THE CHINA MAIL,
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1961.
THE UGLY GAPING WOUND A first-hand
THAT DIVIDES A CITY
THE
British European Airways Viscount banked low as it left the narrow air corridor and lined up carefully for the run into Tempelhof . airfield. There was slight jolt and screech of rubber against con- grete and we were in Berlin.
The hour's flight from cold and foggy Frank- furt had been made in an almost straight line and at a carefully-main- tained altitude over more than 100 miles of Soviet - occupied terri- tory. Despite this, Tempelhof was busy with aircraft flying in and but through the 189
her air corridors from Humburg and Man-
nover.
The three of us from Hongs kung-Peter Poon of the Sing Too Man . Warton Tere, chief
and myself
German with a crew mat and in
4 Ivy League suit, thrust his
GLITTERING
stienses,
West Berliners, some using step ladders, crowd up to the border for a glimpse of loved ones in the Eastern sector. At right is an apartament that has had its windows blocked up.
In
report by China Mail writer George Liu who last week was
!
Our man
In
Berlin
with
which
the
Mile after mile stretches, I was struck by the uneantry camera and cursed at the failing broken only at check-puints silence of the crowds. There Halt, where trams of East German was no shouting or milling Volkspolizet, "Vopos for short, around. The people talked
And it was not only Le of Pat Asia New Agenrits way unerringly towards us and
stand behind barriers with
people who provided the high introduced himself In a Cam- pictorial section,
Russian-made sub-machine guns
hushed tones, not unlike As he rushed us through the
the tension drama at the crisis ceo- somed ourselves
t th brittge Dut
accent. His name, he formalitles and collected our
slung casually over biggy uni- manner D1 a gathering et a tre of the world. There, on the crowded plane and made un
he asked about and
us into a low, sleek Mercedes- Restaurants serve packed tables forms. On the pavements and funeral. West German police right, waa an example of the certainly for the giant, Bunker uid, was Frank Harloch and
he welcomed us to West Berlin was told of our flight halfway Benz which sped
mouth-watering us through with
meals, windows in the Western sectors
men in glusay knee-high boots ruthlessness ke teriminal building.
on behalf of the Federal Press around the world on board the tree-lined streets of Berlin sparkling wines from the Rhine that border the wall, Berliners patrolled up and down the barricade had been built.
af Lufthau' Agency
luxurious Bucing to our hotel.
and the whose families and Moselle valleys,
were trapped border zones brmed only with Then he ushered 720 jetliner.
gay Berlin ends when the structure was sudden truncheons and its. nightlife of West Berlin,
Lugers. They the dawn. Seemingly ly thrown up on August 13 too, whenever the occasion position as the gravest crisis with
spoke point in the world today, non-noring the crude upstarts on keep a constant, often hopeless, arest,
quietly to other side of "The Wall," vigil throughout the day
and people. tinues to wear the glittering
West Berliners enscentrate on depp into night. robes of Germany's Capital
We continued our walk on- the good life. elty.
noticed by the throngs whose fixed stores were directed at the windows in the Soviet sector.
uf
There. trough the confusion airport, big
and young Gerraany.
Information
T
Bernauer Straße
The Versohnungskirche-a church bricked up by the Communists.
despite
day--
Or so it appeared. As we stepped out on the pavements of the Kurfurstendamin, where
dashing multi-coloured
neon
TEARS
Binoculars
BRICKED-UP
the
A brautiful old church, the Versohnungskirche, had been walled in. The jagged bits of class on top of the wall nimost reached the apex of the entrance's Gothle arch. The barrier had been erected so close to the door that even those in the Boviot sector are A barred from admittance. sad-faced Christ as abova the bricked-up entrance faced the throngs in the Westarn sector and tied bis hand in mute benediction....
To most Berliners the little university town, hundreds of miles away, named Born, is the
and sest of the government for the signs turned night into day and
step-ladders possessions here. lime being only. One
are prized Their owners are able to raise soon-the reins at the Federal RF strains of Bavarian drink-
level of above the Kemble will surely be handed songs and American jazz themselves
out of glass- the barbod wire and broken The Wall is n news photu. back to the nation's leaders Hunted faintly
fronted restaurants and night- glass to search the windows of grapher's ideal hunting ground. lodged in their rightful place,
clubs, the world's troubles their former homes for rare At every turn we were con- the magnificent sprawling
Frank, our guide, called us building, the Reichstag.
Elimpses of a wife, n son, a re- fronted with subjects of whien Te seemed very far away, indeed.
The next day we were to see alive or a friend.
photographs have appeared in together. We climbed back Into think otherwise, for true
Walking slowly behind the the front pages of practically the Volkswagen microbus and Herliner, would be tantamount Berlin in a different light.
crowd in the American sector, every newspaper in the Western drove back gladly to decadent, I heard a muffled shout, bloc. A popular impression of capitalistic, happy West Berlin the pri Several yards away, a massive Germans outside the country ts whose people spurn German Labourer with bda Lat they are a race of stoltd, vileges of a classicss Communist
infant son carrol-topped
Imperturbable people who rarely state for the pleasures of be- reveal their emotions. The longing to the human race. Our one burly arm, fed his net
driver drove quickly through and shook it allently at those tragedy written on the faces we
appoint- across the barrier. Minutes saw that memorable afternoon the streets. We had
Warren ment with "Don Glovarml" at before,
a former neighbour dispelled that notion. Ind dropped a note wrapped Lee snapped away with his the new Opera House....
to treason.
الله
COLD
REALITY
"Bons is the capital now." a taxi driver fold me one day. "because Adenauer lives there. But everyone knows where the real heart of Germany is." He spake In tones
hlm that set
Frank Horinch was waiting in West down as a
partisan of Berlin's Mayor and Chanceller the lobby when we come down Konrad Adenauer's opponent in early that morning. Bundled In the wallon's recent Willie Brandt.
LATEST
Hongkong winter elections, our warmest
cuals and cardigans, we walk- the chill autumn out frato morning ankl were driven 202 where the American, British und French sectors meet necupled by Sovle! Russla.
FASHIONS
flint
in
around a stone with the news
that the Vopog had "evacuated” his wife from thele home nesr the border. This giant of a ansin stood helplessly for a whlic. and then turned and walked away, heedless of the tearn streaming down his face. Here, was cold reality. Ginne
A mile or so further Ир was the sophistication of the trio of young lads stepped up Kurfurstendamm, the musia 0 the foot of a bricked-up and the gully. In their building and propped up a place stood a rough Iruelure wreath of purple gladioli tied of brick and mortar fourteen
with a huge band of black silk. feet hight: twenty-five miles This was the spot where one of long and topped all the way
their friends, not too long age, with agged broken tass and had hurtled to his death after barbed wire.
breaking away from a rooftop struggle with a Vopo.
Meanwhile Berliners, jauntily and with determination, uphold the traditions that have for yware set them apart, almost as a row, from the rest of the Germans, Their Women fre elegantly wrapped in the finest furs, the latest fashions from Paris and Milan, and shop
The Wall cuts indiscriminate windows gliter brightly with aty, like an ugly open wound. abundaner at expensive Jewel-
through one at Europe's most lery.
Bonusitul citles, Streets are "The men, too. are clad the
styles, ended abruptly, cemeteries are latest Continental
17
HUSHED
halved and brick-brown homes Several hundred yards away ond apartment buildings are lay a pile of withered wreaths split so that their entrances and flowers, murking the place open on the Western sectors where two other East Germans while the rooms are in Commu- had died in another attempteu nist territory.
escape to the Western sector.
George Liu (right) and Warren Lee of Pan Asia News Agency at the South Berlin border.
HTEL KEMPING HÅNDPOINzuria få pose din subtellt
MAUSIEN
HOTE
A graphic picture of the Wall that runs indiscriminately through Berlin, cutting streets, house and
sometimes families, in half. Here it cuts the city's tram`lines,
The sally-lit Kurfurstendamm-one of the many beautiful Berlin streets where night life ende, The dawn