10 May 2010
 
Invisible Walls

 
(Colorful remaining section of the Berlin Wall)
 
"Die Mauer wird in 50 und auch in 100 Jahren noch bestehen bleiben, wenn die dazu vorhandenen Gründe noch nicht beseitigt sind"
 
"The Wall will be standing in 50 and even in 100 years, if the reasons for it are not yet removed."

- Erich Honecker, Berlin, 19 January 1989  
 
The news from Europe is cautiously good this morning. The ash plume over the Atlantic is no longer an adamant wall preventing direct travel to the continent at the moment, and I may succeed in getting wheels-in-the-well out of Dulles as scheduled.
 
Or not; the volcano continues to bubble and spew noxious particulates into the atmosphere, and it is entirely possible that I could get there and get stuck.
 
Of course, I think I could deal with being stuck in  Deutschland with the Euro temporarily depressed, but I suppose the gods of the magma will determine all that. I will leave it to them.
 
The word this morning is that the trillion-dollar package to bail out the Greeks has stiffened the collective spine of the European Union, but also put pressure on the Conservative government of Angela Merkle, who up to this moment could justifiably be termed the most powerful woman in the world.
 
I watched “The Lives of Others” the other night to get myself calibrated for the journey. It is a fabulous movie, and after just a few minutes the subtitles A friend told me chided me gently, saying that the Wall had come down, and maybe I had not heard.
 
I was a little startled by that, since in the middle distance of my mind, the Wall will always be there. This pilgrimage is intended to fix that, since there are a wide assortment of structures in my mental landscape that no longer exist in reality. For example, my pal John and I were rolling around the German countryside in his Volkswagen, following the line-of-advance of the 9th Armored Division in March 1945, in Operation Lumberjack, the dash to cross the Rhine.
 
We were pretty into it, and when we rounded the last corner to see the two crenellated towers that guarded the western approach to the Ludendorff Bridge, I actually was surprised that the thing was gone.
 
I knew it had collapsed a few days after it had been captured, but I still managed to be startled by the great emptiness across the river that led to the great tunnel on the eastern shore.
 
So, this is a necessary trip to ensure that the Wall comes down in my brain. I know all sorts of stuff intellectually that is at complete odds with my mental map. Watching the movie about a Stasi Officer who is assigned to conduct detailed and intrusive surveillance on a journalist suspected of deviance from the party line.
 
He winds up being the reluctant hero of the sad tale, which limned the banal evil of the communist state in shades of gray. His career as a rising State Security Officer is dashed, and in the conclusion to the film he is shown steaming open letters, a mind-numbingly menial job. Behind him is a young officer condemned to the same sort of task for the crime of making a joke about Erich Honecker.
 
As word spreads about the opening of the check-points, the men stop work and rise from their desks to walk slowly to freedom.
 
Of course, the unstated point to it all is that the work may have been menial and in the interest of an implacable state, but the men had work. The unsettled and capricious nature of the capitalism that followed is one of the reasons that there is a nostalgia for the things that were.
 
After German reunification, First Secretary Honecker first fled to the Soviet Union but was extradited to Germany by the new Russian government. Back in Germany, he was imprisoned and tried for high treason and crimes committed during the Cold War. Having been personally in charge of constructing the Wall in 1961, he was indicted for ordering border guards to shoot to kill.
 
During the trial, Honecker was diagnosed with terminal cancer and was subsequently released to die in exile in Chile. The conclusion of the movie is about the unraveling of the great web of surveillance conducted by the Communists all through the regime’s history. What is curious to me is how the whole thing vanished, government and monuments alike. I have google-mapped the path of the Wall, and it is difficult to ascertain where the monolith stood.
 
Angela Merkel is not only the first female Chancellor of Germany, but the first person who grew up in the former DDR. She was raised in the countryside eighty clicks north of Berlin. The family was privileged; her father was a Lutheran pastor and her mother was well educated. They had two cars and were able to travel frequently to the West. That fact has led to speculation that her Dad had a special relationship with Stasi, and of course she herself was a member of the Socialist-led youth movement Free German Youth. Later she became a member of the district board and secretary for "Agitprop" (Agitation and Propaganda) at the Academy of Sciences in that organization.
 
That all blew away with the wind. Her accomplishments in the new Germany speak for themselves. It speaks volumes that before the Greek financial bailout, the biggest controversy of her Chancellorship was about the fumbling hands of George W. Bush, and the low-cut dress she wore to the opera in Oslo.
 
But there is trouble for her now over saving the Eurozone, and over the central role of Germany in determining the fate of a unified Europe. It is a grand time to travel, and a most excellent opportunity to see the invisible wall, and get a sense for what might be left behind in the minds of others.
 
Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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