Remembering: Checkpoint Charlie
/Early in my career, I was put in charge of an international program for the military. I have already written about one adventure in Panama, but there were many around the world.
In the late 1980s, before the fall of the Berlin Wall, one such assignment took me to West Berlin. I had a staff person that lasted 2 months and had to do some damage control with the client. While spending 2 days in the city, my new staff wanted me to have dinner in East Berlin, an excursion that was surprisingly permitted despite the political tensions.
Frankly, the whole thing was odd. Although I had lived in Germany some 20 years before in the early 60s, during my father's military posting in southwest Germany, Berlin had remained an unknown world to me. With the imposing Wall and armed sentries everywhere, the city had a tense feel about it. The fact that we could simply cross into East Berlin for dinner seemed surreal given the heavy security presence.
Armed with my military IDs , we got in line at Checkpoint Charlie. With a check of paperwork, you walked out the checkpoint door into a changed world. From the bright lights in the checkpoint building, you entered a rather dark environment. The contrast was immediate and striking: the dim streetlights cast weak, yellowish pools of light that barely illuminated the streets. Everything was lit by what seemed like 20-watt bulbs, creating an atmosphere of perpetual dusk.
Walking a few blocks, we entered a restaurant. Like everything else in East Berlin, the restaurant was dimly lit, though it maintained a certain charm in its muted atmosphere.
The food was cheap. I can't remember if we paid in German marks or dollars. The combination of being in a forbidden communist territory and enjoying surprisingly good food at remarkably low prices created an adventure that would stay with me for decades to come.
