Eastbound

167,8 km of wired fence was all it took. One huge barrier erected within days to divide first only a city, then a country and finally a continent for more than 28 years. Add another 30 years (realistically maybe 50, but I'd rather like to sound like an optimist than a realist) to get that spatial separation between East and West out of people's heads. Ironically – no – sadly, the aftermath of every war, cold or not, always outnumbers the immediate pain it caused in the first place. Or so it seems.

   So while a wall can be physically torn down, maybe even vaporized, its mental self still ghostly lingers around for a while. Walking the streets of Berlin you won't find much left of what originally used to be The Wall. There aren't plaques on every other piece of concrete retelling it's history but if you know your way around, retracing the geographical layout of that infamous barrier between what people provocatively called The Free West and everything beyond the equally sensational named Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart in your head, you don't need them anyway. The soil, or concrete, or bowldering beneath your feet soaked with history. Listening closely you may sense the tears people shed, the lives they lost there, the pain and sorrow they felt. The perversity of human capabilities. 

  “Niemand hat die Absicht eine Mauer zu bauen.”

   Driving down the A2 to Berlin, right after crossing the border between Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, you pass Helmstedt-Marienborn. The gently sloping hillside forest finally opens up, turning into a flat plain scenery filled with green pastures and neverending undulant wheat fields, roofed by a deep blue sky as far as the eye can see. Several hordes of white lances divide the rural idyll, seemingly misplaced. Another wind park. One turbine next to the other, as you can find them all over Northern Germany today. 2014. 1989. Time.... ah. What's time after all? An indefiniteness applied to a code of units and numbers the human mind conjured up in a desperate attempt to gain more of it by giving it a meaning, controlling it. Like it's constituted in our nature to break everything down to the core, regardless of the consequences. Without doubt one of the most fundamental inventions ever made. Whether it's a curse or blessing I dare not say. Constantly ticking, and while typing these words I catch myself thinking that those 25 years gone by since the Wall came down represent by a good chance a third of my lifetime, give or take. Mere seconds in the history of time. And it seemed just like yesterday...

   Taking the exit from the Autobahn you pass by an utopian looking gas station that appears as misplaced there as the wind turbines before entering Marienborn, the former border post that has been a historic pilgrimage center for the last 18 years. A relict of days gone by amidst the so called 'flourishing landscapes' Helmut Kohl promised in 1990. Bullshit. The grass is always, always greener on the other side. It was for at least ten more years, probably more. It still is in people's heads.

  I never visited the site, never stopped, got out of the car and walked around the abandoned buildings. I drive by on a regular basis, four, five times a year, but whenever I set my mind to get off that exit something inside takes a hold of me, frightened, scared, begging me to keep on driving – and I do. We know each other. Got a history.

   According to my Dad it was in the early days of November '87, nearly two years from the day before the Wall came down. I was 4½, not knowing this would be my last trip to the GDR, but who could have foreseen the extreme turns history would take? In my memory the East, as I used to call it with childlike innocence, consisted of nothing but a kaleidoscope of shades of grey, ranging from the light grey of the street lamp posts to the dark grey concrete every building and street seemed to be made of. Picture the Men in Grey from Michael Ende's Momo, soulless, lifeless, blending into one another, only once in a while interrupted by an off-white Trabbi passing by. Like a movie from the early days, everything in it is born between black and white.

  Those early childhood memories are rare, loose fragments you need to piece together to get the whole picture, like polaroid pictures, stills from days gone by, eventually like déjà-vus made up of stories retold by your parents mixed with your own impressions and those from the media. This one, I do remember too well.

  The sun had long been set when we finally pulled up to the checkpoint. It was a dark night, the moonlight being blocked by a thick cloud cover so typical for the dreary month of November. It fit the atmosphere at the crossing. Countless floodlights casting long shadows added up to the eerie mood, a harsh contrast between the utter dark Autobahn we just left and the blazing bright border post we now entered. There was hardly any other car there, so Dad drove straight up to the guardhouse to show our passports, exchange some money, and be gone. The border officials must have been bored that night. Or in dire need of some self-affirmation. I couldn't tell. Wouldn't judge. I didn't walk in their shoes. But the next hour turned out to be an unnecessary harassment you find too often in societies ruled by fear and force. With great power comes great responsibility...

  Three grey uniformed men lead my father into an adjacent office we couldn't get a glimpse into before the door fell shut and stayed shut for another 30 minutes. While so far the procedure didn't catch my attention, after all I was used to it, I finally put down my comic book, climbed between the front seats and looked intensely at my Mom, who tried to act like her calm self for my and her own sake, but I could sense her nervousness and anxiety. Her eyes revealed it. Minutes went by, minutes that seemed like hours. We didn't know about the inquiry Dad had to endure inside, about the extensive search of our luggage for illegal goods we might try to smuggle.

  When they finally left the office after more than half an hour the worst was yet to come. The raid of the entire car. I silently started crying when they took away my Donald Duck comic. 'You mustn't bring capitalistic propaganda literature to our country.' I didn't dare screaming. Tears welled in my eyes, blurring the bright floodlights to a dazzling white mass. The powerlessness of childhood was devastating. The powerlessness my parents must have felt I cannot imagine.

  Finally they let us go. The dark of the night welcomed us, wrapping itself around our car, soothing the fears and pains we just experienced until we finally reached our destination. I remember how that night Dad swore to himself to never set foot to the GDR again. We never would. Then 11/9/89 came around. And with it ecstatic telephone calls. Tears. Laughter. Plans to meet up with our friends after two long years of absence. I wasn't sent to bed that night, I fell asleep by myself on the couch, confused but realizing that I, as much as you can at that age, just witnessed something important, something truly meaningful. But while the actual wall is gone, existing only in our heads, its aftereffects never ceased to exist. 

  For me, it's that night in '87. The fear I felt back then is still inside me. Still haunts me, 27 years later.

  Every time I pass Marienborn.

  Taking down that Wall didn't erase our spatial separation immediately. Neither the varying inner attitudes between East and West. It does take time. To heal up as one nation. What else could you be longing for while roaming the streets of Berlin, where no one had the intention to build a wall 53 years ago...