My balloon protest over the Berlin Wall

By John Sprange
Hackney

The fall of the wall led to the end of the Cold War

On the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, one Londoner recalls a remarkable episode when he flew over the wall in a hot air balloon and wonders if future generations will ever be able fully understand the horror of the Cold War.

In 1983 I had worked for Greenpeace for about a year.

I was inspired by the organisation's ethos and passion about the environment. The reputation of Greenpeace was built largely on its daring sea-based campaigns, which as a merchant seaman had drawn me to them.

Then an idea came up which involved learning how to fly a balloon and I jumped at the chance for something different, which at the time had deep symbolic significance.

A different world

Thinking back to 1983 now, it's hard to take in just how much the world has changed.

Thatcher and Reagan embraced, and Europe awaited nuclear tipped cruise missiles in the latest round of the Cold War. CND and the Greenham Common women lead the unilateral disarmament campaigns while Greenpeace pitched its protests at the testing of nuclear weapons.

Protests involving voyages to the South Pacific for French nuclear testing and hiking into the Nevada desert for US and UK testing were made. But the real challenge was finding a protest which would take in all the nuclear testing nations simultaneously, and to stage it in Europe.

The Berlin Wall provided the answer. In the early 80s the city was approaching its fourth decade divided by the aftermath of World War 2. It was carved up into sectors and administered by USSR, US, UK and France who also collectively controlled the airspace above.

'The border incident'

Berlin Wall ice sculpture unveiled in London, November 2009

The western part of Berlin sat uneasily in the midst of East Germany connected by a spindly road, rail and air corridors to West Germany. It was possible for westerners to go to East Berlin via several checkpoints including the famous Check-Point Charlie.

I found myself there, doing a recce for our planned protest. It was an inauspicious start. The whole point was to have a look around without attracting attention, yet the copy of the Guardian stuffed into the back pocket of my jeans caused a 'border incident'.

I was hauled off for an interview which eventually resulted in my paper being confiscated and I was issued with a receipt saying 'the Incident is closed.'

The balloon plan

The plan we had was that I and Gerd Leipold, a German member of Greenpeace, would pilot a hot air balloon over the wall and occupy the airspace over Berlin controlled by the Soviet and Allied authorities.

They happened to be the nuclear testing powers and thus we would create an anti-nuclear testing protest which touched both sides of the Cold War, right in the heart of Europe. But if we were caught before we got off the ground, we couldn't expect sympathy from either side.

The balloon was smuggled into Berlin in a truck. We assembled the basket and gas canisters in the back of a van and waited several days for the right conditions.

Germany celebrates the 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall

Taking to the skies

Very early one August morning we drove, by this time with selected media in tow, to a sports field in Wilmersdorf. Within eight minutes we were aloft with a banner saying PEACE, and our colleagues were calling air traffic control and the border to warn of our approach.

The wind carried us south east across the city observed by people on the ground. As we reached the Wall we climbed higher to present less of a target to any trigger-happy guards.

We looked down on the ploughed minefield on the eastern side, with dogs running back and forth on tethered lines between the look out posts.

We flew on over East Germany and landed. A group of East Germans walking a dog gestured for us to take off again. Perhaps they thought we were would-be escapers who had landed short of the sought after life beyond the Wall.

Arrest

Soon East German Border guards bearing AK-47s arrived in small Trabant style jeeps. They looked very young and like they had just been woken and pressed into service. Gerd told them there was 'no need to be afraid.' We were searched and taken to a jail and later questioned.

The Border Official was outraged that we had 'Violated the Right of the GDR' (East Germany). Before long we were sent back to West Germany and the balloon was confiscated.

Later the West Berlin police arrested us and we were charged with 'Importing Warlike Materials', by which they meant the balloon. If the charge seemed archaic and ludicrous, the penalty also harked back to another time, with the death penalty as the maximum tariff.

The aftermath

Our balloon flight is one of the legendary Greenpeace actions that all Germans of a certain age remember John Sprange

There followed an enormous amount of publicity in West Germany, a smaller amount in Britain, and a campaign which had Frank Dobson, my then MP, raising the matter in the House.

A year later we were found guilty and fined 60 marks. The conviction was quashed on appeal.

Berlin's Wall and its grim reputation and perversity gave it a strange appeal. This frontier between ideologies, a line made incarnate by concrete. Careers were made defending it and it was upheld by the full efforts of the state.

Returning to Berlin

In the summer of 1989 Gerd and I walked along the Wall talking about Glasnost and Perestroika. 'Would it come down in our lifetime?' I asked. 'No' he firmly replied. Yet six months later it was torn down by a people fed up with the self-censorship and denial.

A year ago I visited again, with my wife and small daughter. Berlin feels as though it has lost its uniqueness. It's now a large city in Europe. The Wall has disappeared completely removing the claustrophobic feeling.

The buildings in the east are adorned by Western brands, an invasion of commerce, rather than the battle flags of the military. The Border guards and the Stasi have morphed into other roles.

A moment for reflection

Our balloon flight is one of the legendary Greenpeace actions that all Germans of a certain age remember.

Yet how do we explain to tomorrow's generation the nuance of the Cold War, the brutalism of the Wall and indeed the daring of our protest?

Anniversaries do at least provide a moment for reflection. And even now, if you want to the see an active Cold War, perhaps a trip to the Korean peninsula would provide a view of the hatred that flows when ideology mixes with blood.