What I Learned as a Probing Journalist on My Retirement Bucket List River Cruise to Germany, Poland, and Czech Republic ( Part 1 of 4 )

      

 A Memoir by Robert R. Schwarz

v That Notorious Berlin Wall and Check Point Charlie 

v Luther and a Few things You Might Not Know about Him and the Reformation He Ignited 

Part One

I     Why this report? …If you're able, take your family to the Berlin Wall and ask a few questions of those strolling German tourists staring and frowning at this long ugly remnant of Cold War horrors. Then visit a Berlin museum or two, and   you  will better understand , that indeed, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely ( attributed to a 1887 letter from Lord John Edward Acton to his bishop) .

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            This is not how I wanted to begin this report , this Wall and other scars from World War II have cast a shadow over my mind ever  since my wife and I had returned from Europe; I needed to dispel it, perhaps  by writing  about it  and other post war observations in Europe.  This was our bucket list trip . My wife is a retired art teacher and I a retired newspaper editor.   

            II     Checkpoint Charlie and the Brandenburg Gate…The day after our arrival in Berlin, we stood  with Viking  Cruises tour guide, Irene Flegel, amidst a crowd  staring at a large macabre and crude   artistic piece of graffiti painted  on that infamous  Berlin Wall .

"Help me to avoid this deadly love," our guide explained 

    It depicted  a passionate, fraternal kiss on the lips between   Leonard  Brezhnev ( former general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1982 )   and  Erich  Honecker  (  a German politician who, as the general secretary of the Socialist Unity Party, led the German Democratic Republic from 1971 until the weeks preceding the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 ). The graffiti was an accurate rendering of a photograph  that captured their kiss   in 1979 during the 30th anniversary celebration of the foundation of the German Democratic Republic. 

  

      I asked Irene  why  this Wall remnant meanders like a concrete python  for several blocks  through  the once-gated  sections of  East and West Berlin during the Cold War, and is  now  covered with  gruesome paintings and  amateur German abstract art ?

            " There was no reason to paint only flowers,"  she replied  with some sarcasm .  " When the Wall came down in 1989,  everybody in Berlin was confused. "  I asked for her interpretation of the Brezhnev-Honecker kiss.  "It says to me, O, Lord,  help me to avoid  that deadly love ."   I wanted her to expand on this but she wanted to keep our excursion group moving. 

       

This wall was 27 miles long

We followed the 11.8- feet- high Wall to  Checkpoint Charlie , the best known  Wall crossing between the former division of  East and West Berlin .  The original wall was 27 miles long and was paralleled by another wall ; between them was a 160-yard wide  death strip  that had hundreds of watchtowers, miles of anti-vehicle trenches, guard -dog runs, floodlights and trip-wire machine guns. I was informed that Soviet security guards were  then under orders to shoot-- but not kill-- anyone trying to defect from East Berlin .  A German historical research agency, however,  recorded that 100 people were killed during  escape attempts .Many of  the 5,000 who reportedly did escape had been  desperate for relief from the daily  oppressive  lifestyle which Moscow had imposed on them since the end of the war .

       

" Actor " soldiers at historic  Check Point Charlie

 With its  souvenir   shops  and  a staged elevated  warning sign reading,   " You are  about to leave the  American Sector ", Checkpoint Charlie  remains a huge tourist attraction . I photographed a make-believe "checkpoint "  with two Germans dressed in American Army uniforms and flanked by  American flags and wartime protective   sand bags .  For a fee, the "soldiers" would autograph  your passport, .

"You are about to leave the American Sector ! "

            A few blocks away was the huge  historical  Brandenburg Gate ,  today an imposing  symbol of  unity and peace and  of the tumultuous history of Europe and   Germany.  It had been a  prized monument of the Nazi party . At this gate during the Cold War , the world  heard    President Ronald Reagan   demand  that Soviet Union  government tear down this Berlin wall which it had erected. His televised words were : Come here to this gate, Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate.!  Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall ! 

    

Mary Alice and Bob at t he Brandenburg Gate

    Being in Berlin and very near  where once stood   the Reichstag , that infamous throne of demonic Nazi  power  that began rising in the early 1930's,  disturbed me as I  thought   of  the metropolitan and now  restored city of    Dresden, whose  streets my wife and I would walk down a few days later.  I also reflected on the   American and British air force   bombing that destroyed the Dresden's  entire city center, killing an  estimated 25,000 people.  And , of course, in my wife's and my mind there was  the  horrible  thought  of the Holocaust. 

           

...a little humor at the Gate

 I now turned to Irene and had to ask: "Please tell me ,  what is the prevailing attitude today among Germans about the fact that six million Jews were exterminated by the Nazis . " 

            She likely had been asked this question many  times , and so  was confident of her  opinion when she said, " We will always remember this, but we don't carry any guilt of it. All those Germans were of a different generation than ours. " ( I  would later be told by another Viking cruise  guide that only  ten percent of the German people belonged to the Nazi party , and  that  due to  Nazi propaganda which claimed  Jews were not being treated badly ,  the  German populace was kept ignorant of the death camp atrocities. .  I chose not  to argue with  that particular guide.  )  

            

III     91 Pampered Souls on the Elbe…Our daylong ride on the bus was a refreshing reprieve from Berlin.  We gazed out of oversized windows while listening to our new guide give endless classroom-like lectures on the history and culture of Potsdam ( a city of magnificent palaces ) and the nearby nature Eden of Worlitz)  and Wittenberg, world-wide famous for its birthing of the Reformation sparked by Martin Luther's nailing of his  "95 Theses" to the door of the All Saints Church there.

The Elbe River at sunset

      

The German shore was never more than a stone's throw away. 

    There was a lot of napping on the bus  and   a bit  of snoring.  And as the bus rolled through   miles of recently  harvested  wheat  fields  and acres of chest-high corn and   hilly sweeps of white poppies, many passengers were lulled to sleep, I'm  sure,  by the seductive charm of the rolling German countryside with its   forests of  thin and  tall pine trees growing unusually close to each other without a sign of a dead or fallen branch. 

IV   Luther and  the Reformation He Ignited 

  

                                             For by grace are ye saved through faith; 
                                       and that not of yourselves : it is a gift 

                                   of God:  not of works, lest any man

                            should boast . ( Ephesians 2: 8, 9 ,

                               King James version;  also the major

                             theological  proclamation of Martin

                                      Luther and one of his  battle cries  during

   the Reformation . )

           

    

A portrait of  Luther in a Wirttenberg church

The church door ( since replaced ) where
Luther nailed his 95 theses

    The Russians had replaced the church door  upon which Luther had nailed those 95 theses, but his legacy was seen all over Wittenberg, especially in this year when the city was observing the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. Each of these  95 theses was  one sentence long and written in Latin .  Alluding to the age-old conflict between those in government who want change and those who want to protect their heritage, our guide Gerbe said, "You have to take care of your heritage , "      Thanks to the recent invention of the printing press then, the theses flooded Europe within two weeks, "and  the Reformation took off," she added.  Gerbe said.  Many historians have argued that there was much more at stake than political or social issue. Many of them wrote that the Reformation was a precursor to today's theological  disagreements  between Christian denominations .               

Where Luther preached some of his 2,000
sermons

      
  Wittenberg seemed to  vibrate  with Luther imprints , particularly upon the church in which he  had preached 2,000 sermons .  In a Wittenberg square is a statue of a Jew milking a pig ; an inscription above it reads , "He is milking a god ." After the war,  the  Wittenberg Jewish population was asked if they wanted the statue removed and ,  though knowing correctly that Luther had had a strain of anti-Semitism, requested that the statue  remain. It was a nuanced reminder  of a lethal prejudice that remains in the world, our guide said. . 

            Among my memories of this city is the tomb of Luther's wife, whom he called his "morning star; another memory  was seeing the Bible Luther had   translated  from the original Greek into the German vernacular , while taking shelter in the Wittenberg castle. " He wanted people to understand their faith, "Gerbe  told us .

The New Testament took him 12 weeks, and the Old Testament , with the aid of seven helpers, was a seven-year labor. Seven chapters of the original Bibe  did not appear.    " 

***

           

    Our bus took  us within a few yards of the Elbe River and the   Beyla,  a three-deck, 361-foot-long river boat and our home for the next five days.  On the gangplank  dressed in white and gold braided uniforms  and with outstretched hands to shake ours,  stood  Captain Miroslav-Wagner; Janos Olah,  his chief officer;  and   Radim Wajshajtl, a native of Prague and our super efficient  guide and helpmate  during those  frustrating hours after my wallet was to fall victim  to a pickpocket while standing on a public bus in Prague. 

The Beyla captain ( rear ) and his chief officer 

            Wanting to appear cool, I returned  the captain's greeting as might a  sea-wise American sailor:  "Permission to come aboard , sir.."   The  captain look at me quizzically . 

( photos by the author, one by his wife )

All comments are welcome.

rrschwarz71@comcast.net

© 2022 Robert R. Schwarz