Berlin: Back to Abnormal

A cold fog swirled over the River Spree, masking the watchtowers of Berlin's Wall and gathering in bright droplets on the bars of its newly installed steel gates. Suddenly, Communist searchlights poked white fingers into the fog, and the deep-throated barking of the Grenzpolizei's watchdogs echoed off the brick and barbed-wire barrier. A British military policeman scanned the Spree for escaping swimmers, but soon the searchlights flicked off, the dogs quieted, and the only sound was the rhythmic slam of Grepo boots on the cobblestones across the way. "They either got the poor bugger," muttered the MP, "or they were just seeing ghosts again." Life along the ugly Berlin Wall was back to abnormal.

But before the gates slammed shut last week, many East Berliners had been able to make their way through to the West. The crush of visitors (290,000 people and 25,000 cars on the last day the Wall was open) proved too much for the Communist border guards. They checked only one in four returning automobiles, quickly gave up a plan to match pass stubs with the halves handed over on entry. The traffic was just too heavy. Almost any piece of paper would do, and the Communist-issued passes were easy to counterfeit.

With the Wall closed, East Berliners turned quickly to the old, familiar escape techniques they had used before Christmas. A family of five, whose apartment abutted the Wall, skidded down a rope dangling from a bedroom window. The same night, a trio of dusty girls popped into the basement of a West Berlin apartment after a harrowing scramble through a 450-ft. tunnel whose mouth lay in an East Berlin coal-yard. But border guards soon found the tunnel and blasted it shut.