Roads to Berlin Read online

  Roads to Berlin

  Also by Cees Nooteboom in English translation

  FICTION

  Philip and the Others

  The Knight Has Died

  Rituals

  A Song of Truth and Semblance

  Mokusei

  In the Dutch Mountains

  The Following Story

  All Souls’ Day

  Lost Paradise

  The Foxes Come at Night

  NON-FICTION

  Roads to Santiago

  Nomad’s Hotel

  Roads to Berlin

  Detours and Riddles in the Lands and History of Germany

  Cees Nooteboom

  Translated from the Dutch by Laura Watkinson

  With photographs by Simone Sassen

  An imprint of Quercus

  New York • London

  © 2012 by Cees Nooteboom

  English translation © 2012 by Laura Watkinson

  Photographs © Simone Sassen

  Glossary compiled by Jamie Bulloch

  First published in the United States by Quercus in 2013

  First published in the Netherlands as Berlijnse Notities by Uitgeverij De Arbeiderspers, Amsterdam, 1990

  Later published with additional material as Berlijn 1989-2009 by De Bezige Bij, Amsterdam, 2009

  This book was published with the support of the Foundation for the Production and Translation of Dutch Literature.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of the same without the permission of the publisher is prohibited.

  Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use or anthology should send inquiries to Permissions c/o Quercus Publishing Inc., 31 West 57th Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10019, or to [email protected].

  e-ISBN: 978-1-62365-098-8

  Distributed in the United States and Canada by Random House Publisher Services

  c/o Random House, 1745 Broadway

  New York, NY 10019

  www.quercus.com

  For Willem Leonard Brugsma

  CONTENTS

  List of Illustrations

  PART I

  Prologue: Crossing the Border

  Intermezzo in the Third Person: Vestigia pedis

  Second Intermezzo: Ancient Times

  PART II

  Berlin Suite

  Dead Aeroplanes and Eagles Everywhere

  Village within the Wall

  Rheinsberg: An Intermezzo

  Return to Berlin

  PART III

  PART IV

  A Visit to the Chancellor

  Epilogue

  Glossary including biographical and other explanatory notes

  Afterword to Part I

  Notes on this Edition

  Index

  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  The banks of the Spree near Oberbaumbrücke, West Berlin, March 1989

  The Wall at Lübars, West Berlin, April 1989

  Bismarck, Kiel

  Mikhail Gorbachev and Erich Honecker: the kiss. © Corbis

  Queue for Begrüßungsgeld (“welcome money”), West Berlin, November 1989

  Brandenburger Tor, November 4, 1989

  S.E.D. (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands) demonstration, East Berlin, November 10, 1989

  Potsdamer Platz, West Berlin, November 12, 1989

  Potsdamer Platz, West Berlin, November 12, 1989

  Marx and Engels, East Berlin, November 1989

  “Socialism with a future—S.E.D.”

  “Nobel Peace Prize for Gorbachev,” S.E.D. demonstration, East Berlin, November 10, 1989

  A Mauerspecht (wall woodpecker) pecking away. Potsdamer Platz, West Berlin, November 12, 1989

  Schlesische Straße / Puschkinallee, West Berlin, November 11, 1989

  Checkpoint Charlie, West Berlin, November 10, 1989

  Neue Zeit, East Berlin, as seen from Café Adler, West Berlin, November 1989

  Checkpoint Charlie, West Berlin, November 10, 1989

  Potsdamer Platz, West Berlin, November 12, 1989

  Polenmarkt, West Berlin, December 1989

  Potsdamer Platz, “Holland greets Berlin.” West Berlin, November 12, 1989

  Arminius. Hermannsdenkmal (Hermann Monument), Teutoburg Forest

  Socrates, Glyptothek, Munich

  Max II Monument, Munich

  Max II Monument, Munich, detail

  Michaelskirche, Munich

  Walhalla, Regensburg

  Walhalla, Regensburg

  Goethe, Walhalla, Regensburg

  Tribune, Nazi party rally grounds, Nuremberg

  Bridge over the River Oder. German–Polish border

  Election campaign, Rügen, March 1990

  “Wailing Wall,” Leipzig, March 1990

  Elections, S-Bahnhof Alexanderplatz, East Berlin, March 1990

  Marx, wall relief, East Berlin

  Dream exchange rate, East Germany, May 1990

  Falkplatz, East Berlin, April 1990

  Falkplatz, East Berlin, April 1990

  Death strip, Falkplatz, East Berlin, April 1990

  Magdeburg Cathedral, May 1990

  Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, Kyffhäuser Monument

  Goethe and Schiller, Weimar

  Neue Wache, Unter den Linden, East Berlin, May 23, 1990

  Neue Wache, Unter den Linden, East Berlin, May 23, 1990

  Schloss Sanssouci, Potsdam

  Hermann Maternstraße, East Berlin, May 1990

  Dresden, May 1990

  Belvedere, Schloss Sanssouci, Potsdam

  Soviet tanks in front of the Brandenburger Tor, unknown artist, Museum der bedingungslosen Kapitulation © Archiv für Kunst und Geschichte, Berlin

  Anselm Kiefer, Mohn und Gedächtnis, 1989, © bpk/Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof, SMB, Sammlung Marx / Jens Ziehe

  Monument in Hamburg, detail, 1991

  Schloss Rheinsberg

  Schloss Rheinsberg

  Berlin, 1997

  Potsdamer Platz, 1997

  Construction of the new Reichstag dome, 1997

  Frederick I of Prussia, Charlottenburger Tor, West Berlin

  East Berlin, 1990

  Potsdamer Platz, 1997

  Potsdamer Platz, Sony Centre, detail

  Der Löwenkämpfer by Albert Wolff, 1861, in front of Das Alte Museum, Berlin Mitte

  Weidendammer Brücke, Berlin Mitte

  Demolition of Palast der Republik, Berlin Mitte, October 2008

  Mildred Harnack, ca. 1930 © Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand / German Resistance Memorial Center, Berlin

  Tempelhof airport, October 2008

  Poster: Journey through time with the Rosinenbomber, October 2008

  Berlin, Hauptbahnhof, detail

  Schlossbrücke, Berlin Mitte

  All photographs © Simone Sassen unless otherwise indicated

  PART I

  PROLOGUE: CROSSING THE BORDER

  January 23, 1963. On either side of the Autobahn, white landscapes open out towards other parts of Germany. We have been driving down this road all day, the most unreal road in Europe, a road that does not pass through any country. No cities, no villages, just traffic signs, Tankstellen and Rasthäuser. This is driving across the face of the earth, not through a nation. It is
only when we reach Helmstedt that past and politics finally make an appearance, in the guise of their symbols: guards and guard posts, flags, barriers, signs. Slowly, they draw closer: the small buildings, the flags of America, England and France flapping in the frozen air. How could anyone have explained this future to a German thirty years ago?

  The checkpoint procedure here is straightforward. Yet another sign clearly states (to avoid any misapprehension) that we are leaving the West and entering the East. The German uniforms are the same, but different. We have to get out of the car and they send us over to a hut. A childish thought: So this is it—I look around with eager eyes, but what is there to see? I join a short queue at a low counter with a man and a woman sitting behind it. The man, booted, in uniform, is puffing out clouds of smoke. He looks cold. It is chilly in there. The woman, who is closer to the heating stove, flicks through my passport. She looks at my photo, up at me, and then back down again. Yes, it’s me. How much money am I carrying? She notes the amount on a small piece of grey paper, with a carbon copy. Do I have a camera? A radio? Foreign currency? Any coins? Everything goes down on the piece of paper, which I have to sign. Passport and paper disappear to another department. The copy goes into a drawer. I am filed away forever, with my 450 Marks, my 18 guilders, my 20 Belgian francs. Through the frosty window, I see snow-covered trees, a barrier, also covered in snow, a tall watchtower built from large tree trunks. No one is up there watching. They hand me a pink form to fill out in a different room. There are some metal chairs, but it is too cold to sit down. Later they return my passport and I have to pay some money. I notice the woman’s big black boots under the small wooden table; she is scuffing the soles across the floor. What else is there to see in this place? Not much, just a surreally thorough check that takes as much time for them as it does for us—and that is a long time.

  I pick up a newspaper from a pile. The layout is designed to mock the garish sensationalism of the West German Bild-Zeitung, and the paper has the fitting name of Neue Bild-Zeitung. The D.D.R.’s agricultural show in Tamale, northern Ghana, is attracting lots of African visitors every day. And, in Dar es Salaam, the vice-president of Tanganyika has declared that the issue of German reunification must be solved through peaceful means. Inside the newspaper, a modern West German sculpture stands alongside one from East Germany. Question: Which country is most effectively preserving the legacy of the German Nationalkultur? I think about those people in their uniforms and wonder how interested they are in their Nationalkultur. On the walls are quotes from Ulbricht and others, about peace, productivity, democracy. A biting wind is blowing on the other side of the door; this border territory lies there, naked, exposed. Cars are inspected; people show their papers; a Russian soldier walks through the snow; different flags, redder ones, are waving here; an officer in a guardhouse talks on the telephone; barriers go up and down, up and down. I read the signs: Laßt euch nicht zur Provokation gegen die D.D.R. mißbrauchen. Die D.D.R. hat den Frieden in Deutschland gerettet.1

  Big photographs of workers beside a steel furnace. Big photographs of workers in a car factory. Big photographs of Ulbricht. That is what it looks like here: drab, frozen and incredibly German.

  We are permitted to drive on. Show the passport, barrier rises, show the passport again, another barrier rises. And suddenly we are out on the other side. The same snowy landscape rolls on into the distant fog. In the woods to our right, more fences and watchtowers. And then, as we drive over a bridge, we see the shocking image of two men in white hooded suits, men made of snow, with a black dog, panting, tugging, tongue lolling. Long rifles on their shoulders, they vanish into the woods, hunting for humans. We are still driving along the same Autobahn. Sometimes, in the distance, there is the shadow of a village, a cluster of farmhouses with a small church. What are the people there doing right at this moment? Only once do we see movement: a group of whooping children, a painterly addition to the scene. And, at regular intervals, signs welcoming delegates to the party congress: Wir begrüßen die Delegierten des VI. Parteitages der S.E.D.!2 Here you can actually feel that the road is still the old Autobahn, Hitler’s highway. A small jolt after every slab of concrete: an asphalt strip. Or could it be the hatching that you see on maps in history books, those thin lines indicating conquests, decline, transformation? Roman Empires that were once Holy, principalities, republics, Third Reichs, zones? Battling against the wild, insane flurries of snow, we press on, creatures possessed by micromania, beetles scuttling across this space that history has written all over, yet where there is nothing to see.

  January 15, 1963. West Berlin. You drive down Kurfürstendamm, which is bedecked with high, white lights, to the corroded, mutilated Gedächtniskirche, and then onwards. To your surprise, you see that the West has its own ruins: magnificent, hollowed-out monuments and empty windows with no rooms behind them, chunks of fossilised war, bricked-up doors that no smiling father will ever pass through again, off for a walk with Werner the dog. The only crossing point for non-German, non-military personnel is in Friedrichstraße, but we end up at the Brandenburger Tor by mistake. Snow and moonlight. Nothing on the frozen square in front of the gate: no people, no cars. Along the edge of that space, the black columns topped by the quadriga, the triumphal chariot. Four horses race along, pulling a winged figure that holds aloft a wreath, towards the east. Beneath, a quarter of the height of the columns, the blunt teeth of the Wall. A West German policeman signals that we are not allowed to drive on. So we stay where we are and watch things not happening. Two Russian tanks stand up high on huge pedestals, a reminder of 1945. We see two Russian sentries, shadows amidst the marble.

  Friedrichstraße is not far from here. The same checks as at Helmstedt: documents, pieces of paper, money being counted, barriers, a classic copperplate engraving through which we move, remaining as human as possible. Two low walls have been erected across the road so that a driver would have to perform a dramatic swerve if he wanted to get through quickly. When all of the German boxes have been ticked, we are allowed through, and the city continues, the way cities do after walls: the same, yet different. It is probably just me being oversensitive, but it smells different here, and everything looks browner. We drive around for a while: Wilhelmstraße, Unter den Linden, names with which I have never had any personal connection, but which, simply because of the way other people say them, have gained a certain flavor, often a rather melancholy one. It makes sense that I had always imagined something very pale green when I heard the name of the street: Unter den Linden, under the lime trees. What makes less sense is assuming that the lack of green is not simply because it is winter. Buildings, more ruins, streets, Karl-Marx-Allee flanked by tall edifices. Not much traffic. Lots of neon signs. Is it a disappointment? Would I have liked it to be more dramatic? And why do I think I have any right to expect something? Two motionless soldiers stand guard in front of a monument. At Alexanderplatz, a steam train passes over a viaduct, but otherwise there is nothing to report—the occasional sign with words that look rather unread, slogans talking to themselves.

  We visit a nightclub. All of the big clubs and restaurants here are named after the capital cities of the Warsaw Pact. This one is called Budapest. It is packed. A two-man band, not Germans, plays cheerful tunes. People are doing the twist. The atmosphere is provincial, joyless. Lots of lonely girls. Three young Volksarmee officers are sitting at a table behind us, drinking a bottle of Bulgarian red. One of them stands up, raises his glass and says, “Meine Herren, zum Wohl!” A waiter in an airforce-colored jacket . . . and so on. There really is nothing to report. People look at us, just as they would in Limoges or Nyköping, but you keep asking yourself the same, inevitable questions: How many people here have families in the West? How many would like to leave? How many would like to stop others from leaving? These may be rhetorical questions but, half an hour later, when we go back through the same checkpoint, I receive a written response from the East: a small orange pamphlet with a title that sounds like a children’
s book: “Everything You Need to Know about the Wall.” It has ten short sections: 1. Where is Berlin? 2. Did the Wall just fall from the sky? 3. Was the Wall necessary? 4. What has the Wall prevented? 5. Was peace truly under threat? 6. Who lives on the other side of the Wall? 7. What is really keeping families and friends apart? 8. Does the Wall threaten anyone in any way whatsoever? 9. Who is making the situation worse? 10. Is the Wall a piece of gym equipment?

  The answer to the last question is abrupt: “Let us state this most clearly: No. This protective wall is the state border of the D.D.R. The border of a sovereign state must be respected. This is the case all over the world. Anyone who ignores this has no cause for complaint if he should come to harm.”

  A few other thoughts: How welcome is the Wall in Bonn? If everyone had left East Germany—which is how the situation was starting to look—all of that empty hinterland would be populated by Slavs. That is not an appealing thought for Germans who are still dreaming of reunification. 2. How welcome is the Wall in Moscow? Is Ulbricht a more attractive ally for them than, say, Salazar is for us? 3. How terribly German the Wall is. As a taxi driver in West Berlin put it, this could not have happened to any other people.

  January 17, 1963. Three o’clock in the afternoon. Lashed by long whips of snow, we make our way across the square in front of the station. The bare, concrete-colored concourse, which smells of East Germany, is still empty. A few English, Italian and American reporters stand around shivering in the emptiness, sustained by the rumour that Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev is going to arrive here at three o’clock or four, five, six, maybe seven . . . The cold is unbelievable.

  We walk up and down, constantly followed by the curious gazes (some shy, some aggressive) of the East Germans who are in attendance. The station is magnificent. Flags hang from long, gold-painted lances, black, red, gold, blood-red, the same flags you can see from West Berlin, on the other side of the Wall, fluttering on tall buildings and factories, flags of the moon, beyond our reach. The lances stand at an angle and look rather medieval, as if waiting for a tournament to begin. A man is busily carrying little flowerpots to decorate the stage. Khrushchev is sure to be delighted. It certainly looks impressive, like a set for a school play in Utrecht: walls hung with colored cloths, the pots with their neat little plants and, in the center, a plywood rostrum where someone will soon stand and say things that are not normally heard at school plays.