Memories of A Veteran Part The 7th

Kia Ora, from New Zealand Friends and Colleagues

The Wall

Two Germanys

Welcome back to Part The 7th of my journey through life as a young British Soldier and more recently as a young British Officer. Today I tell the story of how I arrived in Berlin during the Cold War when Germany was two countries, the German Democratic Republic (GDR - East Germany) and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG - West Germany)

The Wall Goes up

On 13th of August 1961, East German Border guards and GDR combat soldiers, between the hours of 1am and 8am on that Sunday morning, began digging up the paving slabs along the allied and Soviet post-war demarcation line of central Berlin. In their place they Positioned concrete blocks and barbed wire along the line. By 8am there were only twelve of the eighty-one streets, previously crossing between the allied and Russian military sectors, which remained open for crossing. Another five were severed shortly afterwards.

Historical record release has since shown us that the wall came as a relief to the allied powers and that they had known it was about to happen; it was generally taken as confirmation that the Soviet Union and GDR would not attempt to retake the 3 other allied sectors of Berlin; West Berlin, was therefore considered safe.

Berlin

A 112km ring, surrounded West Berlin, closing it off from surrounding East Germany for 28

years. The part that we knew as the Berlin Wall, was actually only 43km of rampart fortification running between east and west Berlin. This was a very complex fortified barrier made up of twin concrete barriers, with the control or ‘death’ strip running between them. It featured powerful floodlights, and was augmented along its length by electric fences, deep anti vehicle trenches, dog patrols on wire guides, high observation towers, concrete bunkers, machine guns on trip wired fixed lines of fire and armed East German border guards.

The Young Captain Receives Orders

You may remember that In the summer of I984, at the end of the 6th part of this series of stories, I was a newly promoted British Army Captain in the Royal Corps of Signals instructing on recruit basic training.

I left you, in that last story, at the point where I had just commanded the guard of honour, at the 1000-year-old Manx Parliament of the Isle of Man in the middle of the Irish Sea.

On return to our barracks there was a sealed envelope waiting for me, it was my next

assignment orders.

I had been ordered to get myself to West Berlin, to the British Sector Headquarters by 31 October 1984. I was being appointed as the second in command (2IC) of the UK Berlin Infantry Brigade Signal Squadron (229 Berlin Signal Squadron).

I would be accommodated in the Officers Mess of Olympic Stadium Barracks (red circle), which was the Olympic Village associated with the famous 1936 Berlin Olympic Stadium. My office (No6) would be 300 metres from there, in the old pre WWII war sports university complex, which had been occupied by the British Sector HQ, since the end of the war in 1945. As you can imagine I was hugely excited.

The Journey

When it came time,I had to travel, by car, 100km from my Yorkshire base to a ferry port on English East Coast and then take a ferry to Zeebrugge in Belgium followed by a 600km trip through Belgium, North into the then West Germany and up to a tiny place called Helmstedt 200km west of Berlin.

I would then report to the Allied Checkpoint Alpha before crossing the Inner German Border at Marienborn to enter East Germany and traverse the 200km controlled ‘corridor’ to arrive in West Berlin at Allied Checkpoint Bravo.

Protocols

In order to navigate this corridor an extremely strict protocol had to be followed. German civilians were subjected to separate protocols. As an allied soldiers, from one of the 3 powers (FR,US,UK) I reported to CP Alpha where I presented my ID card and travel documents to the British Military Police (each allied nationality was represented by their own MP staff) then issued with a Berlin Travel Document (BTD) I was given a brief on the regulations for travel and given a folder to read, which recapped the verbal brief, but also had the emergency actions to be taken if required, in an easy to follow flow chart.

Leaving CP Alpha

From CP Alpha my time out was recorded giving me 2 hours to arrive at CP Bravo. It was absolutely forbidden to stop at all on the road except in an emergency. The travel folder which was taken in the car on the journey, had a placard, which had written on it, in both German and Russian;

“I am a British Soldier of the Allied Forces I request the presence of a Russian Officer”.

The reason for this is that as the allies we did not recognise the legitimacy of the GDR and our transit control was overseen by the Russians. We were expressly forbidden to leave the vehicle or deviate from the road until recovered by an MP patrol.

Entering East Germany

After leaving CP Alpha I moved through to the Russian checkpoint at Marienborn a couple of

km further up the road. There I was stopped by a Russian soldier and I left the car, saluted the soldier and then went into a small shack to be met by a Russian Officer. The officer examined my Berlin Travel Document and my service ID card and he stamped the BTD, having recorded my details in a ledger. I then saluted the Russian sentry who raised the barriers and I then crossed the Inner German Border into East Germany, for the first time, to start a non-stop, no-deviation, 200km journey to CP Bravo.

Checkpoint Bravo

Arriving safely at Checkpoint Bravo I then went through the whole procedure in reverse order, starting with the Russian checkpoint and then booking in and handing in the travel folder at the allied MP Checkpoint Bravo,

I had arrived inside the Berlin Wall 200km inside Communist East Germany......

The Next Part

In the 8th part of this adventure we will explore the four years that followed the Young Captain's arrival in Cold War 4 Powers occupied Berlin and some of the history that he lived through.

Until then Goodnight from New Zealand Friends and Colleagues

Kia Koa

Kia aha

Hamish🧐

PART THE 8th CAN BE FOUND HERE

YOU CAN READ HERE FROM THE BEGINNING PART THE 1ST