Living and writing on a boat
Angie Escaped to The West, Just
14 years old, she took the U-Bahn with her mother and then they took the wrong train…
I live on a boat with the First Mate, the two of us sailing our way slowly round the world. Tunisia, Morocco, Cuba, Colombia, the Galapagos Islands, the Gambier and Austral Islands, to name but a handful of off-beat places we’ve sailed into.
We get to meet all sorts of interesting people along the way and a few months ago we met Angie and her husband. We’ve become good friends not least because they were live-aboards for many years and have some great yarns of their life afloat around the world. They’ve run their own charter business and they’ve crewed yachts for billionaires.
But this story of Angie’s is not about the sea.
It’s about the underground. The Berlin underground — U-Bahn.
Angie was born in Germany and her story is fascinating. I remember the Berlin Wall being erected, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the day Kennedy was assassinated. I remember the Cold War news stories about East Germans trying to escape to West Germany in pursuit of a life of freedom — and getting shot in the process. And now we have what appears to be another Cold War in the making.
There are many stories like Angie’s, but this is hers, this is how she was able to set a free course in life and eventually become a live-aboard.
It’s probable that most of you who read this far will not have been born when the Cold War was real, so here’s a little bit of history to set the scene.
The carve-up of Berlin
At the end of the Second World War Berlin was a divided city, as was Germany itself.
The Allied occupation of Germany following World War II was a period during which the victorious Allies asserted joint authority and sovereignty over all of Germany, commonly known as Allied-occupied Germany, which comprised all territories formerly controlled by the German Reich west of the Oder–Neisse line that had declared the downfall of Nazi Germany at the death of Adolf Hitler.
The City of Berlin was located within the Soviet-controlled area of Germany. The Western Allies (US, UK, France) held a tenuous grip on Berlin, occupying the western two thirds of the city, while the Soviet Union occupied the eastern third — all embedded within the Soviet-controlled part of Germany.
Then in 1949, the Soviet Union formally established the German Democratic Republic (GDR), also known as East Germany. The GDR was a communist state that was closely allied with the Soviet Union.
The United States and its allies established the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), also known as West Germany.
This formal division of Germany was a consequence of the Cold War.
Berlin remained divided into four sectors.
Life in East Germany was very different from life in the West. While people in the West had more freedom and opportunity, people in the East were living under a dictatorship. The government controlled all aspects of life, and people were not allowed to express their opinions or criticize the government. Like Russia today.
The East German secret police — the ‘Stasi’ — had informers in every building, every street and workplace. Children were encouraged to inform on their parents for having counter-revolutionary views. The state set child against parent, wife against husband, friend against friend.
Despite these restrictions, many people managed to find ways to express themselves and their beliefs. Artists, writers, and musicians found ways to create work that reflected the reality of life in East Germany.
People adapted, survived and many escaped.
A plan takes shape for Angie
Angie had been born in early 1946 in the ruins of Berlin, in the Russian Sector. Angie’s father had been killed very late in the war and his wife Greta was left to bring up two daughters alone — newborn Angie and six years old Gisela.
Thankfully they had managed to hide out and evade the Russians during the fall of Berlin when just being a female of whatever age was a death sentence. By the mid-1950s Greta had built a life of sorts in dysfunctional East Berlin for herself and two children.
But life was becoming increasingly challenging. Food was difficult to obtain and daily existence was a severe grind. In 1958, Angie’s sister Gisela who was by then twenty years old, left East Berlin and moved to Munich in West Germany.
By 1960 the Cold War had intensified further. East Germans were fleeing to the West in droves even though crossing the border (and sectors in East Berlin) was technically illegal without the travel papers which were almost impossible to obtain.
Greta determined to take Angie to the West. But the screws were being tightened as the East German Government (and the Soviets) became alarmed at the mass emigration and defections. 50% of the fleeing refugees were the skilled and technically qualified ‘middle class’ and intelligentsia, depriving East Germany of its educated human capital.
In the years before the Wall was built, more than 100,000 East Germans traveled to work in West Berlin on the East German-operated S-Bahn urban railway and the U-Bahn subway, while 10,000 West Berliners — from highly paid surgeons to theatre and opera workers — continued to work in East Berlin.
There were recognised routes to the Western sectors of the city and the major transit points were closely monitored. One route to West Berlin used the U-Bahn (subway), but the U-Bahn stations near the border were closely watched by Stasi agents.
The preparations for escape needed time and great care.
So, slowly over a period of months Greta carefully sold off items of furniture to people she trusted. The last and most treasured of her possessions was a dinner service carrying the family monogram. This she gave to Erich, a close family friend.
As their last day in East Berlin approached, she packed a small case with essentials for herself and a small case for Angie. Any large — or too many — travel cases would be seen as suspicious.
The story was that they were going to stay with family for a couple of days, of course within East Berlin.
Border crossings
Before the first block of the Berlin Wall was laid in 1961, travel between the Eastern and Western parts of Berlin was unrestricted, although Soviet and East German authorities increasingly imposed limitations on major transit points between the halves of the city.
In December 1957, East Germany established a new passport law that reduced the overall number of refugees leaving Eastern Germany.
With no physical barrier and subway train access still available to West Berlin, such measures were ineffective. The Berlin sector border was essentially a “loophole” through which Eastern Bloc citizens could still escape. The 3.5 million East Germans who had left by 1961 totalled approximately 20% of the entire East German population. — Wikipedia
Anyone caught trying to escape East Germany would be arrested and imprisoned for ‘flight from the republic’. In some cases, they might even be sentenced to death — for example if they held an important government job or knew state secrets — and almost anything to do with the government was a state secrets. Yes, even the menus in the workers’ canteens. So, escape was a very risky proposition.
But for those who were willing to take the risk, the Bahnhof Zoo metro station provided one way out.
This station was located near the Berlin Zoo, and it was easy to get lost in the crowds of people and slip over into West Berlin undetected as it was not one of the major transit stations such as Friedrichstrasse but that was flooded with Stasi agents as was another, Potsdamerplatz. In addition, there were a number of other subway stations located close to the border that could be used for escape purposes.
The timing of their escape was just before the erection of the Berlin Wall — literally a wall which was a hard division between East and West Berlin, a wall which would survive for 28 years from 1961 to 1989.
There is a very good map graphic of the Berlin Wall here.
So then, in 1960, pre-Wall, it was still possible to cross the border with great care and planning.
The journey
Greta and Angie had to get to Bahnhof Zoo from their home near Bernauer Strasse. They would be traveling on the U-Bahn all the way and line changes would be required, but Greta was not familiar with the U-Bahn west of Potsdamerplatz.
The day arrived and one cold October morning with frost glittering on the pavements, just as the morning rush hour was starting, they boarded a U-Bahn ‘D’ line train at Bernauer Strasse, near where they lived. They didn’t know it then but less than a year later the Wall would be built across the middle of Bernauer Strasse, splitting its community.
Their journey to Bahnhof Zoo would take an hour or so if there were no problems. Greta was understandably nervous and had explained to Angie the need for care and to avoid speaking to anyone.
At Alexanderplatz interchange, they disembarked. It is a big interchange between the ‘D’ and ‘A’ lines and they were unsure of directions because there were no signs to help commuters. The authorities had removed them. If commuters didn’t know where they were and where they were going then they had no business being there. That was a reality of life in East Berlin.
Direction?
Greta asked a man on the platform which side of the ‘A’ line platform she should use for Bahnhof Zoo.
He looked at them both carefully, noting their cases. The woman was obviously confused. Then he pointed to the other platform.
They crossed the line using the overpass tunnel and boarded the next train on the ‘A’ line. As they sat down in the carriage the train juddered and moved away from the platform. An elderly woman seated opposite looked at Greta carefully and asked quietly:
“Wo gehen Sie?”
“Nach Bahnhof Zoo.”
The woman shook her head and pointed to the other platform, just disappearing behind them. Greta explained that a man had given them directions and that she was on the right train. Who was telling her the truth?
The woman shook her head again. “Stasi” the woman mouthed.
The man had deliberately directed Greta and Angie back towards the heart of East Berlin, towards Pankow. By now the train was moving quickly through the tunnel, the sparks flashing from the old rails. Then, a couple of minutes later it started to slow and then stopped at Luxemburgplatz U-Bahn station. The woman opposite inclined her head in urgency. “Geh, schnell!”
Greta wasted no time. She grasped Angela’s hand and tugged her off the train. They crossed to the other side and ten minutes later they passed back through Alexanderplatz interchange. Then, after another nerve-wracking change at Gleisdreck they were on the ‘B’ line. On this line they would be able to disembark at Bahnhof Zoo.
Thirty minutes later they disembarked at Bahnhof Zoo. They climbed the steps up to the exit, passing through the barriers unchallenged. They mixed with the crowds of commuters outside and a few minutes slipped across the border into West Berlin and a new life.
Aftermath
Once they were in the American sector of Berlin it was nevertheless difficult for East Germans to travel to West Germany using any of the three road corridors through East Germany. Greta and Angie were refugees.
Greta and Angie were re-united with Gisela in Munich six weeks later.
A couple of years later, Greta heard through friends that Erich had been arrested and jailed for a year. This was because he was in possession of a dinner service which carried the monogram of a family which was known to have left East Berlin illegally, and he had clearly assisted in their escape by not advising the authorities.
This was of course the dinner service that Greta had given him.
Sadly, an estimated 140 people were killed trying to escape to West Berlin over the next two decades. The number is disputed though those known to have died have memorials in the city today.
The end of a dreadful period of German history
On 9 November 1989, the Wall fell.
But parts remain to remind us of that time.
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