Berlin's post-Wall politics opens wounds

The wall divided the city for more than 27 years

By Rob Broomby in Berlin

Forty years ago, on 13 August 1961, the citizens of Berlin woke to the sound of police sirens and heavy lorries moving rapidly through the city.

A wall had been thrown up through the centre of the city, sealing off the communist East from the Western world.

The Berlin Wall, as it soon became known, divided the city for more than 27 years and came to symbolise the division of Europe.

Over the next quarter of a century the fortifications, with their anti-personnel mines and heavily armed border guards, claimed over 200 lives.

Hundreds more died along the wider East-West border itself.

The communists called the wall the "anti-fascist protection barrier" - but it was built to keep their people in.

Many took enormous risks to escape.

Anger

As Berliners recall the day, relatives of perhaps the most famous victim, 22-year-old Peter Fechter, will lay a wreath where he fell.

Shot down in a hail of bullets in 1962, he was left to die in no man's land.

Later, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder will lay his wreath at a monument to all the wall's victims.

But the chancellor is unpopular with some survivors.

Coalition plans

He has given his party, the Social Democrats (SPD), a green light to form a coalition with the now-reformed communist party, the PDS, if that is necessary to get a majority after October's municipal elections.

It is a prospect which has shaken some of the wall's victims.

Rainer Schubert helped smuggle more than 100 people to the West and was imprisoned for nine years by the communists for his pains.

The Social Democrats may seek a coalition with the ex-communist PDS

He spent the first four years in solitary confinement.

"It's a scandal - the PDS is not a democratic party," said Mr Schubert.

"Communists always work well in the underground. They will give any statement to get into power.

"The PDS must give a statement against the wall and against the killing," he stressed.

Campaign launch

The PDS launched its campaign with a party in the offices on the aptly-named Karl Marx Allee.

And the man who would be mayor, if he gets the chance, is Gregor Gysi, a media friendly party reformer.

Yet he and his comrades can't quite bring themselves to apologise fully to the victims of the wall.

"It says in our declaration that the wall was wrong," he said, speaking at the centre of a mass of TV cameras at the launch party.

"The only word we haven't used is 'sorry' because that can only be done where there is individual guilt.

"Perhaps the victims of the wall could demand an apology, but not our opponents, who just want to weaken us," said Mr Gysi.

Strange bedfellows

But oddly, the stiffest criticism of the PDS has come from a former East German Politburo member.

Sign of the times: But some Berliners are still demanding an apology

Gunter Schabowski served time in prison for his part in a regime which killed over 200 people trying to breach the Berlin Wall, and as many as 1,000 along the whole of the East and West German border itself.

But he is respected for his honest apology.

"On the one hand they say that building the wall was wrong but on the other they say it was necessary to keep the peace and stop the flight of people," he said.

"But the wall was a sign of the weakness of real communism," he said.

In an odd turn of events, he has now thrown his weight behind the Christian Democrat candidate.

The PDS launch party was an odd event.

Mainly staged for the cameras, it never quite seemed to take off as a celebration.

Gregor Gysi took a comic turn with a cabarettist who impersonated the former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, allowing the candidate perspiring under the spotlights to crack some easy jokes.

But politics was barely mentioned.

Eastern support

The former communists have failed to break through in the West but remain the largest party in East Berlin and have regained the voters' trust there.

Their rehabilitation could help bind disenchanted Easterners into the mainstream and the democratic life of the city, say supporters.

Guards offered no resistance when the wall fell

The moderate PDS deputy, Petra Blaess, said the party has done enough to deserve trust.

"I think it's like a big theatre performance," she said.

"A lot of politicians and journalists say we must say one word and then it's OK, but that's stupid".

But with the city of Berlin grappling with massive debts, a return to the old grand coalition of Social and Christian Democrats has been ruled out.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder says he will not stop his party doing a deal with the former communists in the city.

He says he has "no fear".

Feelings of betrayal

But if the coalition does go ahead, many victims will feel let down.

Rainer Schubert said he would quit the country.

"I will go Canada or the United States" he said, "but I will not have my grave in this country."

But if Eastern voters turn out for the reformed communists en-masse, the politicians may have no alternative.

The PDS needs simply to add a few more percentage points to its opinion poll rating and the former communists could even be in a position to nominate the mayor.