John Stall

My journey to Berlin in November of ’89 continued the day after the Wall came down, when I decided to test the new open border structure by crossing into the East through Checkpoint Charlie.

Checkpoint Charlie is the infamous point of division between the Soviet and American sectors of Berlin and was (before the Wall went up in 1961), the place where American and Soviet tanks stood ground against each other. After the wall went up, it became the main crossing point for Allied diplomats and soldiers. Allied forces stood guard 24-7 on the Western side of the line while East German (Soviet) military did the same on the Eastern side. The East side also housed a watch tower that kept a close and communist eye on all movement into and out of the sector. It was the scene of several escape attempts over the years, some made it , some didn’t.

The journalist always looks for and pursues the “what’s new” or “what’s next” part of a story, so after the Wall was down and millions of East Germans had crossed into the West, I decided I would see how authorities would handle or accept a working journalist without escort crossing into the East. So with  a tape recorder strapped around my neck and speaking into the microphone, I walked past the huge military sign that warns: YOU ARE LEAVING THE AMERICAN SECTOR. In full view of the East German watchtower, I walked across the line and down a pathway that led to the East German administrative building.

My plan was to record a first person, real-time description of what I was seeing and feeling as I passed through the East German administrative checkpoint. The red record light of my tape machine was glowing as I entered the first hallway which was stark and bare. I was alone, there were no hoards of people passing into the East. The floors were marble, the walls and ceiling were white.  There was a surveillance camera on the ceiling at the end of the hall, which I imagined was watching me as I walked through nonchalantly describing  into the microphone what I was seeing, including the surveillance camera. The hallway took a sharp right, then a left, and another left, right, left —  it was a mouse maze clearly designed to ensure that nobody could make a straight run into or out of the facility.

There were security cameras in every section watching me talk into my tape recorder, so by the time I got through, I was confronted by two very large East German guards who wanted the tape machine turned off by pointing at it while giving me the cut throat signal. They were not smiling nor were they polite. I was escorted into an anti-room, where I was instructed to empty my pockets and to surrender the tape machine. I was not going to resist. They took my passport, wallet, business cards, tape recorder and left the room. Even though I felt confident that I was doing nothing wrong given the circumstances of the night before, it suddenly occurred to me that they were not feeling the same way and that I was pushing the envelope. 

The room was about 10-foot square, with only a cot, a desk and one bare ceiling light. There was no toilet, sink or running water and no handle on my side of the door. Realizing where I was (in a holding room on the East side of Checkpoint Charlie) and that doing what I did just a day or two earlier would have been highly dangerous and unthinkable, I started to wonder if I was going to be in there on spy charges for an hour, a day, a week or a year!

The Guards (I suspect they were Stasi) returned about an hour and a half later to ask in broken English some questions about what I was doing and where I was going. I tried in the most authentic demeanor I could muster to explain that I was a broadcast journalist from Canada who just wanted to experience the new circumstances of freedom in East; that because it was so clearly different than the day before, I didn’t think I was violating any sacrosanct territory and that I might want to travel into the heart of East Germany, where the demonstrations that led to new order began in Leipzig. They left the room again but returned within 10  minutes with all of my documents and tape recorder telling me I could pass into the East. I assumed they had listen to the tape of me describing how the inside of the Checkpoint was laid out and what it looked like because they kept the tape itself. 

By the time I left the building it was dark, about 7:30 p.m. I walked along a narrow street that was dimly lit by what felt and looked like 20-watt bulbs. The street was stark, the buildings were no higher than two-storey and it felt spooky. There was a small bar on a distant corner that had one of those swirly looking neon “open”  signs in the window, so I headed in that direction to have a beer and to get my bearings, and to bring my heart rate down from the racing that began in the holding room.

Now, it could well have been my imagination running wild as a result of too many cold war spy stories (I will never know), but I felt that I was intentionally being followed by a well-dressed and high-heeled woman, who was walking about a block behind me on this dimly lit street and who followed me into the bar. She did not sit beside me at the long bar, but sat down at a corner table as I sipped a beer and tried to figure out where I was going to go and what I was going to do in East Germany at this time of the night.  My mind raced into a classic spy scenario where I would leave the bar and be followed or be sexually propositioned by this woman who would try to get something  more substantial on me, than just being a broadcast journalist checking things out so that those goons could hold me longer in that desolate room than they did a few moments ago. I decided I was not going to let that happen,  so without even finishing my beer I left the bar and walked straight back towards the Checkpoint to get back into the West. I knew my quick return and request to pass through again, after telling them that I wanted to explore East Germany, might raise some real suspicions but I thought that was a better outcome than being set up somewhere deep in the heart of East Berlin. The same guards were on duty, I told them I had seen enough, and was returning to the West. 

They raised their eyebrows, but motioned to the doorway indicating I was free to go. I tried not to walk too quickly or to convey how anxious I was to cover the 50 feet or more between me and the Allied force guards on the West side of the Checkpoint Charlie line. I must say, even though it was all in my mind,  I did feel like a spy who was 40 steps away from freedom. 

The reality was that the East German authorities did not know what to do yet or how to handle  new situations like mine, Glasnost was unfolding with every new breath. The old way to deal with someone as unofficial as me, who was trying to tape record their way into the most famous and heavily-guarded checkpoint in Europe and who was trying to leave so quickly back into the west, was to jail them or shoot them!

I sighed a deep breath of relief  when I reached the welcome sign that read “YOU ARE ENTERING THE AMERICAN SECTOR.” I hailed a cab, returned to my hotel and immediately, called the radio station to go on-air with the story of what it was like to cross into the East, as authorities were still trying to understand and grapple with the border that was liberated and breached less than 24 hours earlier.