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3: THE MATERIALITY OF THE BERLIN WALL and members of the allied forces were allowed to cross the border here (Klausmeier and Schmidt 2004:163). In October 1961 the crossing was the site of a near confrontation between the Americans and the Soviets and tanks were facing each other across the border (Taylor 2006: 412). Today the site is a hot spot for Berlin Wall tourism. Although the wall and the crossing infrastructure was removed here in 1990 a reconstruction of the 1960s US Army control hut has been located just inside what used to be the American Zone complete with an American flag and bags of sand stacked to create protection from enemy fire. A US army sign is also located near the control hut stating “You are entering the American sector. Carrying weapons off duty forbidden. Obey traffic rules” in English, Russian, French and German. There is also a stall offering visa stamps. Two large photos have also been placed on either side of the former border, a picture of an American soldier looking into former East Berlin and an East German border guard looking back from the other side. The line of the border, as in most part of the inner city, is marked along the ground with a cobbled line. Located here is also the Museum Haus am Checkpoint Charlie, something I will return to later in this chapter. I’m standing outside Friedrichstraße Station. People are rushing past, all with a purpose and a place to be. During the division of Berlin, Friedrichstraße station acted as a railway crossing between East and West. A complex system of corridors, steps and platforms kept separated to make sure people did not sneak across, a labyrinth of control. A structure that was closely connected to the Berlin Wall during the Cold War period, at least for those who used to cross it was the Tränenpalast, or Palace of Tears, a large hall at the Friedrichstraße Station. This was one of the main crossings between East and West Berlin both for Germans and people from other nationalities. The name refers to the many tearful goodbyes that were said inside the hall before those who were crossing over to West Berlin went through passport control here. There were several different windows for passport control, one for visitors, one for ‘Inhabitants of capitalist states’, one for inhabitants of West Berlin and a separate window for diplomats. After going through the controls in the hall travellers were routed through a series of corridors underneath the station to get to the train to West Berlin (Klausmeier and Schmidt 2004:146). The trains that ran in East Berlin were made completely separate from the train system in West Berlin. The train and underground system, which before 1961 had been one for the whole city of Berlin, was severed and separated in two parts so successfully that by the fall of the wall in 1989 they functioned as 61
AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE IRON CURTAIN two completely different systems. By keeping the different areas separate and positioning passport control posts along the way it was almost impossible to get on a train to West Berlin without permission. The station has now been completely refurbished and looks like any other station with no visible traces of its former segregated layout. The Palace of Tears was used as a concert hall until 2006 and has since 2011 housed the exhibition ‘Border Experiences – Everyday life in divided Germany’ by the Stiftung Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. This exhibition aims to provide “a vivid insight into life in the shadow of division and the border” (Stiftung Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland website 2012). When I interview Nina in London, where she now lives, some of her clearest memories of the wall relates to the Friedrichstraße Station and the Palace of Tears. This was the place where she used to help people escape over from East to West Berlin. She was a student in Berlin during in the early 1960s and through the university she got involved in helping people cross the border. “I was given some passports that I needed to smuggle over to East Berlin and then give them to those who were trying to escape”, she tells me. Often they met in a flat where she handed the passports over and explained how the crossing worked. The passports were of different nationalities such as West German, English and Swedish. “I remember one time I turned up and the person looked nothing like the passport photo that was meant to be used. The girl in the photo had blond hair while the East German girl who was going to use the passport had really dark hair. We had little time so we had to improvise and covered her hair in flour to make it lighter. Amazingly it worked.” She laughs at the story now but remember it being frightening at the time. The last time she went over to help someone across she soon discovered that she was being followed. Zigzagging through the streets around Friedrichstraße Station she managed to lose the man following her in order to get through the Friedrichstraße passport control and onto the train to West Berlin as soon as possible without being caught. That was her last passport trip over to East Berlin (Nina 2008, pers. comm.). Today the station looks just like any other station. Apart from the Palace of Tears, which is actually located just next to the main station building, there are no traces of the division. I try to figure out what platforms may have belonged to what trains, east- or westbound and what corridors that were out of bounds from those in the East but it is difficult. Not even the passage between the station building and the Palace of Tears seems to remain. As I 62
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An Archaeology of the Iron Curtain
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An Archaeology of the Iron Curtain
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Contents Acknowledgements 11 CHAPTE
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The end of a journey 212 Sammanfatt
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Page 16 and 17: CHAPTER 1 Introduction Standing on
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Page 22 and 23: 1: INTRODUCTION where the observer
Page 24 and 25: 1: INTRODUCTION former Iron Curtain
Page 26 and 27: 1: INTRODUCTION criticism from othe
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Page 30 and 31: 1: INTRODUCTION World War II dividi
Page 32 and 33: CHAPTER 2 A physical metaphor Concr
Page 34 and 35: 2: A PHYSICAL METAPHOR established
Page 36 and 37: 2: A PHYSICAL METAPHOR The changing
Page 38 and 39: 2: A PHYSICAL METAPHOR the events t
Page 40 and 41: 2: A PHYSICAL METAPHOR As time has
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Page 85 and 86: 402 Kojsko Hum 402 THE OSIM
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AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE IRON CURTAIN
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CHAPTER 5 Case Study 2 The Czech/Au
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5: CASE STUDY 2: THE CZECH/AUSTRIAN
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Figure 55: Bunker near the crossing
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Figure 59: Military map from 1980 o
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Figure 77-78: Painting inside the f
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CHAPTER 6 An archaeology of the Iro
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6: AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE IRON CURTA
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Figure 102: Fence and Watch Tower a
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Sammanfattning (Summary in Swedish)
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SAMMANFATTNING En fysisk metafor I
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SAMMANFATTNING komst och kunskapsf
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SAMMANFATTNING Fältstudier av läm
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SAMMANFATTNING som försöker ta si
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SAMMANFATTNING mets dilemma”. Han
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Södertörn Doctoral Dissertations
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33. Sofie Bedford, Islamic activism
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67. Anne Kaun, Civic Experiences an
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Stockholm Studies in Archaeology Se
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29. LINDGREN, Christina. 2004. Män
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The Iron Curtain was seen as the di
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