent.
The woman with the uniform, a uniform that would have gone down well at the time on Carnaby Street, just starred at me. I found myself involuntary staring back. This went on for while, could only have been a few seconds, until I inwardly broke down and outwardly presented her with an even wider nervous smile before braking eye contact.
Satisfied she had won the round, she continued to wander and scrutinize until she finally left the coach.
We waited and waited and waited..
I suspected they were probably on the phone to the KGB HQ in the Motherland running our particulars through their nuclear powered steam driven computers. This takes time I thought, and it did! Eventually she was back, gave the bundle of passports to the guide.
That is all but one, which she held up demonstratively and of course whose was it?
[Ed: Yours?]
Bang on!
Who else could it be!
I got that look again, this time with the addition of the now famous hand gesture long before it became popular through the Matrix film. I got up and followed her oblivious to the other people in the coach. I was told afterwards that my parents wanted to follow, but was held back by another hand gesture reminiscent of a French white gloved policeman stopping the traffic.
As response my parents slowly sank into their seats with embarrassment and, in their eyes a justifiably amount of concern of what was going to happen next.
Well, in end effect nothing happened, or is that at least something?
In silence I was ushered into the barrack in the middle of the road [Ed: see top picture]. Not thinking about it I just sat down in front of the desk as the woman / officer sat in the chair opposite.
Without any verbal interrogation whatsoever she worked her way through my passport from front to back in slow motion. She looked at each page more than once which was interesting as there was nothing on them apart from watermarks and a few Belgium stamps from my sojourns via Oostende to Dover, rather dull reading I would have thought. [Ed: see The Boat-Train for a somewhat bizarre sojourn.]
Now and then she would look up at a clock on the wall next to me. Either working out how long this fiasco was possible without having to commit to an action, or more likely when the next coffee break was due. Maybe she combined the two, either way after five minutes or so without any comment I was handed back my passport and dismissed without a word.
I returned to the coach sat in my seat, glanced at my parents, raised my eyebrows slightly to say I hadn't become an international statistic / incident and we moved off.
All this in complete silence as with the ‘interview’!
I think in the coach we were all slightly subdued with having to wait around. Also we still had to leave in an hour or so and hoped, collectively, I wouldn't cause anymore delays.
Well surprisingly, leaving went without a hitch..
This was I thought a good move as I had a job that was interesting and I was earning a lot more in the Pathology in Cologne than in the hospital in London. Also as an only child, it was psychological advantageous that my parents were leaving me and not the other way round.
Before they left Germany they wanted to see Berlin. As this was probably the last time I would spend a holiday with them, even if it was only three days, I decided to tag along. The itinerary was to see all the standard sites in West Berlin and take a bus tour to East Berlin. For the trip into the east block we all bundled into a coach and headed for Checkpoint Charlie.
[Ed: The name Charlie came from the letter C in the NATO phonetic alphabet; similarly for other Allied checkpoints on the Autobahn from the West: Checkpoint Alpha at Helmstedt and its counterpart Checkpoint Bravo at Dreilinden, Wannsee in the south-west corner of Berlin. The Soviets simply called it the Friedrichstraße Crossing Point (КПП Фридрихштрассе, KPP Fridrikhshtrasse). The East Germans referred to it as the Grenzübergangsstelle ("Border Crossing Point") Friedrich-/Zimmerstraße.]The passports where collected from our guide and just as he returned with them to his seat at the front of the coach we arrived at the soviet control point. On stopping a woman in military uniform entered the coach, collected the passports from the guide and slowly wandered through the coach scrutinising each person in turn against the passport pictures. When she finally got to me the length and intensity was a touch longer than with the others.
Ok, I must mention at this point, that I was the youngest in the group and most of the people on the coach where my parents age or older. I had my hair at this time down to my shoulders - going thin on top - but down to my shoulders. I had on jeans and a Pink Floyd tea shirt under my NATO Anorak.In any case I stood out in more ways than one. Not the attire my Dad approved off. I got an earful later especially following the incident, but I was at a stage where this didn’t influence me to any extent.
The woman with the uniform, a uniform that would have gone down well at the time on Carnaby Street, just starred at me. I found myself involuntary staring back. This went on for while, could only have been a few seconds, until I inwardly broke down and outwardly presented her with an even wider nervous smile before braking eye contact.
Satisfied she had won the round, she continued to wander and scrutinize until she finally left the coach.
We waited and waited and waited..
I suspected they were probably on the phone to the KGB HQ in the Motherland running our particulars through their nuclear powered steam driven computers. This takes time I thought, and it did! Eventually she was back, gave the bundle of passports to the guide.
That is all but one, which she held up demonstratively and of course whose was it?
[Ed: Yours?]
Bang on!
Who else could it be!
I got that look again, this time with the addition of the now famous hand gesture long before it became popular through the Matrix film. I got up and followed her oblivious to the other people in the coach. I was told afterwards that my parents wanted to follow, but was held back by another hand gesture reminiscent of a French white gloved policeman stopping the traffic. As response my parents slowly sank into their seats with embarrassment and, in their eyes a justifiably amount of concern of what was going to happen next.
Well, in end effect nothing happened, or is that at least something?
In silence I was ushered into the barrack in the middle of the road [Ed: see top picture]. Not thinking about it I just sat down in front of the desk as the woman / officer sat in the chair opposite.
Without any verbal interrogation whatsoever she worked her way through my passport from front to back in slow motion. She looked at each page more than once which was interesting as there was nothing on them apart from watermarks and a few Belgium stamps from my sojourns via Oostende to Dover, rather dull reading I would have thought. [Ed: see The Boat-Train for a somewhat bizarre sojourn.]
Now and then she would look up at a clock on the wall next to me. Either working out how long this fiasco was possible without having to commit to an action, or more likely when the next coffee break was due. Maybe she combined the two, either way after five minutes or so without any comment I was handed back my passport and dismissed without a word.
I returned to the coach sat in my seat, glanced at my parents, raised my eyebrows slightly to say I hadn't become an international statistic / incident and we moved off.
All this in complete silence as with the ‘interview’!
I think in the coach we were all slightly subdued with having to wait around. Also we still had to leave in an hour or so and hoped, collectively, I wouldn't cause anymore delays.
Well surprisingly, leaving went without a hitch..
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