While there are hundreds of military museums around the world, Haus am Checkpoint Charlie, or the Checkpoint Charlie Museum, is one of few memorials that expressly document the tyrannical force of dictatorship — in this instance, the Communist cruelty that operated with an iron fist thanks to a methodically conceived Iron Curtain. The museum ranks with far wealthier museums that document the horrors of fascist tyranny, such as the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
The story of the Berlin Wall begins on Saturday, Aug. 12, 1961, a seemingly lackluster summer day in Berlin. Residents from the eastern and western parts of town traveled to their favorite summer spots, to luxuriate in the last summer rays of the sun. Little did they know that something strange was unfolding, and by the end of the night, casually traversing to the opposite end of the city would become impossible. It would be a day Berliners would never be able to forget, and a day Rainer Hildebrandt’s Checkpoint Charlie Museum will try to make sure the world too never forgets.
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The same night, leading Politburo members of the German Democratic Republic (Soviet-controlled East Germany) were partaking in an awkward “get-together” at the government guesthouse in Döllnsee. While it was not uncommon for the Politburo to have conferences in Döllnsee, there was something different about this particular gathering. The housekeeping staff was ordered to spend the night, as were the guests. The uneasy small talk and forced socialization — as some noticed, under the supervision of military men — lasted for what seemed like hours, until around 10 p.m., when the decision to close the sector borders between East and West Berlin was presented as a fait accompli. Just a few days earlier, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev had given the Politburo permission to build a wall to stop East Berliners from moving to the western sector. The explanation? This migration was undermining the GDR’s credibility and workforce. By midnight, more than 30,000 East German troops had left their garrisons to surround the entire West Berlin border.
When news of the blockade spread throughout Berlin the next morning, people were unsure how to react. It had become increasingly difficult to cross Berlin without being harassed for identification and paperwork by the Soviet forces and their accomplices in the East Berlin security forces.
The “American Sector” (West Berlin) was a small island of Western freedom inside the GDR, and the exodus to this zone had begun well before the border was closed. In the twelve years since pro-Soviet Communists had taken over East Germany, more than 2.5 million people voluntarily moved to the West — of which 144,000 left in 1959, 199,000 in 1960 and 207,000 in the first seven months of 1961 alone. Germans yearned for freedom and were keen to get out of the Communist sector. But rather than address the root causes of the exodus (dictatorial oppression), the Soviets decided they had the right to keep what East German Stalinist Walter Ubricht called “their” labor force from leaving, so erecting a wall was seen as the most efficient social-engineering solution.
I have been to the Checkpoint Charlie Museum several times. I have lived in CEE for sixteen years - I am an American whose parents could not remain in Poland after the close of WWII. They were in German labor camps. One of my namesakes disappeared in Katyn, another of my namesakes during the '44 Warsaw uprising - hence my first and middle names, impossible for most Anglos to pronounce easily.
There is a great photograph at the museum of Ronald Reagan standing unprotedcted at the dividing line at the checkpoint looking to the east accompanied by one US soldier.
Nancy is standing next to the presidential limo about 30 meters back.
Reagan's cockiness was there, almost daring someone to take a shot at him. A great photographic description of the USA's determination to oppose the Soviet bloc.
I have lived in CEE for 16 years, and it is very disappointing to me that those that managed to get visas to the west, to study in the USA, were the well connected who then went back post 1989 to be hired by the newly arrived Western companies, law firms, etc taking advantage of their 'cross-cultural' backgrounds and their old system connections. Those same people would not reveal, and were frightened of those that would point out, their past communist party connections, yet those are the individuals that thrived.
That was the deal that was made with the devil, that the communists would not be purged, a necessary deal in the view of many, corrosive nonetheless but it avoided a complete showdown and perhaps was the least bad alternative.
Quoting my wife: "What happened to all those old communists? They became investment bankers"
Back to Reagan. He was villified as a dunce for speaking of the Communist Bloc as an 'evil empire' -mostly by the fashionista pseudo intelligentsia if I remember correctly (and the Democrats piled on). One can't imagine Mr Obama doing anything remotely equivalent to standing unprotected at the line between freedom and dictatorship. But he will go to Martha's Vinyard.
Actually, one could easily picture the Community Organizer in Chief chairing the conference that deals with the problem of penning in the last of the productive, tax-paying citizens. As to when the wall is built here, note that you are subject to US tax wherever you go, and for another 10 years if you choose to renounce the citizenship ... That truly speaks volumes about who claims ownership of your labors.
The best memorial to the Berlin Wall, to my mind, is the fact that Haus am Checkpoint Charlie (the Berlin Wall museum) is now located in the middle of a busy block of a busy section of downtown. It is no longer at the end of the block with a stretch of barren ground between it and the Western side of the Wall.
I once owned the original Checkpoint Charlie. As the Range Officer for Berlin Command in the 1980's, I had the original temporary building from the 1960's as the range shack/storage building on the skeet facility out at Rose Range.
OK, I'm no curious. At the top of the 2nd page is this line: "Millions of Germans were trapped in East Berlin — unable to leave the enormous prison that had become East Germany. No exit."
This phrase "No exit" just hanging there, is that a jab a Jean-Paul Sartre (author of the play No Exit), the same clown and Communist advocate who spoke of Che Guevara as "the perfect man"?
Excellent article! This brings back fond memories. I have been fortunate to visit Berlin a few times, the first time being a dozen years ago. And I had the chance to visit the Haus am Checkpoint Charlie. It is a small unassuming museum but definitely worth the visit! It is very inspirational to any lover of liberty.
However, one minor correction: Checkpoint Charlie (and the museum) are located on Friedrichstrasse (north/south) near the cross street of Zimmerstrasse (east/west). Bernauerstrasse is a mile or so further north. I do not recall if any of the wall remains at the northern location but the last time I was in Berlin there was a short section along Zimmerstrasse (about 100 yards) to the west of Checkpoint Charlie and near the Topography of Terror museum about the SS.
For tourists wanting to see more of the wall, the longest surviving stretch (about a mile long) is the East Side Gallery along Mühlenstrasse and near the river. It has been preserved as a memorial and is also worth seeing.
"...the Soviets decided they had the right to keep what East German Stalinist Walter Ubricht called 'their' labor force from leaving, so erecting a wall was seen as the most efficient social-engineering solution."
Think "tax expenditures", and then wonder when the wall goes up here.
I went to Berlin about a year before the wall came down. I was stationed in W. Germany with the 1st Infantry Division (FWD) and had the opportunity to drive from my post through the Helmstedt Corridor (through E. Germany) to W. Berlin. I am so glad that I had this experience. My "Flag Orders" allowed me transit through the wall and I went over a few times during the week I was in Berlin. This is one of my favorite memories of my time in the Army. I remember the museum and I am glad to know that it is still there. We must never forget there is evil in the world.
