From November 2000 issue of Soldiers
FOCUS on Berlin
- Return to Berlin
- Crossroads of the Cold War
- Assignment: Berlin
Return to Berlin
Story by Heike Hasenauer
ON Nov. 9, 1989, 28 years after the city was cut in two by the infamous
Berlin Wall, East German leaders announced the decision to open the border
with the West, leading to the eventual reunification of Germany and the
re-establishment of Berlin as the nation's capital.
Suddenly, anyone who wanted to visit or even relocate to the democratic
nations of Europe could simply come to the border and request an exit visa.
TV and radio reports of the new policy sent thousands of East Berliners
to the Wall's checkpoints to see if what they were hearing was true. Crowds
grew so large that border guards couldn't process the paperwork. They simply
opened the border and let the people walk through.
Workmen dismantled sections of the Wall from Nov. 14 to 21. And the famed
Brandenburg Gate -- landmark dividing line between East and West Berlin,
located on the communist East side since the Wall went up in August 1961 --
officially opened on Dec. 22.
In a flash, years of tension, intrigue and conflict in the divided city gave
way to exhilaration and renewed hope for the future, according to historians
Robert Grathwol and Donita Moorhus in their book, "American Forces in Berlin,
1945-1994."
TODAY, some of the most notable effects of the fall of communism and the
subsequent German reunification continue to take place in Berlin. And, as it
has done for more than a half-century, the Army is playing an important role
in reshaping not only the future of Berlin, but of Germany.
U.S. Army Presence - Defense Attache
COL Eric Hammersen, defense attache at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin, is the
first U.S. military attache in the city since 1941. Earlier, the U.S.
Embassy was located in East Germany.
With the transition of the seat of government from Bonn to Berlin the U.S.
Embassy also relocated there, in July 1999. Hammersen arrived a month later.
In June the attache office was still split between Berlin and Bonn, because
90 percent of the German Defense Ministry was still in Bonn. Some 30 U.S.
active-duty military personnel from the joint services were assigned to
Berlin, six of them soldiers.
"I consider it a great honor to be here at this time, when the seat of
government moves back to Berlin and German armed forces are undergoing
restructuring," said Hammersen, whose grandfather and daughter were both
born in Berlin. "We understand what restructuring is about, and we pass on
offers of assistance to German government officials."
As attache, Hammersen is the military advisor to the U.S. ambassador to
Germany and his consulates. He represents the secretary of defense,
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, service secretaries, and others, to
their German counterparts. He coordinates activities between the Army and
the German Bundeswehr, and observes what's happening in Germany and
reports back to the U.S. Defense Department.
He and his staff set up meetings for high-ranking visitors, taking care of
aircraft clearances and arranging for note-takers to record meeting
events. "If agreements are made at the highest levels, we facilitate the
implementation of those agreements, too," Hammersen said.
When President Bill Clinton visited Berlin recently, "we were involved in
making arrangements for Air Force One and supporting all the military
personnel who came with him, he said. "That visit was pretty significant,"
said CW2 Tom Castle, another member of the Defense Attache Service.
"Over a five-day period we had Clinton, the secretary of state, assistant
secretary of state, deputy secretary of defense, two assistant secretaries
of defense, the commander in chief, Europe, and all of their generals and
colonels here in Berlin."
"I do lots of coordination," Hammersen said. He and his staff arrange talks
between U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command personnel in the United
States and German army staffers. Recently, they also assisted in getting
U.S. military aircraft to Berlin for the Berlin International Air Show.
USAREUR recently completed a signal exercise in Thuringia, a former East
German state. "We had to coordinate with German authorities to allow the
exercise to take place there, because it's outside our normal training
areas," Hammersen said.
Berlin Bde. Deputy Commander
Dr. Stephen Bowman was deputy brigade commander of the U.S. Army Berlin
Brigade in July 1990, eight months after the Wall fell. He retired from the
Army in 1996 after serving as director of the U.S. Military History
Institute, then received an offer to do military tours in Berlin.
In the summer of 1991, as the Allies were departing Berlin and throwing
away valuable occupation memorabilia, Bowman met with members of a
German historical society who wanted to establish an Allied museum in
Berlin. It opened in June 1998.
"We were concerned that there'd be nothing of this history left," said
Bowman, who married a Berliner in 1999. She'd taught Head Start to
American soldiers and educated the children of U.S. general officers for
18 years.
"There's no doubt when you walk down Unter den Linden to the Brandenburg
Gate, where all the Eastern nations had their embassies, that we helped
save Berlin," said Bowman. As he spoke he stood in what was once the
"death strip," the area outside the Potsdamer Platz subway station, fronted
by the Reichstag -- Germany's re-established seat of government -- and the
Brandenburg Gate.
The S-Bahn station at Unter den Linden, which closed when the Wall went
up, today is an important stop. And the Potsdamer Platz station, a maze of
construction, is to become an ultramodern subway station and shopping
complex.
Today at the Brandenburg Gate people and cars come and go freely. Before
the Wall fell, it divided East and West Berlin. "The Wall curved out in front
of the Brandenburg Gate, and the gate was on the communist side," Bowman
said.
The city's transformation includes the restoration of the famed Adlon Hotel
on Unter den Linden. Used as a hospital after the World War II battle for the
Reichstag, the most exclusive hotel in all Berlin is once again open. "It was
like walking from color to black and white," said Bowman of the differences
he noted between "gray and dingy" East Berlin and vibrant West Berlin when
he visited years earlier as a company commander.
Today, in a city that's 40 percent covered by parks and lakes, "you can put
all of Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Munich inside the city limits and still have
room for Washington, D.C.," said Bowman of the united Berlin that is home
to 6 million people.
Teacher - JFK International School
Bill Kunzman, a friend of Bowman's since the two were classmates at West
Point, also teaches at the JFK school. Kunzman retired in 1995 as a colonel
and TRADOC's liaison officer to the French army.
"I was assigned to Germany for a total of six years during my career,"
Kunzman said. "But I always commanded air defense missile batteries in
southern Germany. And, there were rules about commanders of those units
coming to Berlin -- we couldn't."
He visited Berlin for the first time in May 1989. Following his retirement,
he went back to school to get his teaching certificate. "I knew I wanted to
come back to Europe and could do so as a teacher. And I knew if I couldn't
return to Paris, Berlin was my second choice.
"Because I'd always enjoyed working with soldiers, I thought teaching
would be for me," Kunzman said. "I sent resumes to every school I could
think of. I sent 30 letters and got 29 responses that said you had to be a
teacher for two years first.
"I hadn't taught for one day, other than as a student teacher," he continued.
"I was due to start my doctoral program on July 1. On June 30, I got a call
from the JFK school, asking if I wanted to teach physics. "They said, 'We
know what you did in the Army, what you learned at West Point. That's good
enough for us.'" Kunzman teaches physics at the school.
"A main reason we care about being here is that the schools are excellent.
The government has made the JFK school the school for embassy children.
And I teach the children of the ambassadors of Pakistan and India, among
others," Kunzman said.
Besides the excellent schools, "there's so much history here, so much
ambiance -- you can 'feel' the city," Kunzman said. "My wife is a spy-novel
freak. The places we visit are places she reads about in her books."
USAREUR Liaison Officer
COL Jan Harpole command's the U.S. Army, Europe, liaison office at the
embassy. "We're the only non-diplomatic U.S. forces' element in Berlin,"
said Harpole, who arrived in September 1999.
Harpole's office provides the liaison between the USAREUR commanding
general and the U.S. ambassador to Germany, and represents the U.S.
forces to the German government.
"It's surprising to me how well received I am in the local community,"
said Harpole, who lives in the former East Zone and first came to Berlin
in the mid-1970s, when he was assigned to a transportation unit that
ran the "Duty Train" from Frankfurt to West Berlin. "I didn't have security
concerns, but administrative ones."
As one of the few U.S. soldiers living in Berlin he's often a "guinea pig,"
he said. "I've often had to prove to police that I don't have to pay this
tax or that fee, and that I can drive with a civilian registration under
the Status of Forces Agreement," Harpole said of his experiences
dealing with German officials. "It's allowed me to get to know the
people and make friends. It's been somewhat of an advertising campaign,
too, to say, 'yes, the U.S. Army is here,' albeit in very small force. But
we're all part of NATO; it's simply a process of education.
"What I hear over and over again -- always from the easterners -- is
that in all the years the Soviets were here, they had no contact with
them," Harpole said. "The young Russian soldiers didn't have hard
currency and were always under strict military control. The
higher-ranking officers just weren't interested in making friends with
the East Berliners.
"Now that we're in what used to be East Germany, we're trying to
increase the U.S. presence in the east," Harpole said. "Since we don't
have any U.S. forces personnel stationed in the eastern part of
Germany, we have to do other things to show how a U.S. force conducts
itself in a democracy."
In June, the Army conducted the largest military exercise in the east,
with one battalion of U.S. soldiers in Thuringia -- a wooded,
mountainous region in central Germany near the Czech border, Harpole
said.
"I was told several thousand people hiked up the Harz Mountains,
where a 22nd Signal Bde. element was located in the area of a former
Soviet outpost," Harpole said. "They wanted to see what our soldiers
do, and we don't prohibit them from seeing."
Some Bundeswehr soldiers participated, but the event was not a
"Partnership for Peace" exercise.
More typically, Harpole coordinates with the USAREUR commander on
land and facilities' use in Germany. "We don't own any land in Germany;
it's provided for our use," he said. "There are thousands of areas where
we need permission from local authorities to bring in food or store
hazardous materiels, as examples." In addition, certain treaties govern
the introduction of new equipment or units into Germany.
"If one person is going to speak, or 500 people are going to be involved
in a training exercise, we have to get an official agreement," Harpole
said. "Since Poland and the Czech Republic have entered NATO, there's
much more going on" -- from another country's band playing, to a major
training exercise in yet another former Eastern-Bloc nation.
Additionally, Harpole handles innumerable housekeeping issues, dealing
with everything from space on which to conduct maneuvers to the repair
of buildings where U.S. soldiers live and work.
Legal Liaison Officer
MAJ Scott Frye, legal liaison officer at the U.S. Embassy, advises
Harpole on the terms of treaties. "We have a staff of attorneys in
Heidelberg, but I'm here because I speak German and have a background
in international law," said Frye, who ensures U.S. officials understand
the treaties.
"We still have Dutch, French, Belgian, British and Canadian forces in
Germany," Frye said. "So, we routinely discuss environmental, training
and managementissues.
"We're here as guests of Germany," said Frye, the only U.S. military
lawyer in Berlin. "If there's a gray area, we form a front with our
fellow 'sending states,'" Frye said. "It's not an adversarial position,
but it strengthens our negotiating ability to have six sending states,
because there are literally hundreds of agreements under two primary
treaties: the NATO Status of Forces Agreement and a supplementary
agreement that applies in Germany to the sending states."
The City Itself
Today, in the former East Zone, the sky is filled with giant cranes
working to obliterate the last reminders of where the Wall butted
against homes, and construction crews rebuild and renovate,
remedying more than a half-century of neglect.
"You've got major restaurant and hotel chains in the former East
Berlin," Hammersen said. "It's fascinating to see how cosmopolitan
the city has become. And only a few kilometers of Wall are left."
Massive projects include a several-city-block stretch of new
government offices, several stories high, located across the street
from the Reichstag, and luxury townhomes at Potsdamer Platz, area
of the former "death strip."
Harpole said the reported construction funding in Berlin is between
$12 billion and $28 billion a year. "At that rate, it's like watching
someone paint a picture. Change occurs daily.
"The East is, in fact, changing at warp speed," Harpole said. "Ten
years from now, the most modern half of Berlin might be this
half -- the former East."
The German government is putting huge resources into closing social
and economic gaps, Hammersen said. But unemployment in the East is
still significantly higher than in the West.
"It breeds contempt," said retired Air Force Master Sgt. Robert
Jumper, who was an air traffic controller at Tempelhof Airport when
the Allies were departing Berlin. After retirement he found a job at
the city's main commercial airport, Tegel International.
Jumper said most of the unemployment is in the eastern sector of
Berlin and the former East Germany, where many people are not
qualified for jobs because they didn't have the same educational
opportunities as their counterparts in the West.
The crime rate is high, too, he said. "When the Wall came down, the
city picked up more than 2 million people. The bad came in with the
good, among them Russian and East German Mafia."
Also, the cost of living is extremely high, Jumper said. When the
Wall fell, caps on rent went away. And when the capital moved to
Berlin, property values soared.
Other issues include traffic congestion and a shortage of housing,
Harpole said. "But, frankly, I find the city less congested than other
major cities. Berlin is still a city with wide roads and lots of
parking."
"But integrating citizens from the former East and West Germany is
still a problem," Harpole added. Ten years after the fall of the Wall,
"You're just now seeing major migration. There was a tremendous
amount of inertia that kept the eastern half in the East and the
western half in the West; it's slightly less expensive to live in the
eastern part of the city, for one thing. Additionally, the stores are
open longer in the East, until 9 or 10 p.m. and there's more nightlife."
For U.S. military personnel living in the city, former Berlin Brigade
housing is convenient, affordable and very nice, said Castle, who
lives in a single-family home with his wife and children.
"Being at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin is a luxury assignment," added
SFC Michael McDonald, Army operations NCO at the embassy. "We're
five hours from the nearest military support in Vilseck, Germany.
Many places we go -- like Mongolia or Kazakhstan, we have to fly
to another country for support, because there's none on the entire
continent."
Today, U.S. personnel most affected by lack of support facilities
in Berlin are most likely retirees, said Bowman. The only military
service for ex-military personnel is a retiree mailroom at the
American Consulate. And the closest medical facility and post
exchange are five hours away.
"It's all new now," said Jumper. "Before, we had the camaraderie
that grew from the situation of the time. Now, we have to
assimilate into the culture more. Every day is a learning,
growing experience."
Crossroads of the Cold War
Story by Heike Hasenauer
GERMANY surrendered to the Allies in May 1945, and U.S. troops
began arriving in Berlin the following month.
The city that had been relentlessly bombed by the United States,
Great Britain and the Soviet Union, and ultimately captured by
Soviet troops, lay in ruins. Added to the physical devastation was
the psychological impact of a Germany divided into zones of
occupation.
Berlin -- Germany's former "intellectual, artistic and cultural"
capital, according to historians -- was separated into sectors of
occupation.
The military commanders of the occupying powers -- the United
States, Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union -- exercised
full power over their individual portions of Berlin. Almost
immediately, the armies began rebuilding the shattered city,
restoring utilities, bringing in food and supplies, and providing
jobs. The occupying forces were to control Berlin's destiny for
some 50 years.
During that period, U.S. soldiers experienced some of the tensest
periods of the Cold War. Those included the Soviet blockade of
West Berlin, the portion of the then-divided city far behind the
"Iron Curtain" that was surrounded by communist East Germany.
And they participated in the 1948-1949 Berlin Airlift.
Allied planes flew 276,926 missions, bringing in food and
supplies at three-minute intervals, 24 hours a day. Seventy-six
people died, among them 31 U.S. servicemen, but the airlift
played a critical role in preserving West Berlin's freedom.
Armies in the three Western sectors of Berlin also witnessed
the atrocities committed by East German border guards, who
gunned down their own people who tried to escape over the
Berlin Wall or across the Spree River to freedom.
From 1946 to 1991, some 6,700 soldiers were stationed in
Berlin as part of U.S. Army Berlin Brigade. On Sept. 8, 1994,
when the U.S. flag was furled, the ceremony ended almost half
a century of U.S. and Allied occupation of West Berlin.
The U.S. Army's facilities in Berlin have almost all been
returned to Germany, said COL Eric Hammersen, U.S. Defense
Attache to Berlin. Today, the American flag flies over the
American Consulate building in the former Berlin Brigade
compound. And the compound itself stands as it was.
However, except for offices used by U.S. Embassy personnel,
it's empty.
A short distance from the compound, on Clayallee, sits the
German-operated Allied Museum, located in the former Outpost
Theater where U.S. service members watched the latest movies
of the time. The museum preserves the symbols of Berlin's
history during the Allies' occupation.
It contains the original Checkpoint Charlie, the former U.S.
border crossing point onFriedrichstrasse, one of the planes
that participated in the airlift, a former train from the East,
and a piece of the Wall. The museum is open six days a week,
except Wednesdays. The German government operates it, but
the Allied ambassadors form its board of directors.
"It's one of the few things remaining that the Western Allies
are working on together in the city," said retired COL Bill
Kunzman, who teaches at Berlin's John F. Kennedy International
School. German school children visit the museum to learn about
Berlin's military history. Exhibit texts are all presented in
English, French and German.
"A child born when the Wall opened is now 11 years old," said
retired COL Stephen Bowman, former deputy commander of
the Berlin Bde., who lives in Berlin and leads battlefield staff
rides in Europe. "The Cold War is foreign to kids. The museum
helps them understand why there's such a special relationship
between the Western Allies and the people of Berlin."
The big Truman Plaza American shopping center, across the
street from Berlin Bde. HQs., was a hub of activity for U.S.
soldiers and families. It's been leveled, but the "Truman
Plaza" sign still stands.
There is also a sign identifying the old Berlin-American
High School, although the building is now used by the
German school system, as are the swimming pool and
sports center that were located behind the post exchange
complex. The former NCO club that stood on the street
corner across from Berlin Bde. HQs. is now the Japanese
Cultural Center.
Andrews Barracks -- off Finckensteinallee, a cobblestone
street lined with massive old lilac trees -- is now part of
Germany's national archives, which uses buildings that once
housed U.S. soldiers. The old chapel at Andrews is a library.
Nearby, at McNair Barracks -- which once housed
combat-arms soldiers -- the blue curtains that hung in
Army billets during the Cold War still covered the windows
in July 2000.
And other signs remained on some of the old, pastel yellow
buildings, including the "Berlin Bde. Aid Station," and the
"Mann Fitness Center."
A German developer is building a large housing area on half
of the former barracks complex. The other half, used before
the Allied occupation as a manufacturing center for
electrical components for radar and sonar, remains under
historical protection, Bowman said.
That half includes the former U.S. Army Starlite Enlisted
Club, the Berlin Bde. parade ground, clock tower and troop
barracks.
"Those buildings can be renovated," Bowman said, "but
their outsides must remain intact." McNair's former Rod
and Gun Club and "Stars and Stripes" store have been
combined to form a local German citizens' museum. Under
an organization called Initiativkreis, its members
-- former Berlin Bde. employees -- keep the memory of
the Allies' presence in Berlin alive.
The international development firm that is expected to
build homes on the other half of the former barracks
complex, "wants us to remain here," said archivist Ray
Dutt, "to draw American visitors here to learn about
the city's history from 1945 to 1994."
The museum exhibits focus largely on the civilians who
worked for the Allies, said Dutt, who worked for the
U.S. military for 24 years. And it's intended as a place to
which former soldiers and civilians of the occupied city
can return, reminisce and share their own stories.
Outside, numerous signs from the former active post
decorate the white-frame structure, among them a sign
that reads: "Berlin Brigade Employment Office."
Dutt, who recently welcomed seven 1947 veterans to the
museum, is among seven German citizens who operate the
museum and pay 800 Deutschmarks annually, about
$400, to rent the building.
In 1994, there were 7,000 local nationals working for
the Allies, Dutt said. "The Americans were one of our
largest employers. Between 1945 and 1994, some
250,000 Germans worked for the Allies here. So our
hearts will always be with them."
Across the street from McNair, the Berlin Bde. motor
pool, maintenance area and gas storage area are now
the largest garden store and home-improvement center
in Berlin.
The former AFN-Berlin complex was torn down and
replaced by a housing area. Harnick House, the former
officers club, the former U.S. Dahlem Guest House, and
the Commandanteur, where the Allies came together
for their meetings, were all taken over by Berlin's Free
University, Bowman said.
Several sets of quarters in the former Dahlem U.S.
government housing area today house U.S. Embassy
employees. And the former U.S. military hospital is now
a German hospital. The Von Steuben Center that was a
U.S. warehousing complex is similarly used today by
the Germans.
"Every replacement part, every bullet, all the housing
and the furniture were paid for by the German people.
Most people don't realize that," said Bowman. "We had
a higher standard of living as U.S. soldiers in Berlin
because we weren't paying for it. Because we were an
occupying force, U.S. taxpayers did not pay for it."
Turner Barracks -- where the Berlin Bde.'s armor was
housed -- was leveled and will soon be the site of
exclusive condos, said COL Thomas Fosnacht, senior
liaison officer in Berlin, who worked as a translator
and analyst for the U.S. commandant in Berlin from
1978 to 1982.
Potsdamer Platz was once no-man's land, home to a
mound of dirt that was Hitler's bunker and site of the
Brandenburg Gate. Checkpoint Charlie was just down
the road. The House at Checkpoint Charlie museum is
still where it was before the Wall came down,
Fosnacht said.
Now, there's no Checkpoint Charlie. However, a copy
of the famous "You're now leaving the American Sector"
sign that stood near the checkpoint remains, and two
large portraits of men in uniform -- one American,
one Russian -- hang high above the former demarcation
line between the U.S. and Soviet sectors.
The duty train has been integrated into the S-Bahn line
that was once the East German train line. And the
S-Bahns and U-Bahns travel all over the city.
"Those who weren't here during the Cold War can't
really understand what it was like," Hammersen said.
"You couldn't just drive or take the train to Dresden,
Leipzig, the Czech Republic, the Baltic states or
Ukraine. We take that for granted today."
Hammersen, who came to Germany for the first time
in 1954, when his father was with Seventh Army HQs.,
then in Stuttgart, returned in the 1970s as a young
officer. He pulled tours in Germany in the '80s and
'90s as well. "This is my sixth tour in Germany,"
he said.
Hammersen was in Berlin in November 1999, too,
during the 10th anniversary of the Wall's demise.
"Some 40,000 people were in the Brandenburg Gate
area," he recalled. "They asked me, 'Is that a real U.S.
Army uniform or a costume?' I said, 'It's real.'
"They said, 'But we don't have any U.S. soldiers here.'
I said, 'Yes, a few,'" Hammersen said. "Then they
said, 'Thank you,' not to me, but to all the soldiers,
'for sticking with us all these years.' When we left,
hundreds of thousands of Germans turned out for
ticker-tape parades to show their thanks for a job
well done."
Every soldier who served in Berlin can be proud of
the role he or she played in bringing an end to the
Cold War, President Bill Clinton told the thousands
of people, among 4,000 troops he reviewed in July
1994, when the colors of the Berlin Brigade were
cased.
U.S. soldiers married Berliners and raised
German-American children. They sang German songs
at volksfests, drank beer with Berliners in local
bars, and shopped along the famous
Kurfurstendamm, lined with Berlin's finest
restaurants, nightclubs and shops.
They lived in a city called "the most pro-American
city in the World." For those soldiers, "the Cold War
was palpable, the contrasts between communism
and capitalism were visible, and the pain of West
Berliners separated by the Wall was very real," said
historians Robert Grathwol and Donita Moorhus in
their book "American Forces in Berlin, 1945-1994."
"Soldiers carried home to the States an experience of
Germany that continued to affect their lives," the
historians said. "Many stayed in touch with friends
made during their tour. Many retained an interest in
German affairs. Most never forgot. It would be
difficult to design an educational exchange program
that left such an impact -- on both sides."
Today, there are 30,000 native English speakers in
Berlin, Hammersen said. "There's such a large U.S.
contingent living in Berlin, in fact, that the German
papers run a daily segment in English."