Gardening in an exclave

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It doesn’t matter what side of the Wall they live on, Berliners everywhere love their summerhouses and gardens. The Fichtewiese allotments are unique because they occupy an exclave, which means they’re in West Berlin but surrounded on all sides by East Berlin territory. To reach their gardens, the owners have to walk through the death strip and can only make the trip at certain times of the day.

Marianne Schemmel had one of the allotments. She still has vivid memories of the routine, and talks about how it just became a part of normal life.

locations

Kolonie Fichtewiese, Uferpromenade, 13587 Berlin

showtime
5

latitude
52.58547

longitude
13.211059

date

1976
Double agent's cover blown

Heinrich Burger’s cover as a double agent is blown. A spokesman for the West Berlin SPD, he was spying for both the Stasi and the West Berlin intelligence services. He is sentenced to seven years in jail, but is released two years later as part of an exchange of spies, and moves to East Berlin. The passing of time has given Heinrich a different perspective on his actions.

Contemporary Witnesses, Politics, West, East

02:18
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- MD
May 18, 1976
9th SED conference: cementing the divide

As well as increasing social spending, the 9th SED party conference (18-22 May 1976) also agrees a new manifesto. Designed to cement the GDR’s ideological separation from the West, the document does away with any mention of German unity.

Politics, East

00:37
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April 23, 1976
Palace of the Republic opens

The Palace of the Republic opens in East Berlin with a celebration for its builders, technicians, engineers, architects, and anyone else who was involved in its construction. Two days later it opens to the public. The building is home to the People’s Chamber (the parliament of the GDR) and is also a conference and events centre. Built on the site of the old city palace, the imposing structure is the new jewel in East Berlin’s crown. Caretaker Bernd Wolfgang spent weeks preparing everything for the grand opening. In this film he talks about his first days on duty in the palace.

Contemporary Witnesses, Everyday Life, East

02:49
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January 17, 1976
Concorde lands in Tegel

Concorde, Air France’s supersonic airplane, travels from Paris to Berlin for the first time in 1976. Some 15,000 West Berliners brave the cold at Tegel airport to witness history in the making.

Everyday Life, West

00:43
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1976
The Wall turns white

Work on the Wall never seems to end. Money keeps getting ploughed into what was already a very expensive structure. The fourth-generation Wall, as its latest incarnation is known, is designed to last longer and make it harder for people to escape. But the rows of gleaming white slabs turn out to have an unwanted side effect: they are the perfect blank canvas. Artists from all over the world come to unleash their creativity on the West Berlin side of the Wall.

Border, West, East

00:24
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1976
Wolf Biermann and Lothar Loewe expelled

The GDR does not take kindly to criticism. East Berlin singer-songwriter Wolf Biermann has been banned from appearing in the GDR for the past 11 years. Then, in November 1976, completely out of the blue, he receives permission to perform in the West. But after he gives a concert in Cologne, the GDR authorities announce that he will not be allowed to return home. Lothar Loewe, a reporter for West German broadcaster ARD, is among those to sense that the mood in East Berlin is shifting. When he gives a less-than-rosy report of the situation on a December edition of ARD’s Tagesschaunews show, the GDR authorities waste no time in expelling him. The comments that led to their decision went something like this: “Everyone knows full well that border troops are under strict orders to shoot people as if they were mere rabbits.”

Border, Politics, Opposition, Culture, West, East

03:43
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1977
East Berlin struck by coffee crisis

In an effort to save Western currency, the GDR creates a new brand of coffee. Kaffee-MIX is ground coffee combined with roasted peas, rye, barley and sugar beet. It quickly earns itself a nickname: Instant Erich. Peter Pragal, then a correspondent for the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, was living in East Berlin with his family at the time of the coffee crisis.

Contemporary Witnesses, Everyday Life, East

01:42
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April 1977
Hotel Metropol

The Hotel Metropol opens in East Berlin. Guests pay in Western currency and enjoy Western comforts in the heart of the GDR. Helga Lindner works at the hotel, in the team responsible for looking after the (Western) guests.

Contemporary Witnesses, Everyday Life, East

01:56
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1977
The German Autumn

In 1977, during what became known as the German Autumn, the RAF terrorist group plunges West Germany into turmoil. The West Berlin police get involved in helping to hunt down the people who kidnapped Hanns Martin Schleyer, president of an employers’ association. Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin, two RAF terrorists being held in custody, commit suicide when they hear that the hostages on a hijacked Lufthansa plane have been freed in Mogadishu, Somalia. Birgit Roehl from West Berlin was one of the 86 hostages freed that day. On 19 October, the body of Hanns Martin Schleyer is found. He was murdered by the RAF.

Contemporary Witnesses, Politics, West

01:11
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November 01, 1977
Expulsion of Pannach, Kunert and Fuchs

In November 1977 the Free German Youth gathers in East Berlin to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the Russian revolution. At the same time, a year since Wolf Biermann’s expulsion from the GDR, East Berlin’s cultural life is losing its lifeblood. Anyone who criticises the state is promptly banished to the West. Singer-songwriters Gerulf Pannach and Christian Kunert, and the author Jürgen Fuchs all suffer this fate.

Politics, Opposition, East

00:47
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location

September 1980
S-Bahn strike

East Berlin’s Reichsbahn operates West Berlin’s S-Bahn network. That means Reichsbahn owns all tracks and stations in the West, and employs all S-Bahn staff regardless of which side of the Wall they work on. West Berlin Reichsbahn employees go on strike in September 1980. They want better wages and working conditions. The Reichsbahn management won’t negotiate, so freight trains and the S-Bahn come to a halt and workers occupy signal boxes. Elfriede Dube is working the day this happens. She decides to side with her colleagues and becomes one of over 200 strikers to lose their jobs in the aftermath.

Contemporary Witnesses, Everyday Life, Politics, West, East

02:10
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Gardening in an exclave

locations

information

locations

Double agent's cover blown

9th SED conference: cementing the divide

Palace of the Republic opens

Concorde lands in Tegel

The Wall turns white

Wolf Biermann and Lothar Loewe expelled

East Berlin struck by coffee crisis

Hotel Metropol

The German Autumn

Expulsion of Pannach, Kunert and Fuchs

Steinstücken exclave

Rubbish from the West in the GDR

Rubbish from the West in the East

Commuting between East and West

Berlin before the Wall

S-Bahn strike