November 9^th 1989, the fall of the Berlin wall. You are there! Yes, I was there, and what a feeling it was. Well, it was actually three days later that I was there in Berlin with friends. But the wall was still in the process of falling, and we were right there in the midst of the Wende (= political change, collapse of the German Democratic Republic) that was to determine politics for the coming decades.

New border crossings had been opened for East Germans where they only had to show their Personalausweis (identity card, right) to cross into West Berlin. No bureaucracy. No formalities. No passport necessary. For Ossis (East Germans) the rules had been changed. My friends and I asked ourselves if the rules had been changed for people like us, too. I had an American passport, two had West German passports, and one held a Swiss passport. Wanting to see what was going on in East Berlin, we decided to cross the border at Checkpoint Charlie. It was the closest checkpoint. Although West Germans were normally not allowed to use this crossing, we decided to try our luck. After all, nothing was as it had been in regard to the border since November 9^th.

Nothing was as it had been. The East German officials at Checkpoint Charlie were relaxed, friendly and helpful. They had smiles on their faces! Although it had been forbidden just a few days before to let West Germans cross to the East at Checkpoint Charley, the officials at the first of several customs and immigration desks waved us all through. They just shrugged their shoulders and said, “Maybe it’s OK now. We don’t know.” We walked on to the last checkpoint where a friendly official said, “Perhaps it’s not a good idea for the West Germans to cross here. Maybe you’ll encounter difficulties with other border personnel upon your return.” He would have let my friends through, but was truly concerned about their welfare. I went on without them.

There were hardly any people on the streets of East Berlin on this Sunday morning. The Hauptstadt der DDR (Capital City of the GDR) appeared almost deserted. It gave me a creepy feeling. I to the Berlin Cathedral for church wondering how many people would be there. The fact that a new pastor was to be installed that Sunday had probably kept the attendees from heading to West Berlin like so many of the Berliner. I put the 25 GDR-Marks that I had had to exchange at the border into the collection. Upon returning to Checkpoint Charlie, I considered crossing back into West Berlin with a group of Ossis, for whom a gate had been opened. But I thought it would be better — just in case — to follow the old rules and leave East Berlin the official way. Laughing officials waved me through without any formalities. They just wanted to know why, when everyone else was in the West, I had wanted to go to the East.

Why had I gone? I wanted to see what would be different crossing into East Germany after November 9^th. Because I had close ties to the church in the East, I wanted to show my solidarity at this special time in history. Maybe that sounds corny, but that was important to me. There were so many people in West Berlin that I was really wondering if anyone was still in East Berlin. As I said, very few.