In August 1984, my wife and I passed through Checkpoint Charlie and wandered the streets of East Berlin. We witnessed the somber, hopeless faces of the city’s few pedestrians. We marveled at the cheap-looking Trabants that motored loudly up and down the streets. We passed soldier after soldier, each fully armed, each exuding an almost tangible assurance that the Cold War was as real as any hot one.
We watched people standing in lines a block long to buy produce. We tried to spend our allotted fifty Ostmarks in the city’s most prestigious department store but couldn’t find even a souvenir we wouldn’t have thrown away. We finally bought a cheap noodle press and a metric measuring cup. We ate at a state-run cafeteria where the food tasted as unappetizing as it looked, then stopped at an ice cream parlor on Unter den Linden that was already out of practically everything on the menu by 4 p.m.
By evening we were more than eager to return to the hustle and plenty of West Berlin. We left with most of our Eastern currency and absolutely no illusions about communism. I can still remember later that evening visiting a little Slavic restaurant in a quiet corner of Neukölln and how ecstatic I was over a tossed salad with tomatoes and green peppers. That one afternoon behind the Iron Curtain had made me see the world with new eyes. I was amazed at the contrast between East and West Berlin, between communism and, yes, socialism.
West Germany in 1984 was, as it is now, a socialist country with universal health care, few people living in poverty, and a strong social safety net. Yes, the Germans have their problems, but I keep wondering what it is about European socialism that scares so many Americans.
Roger Terry, Orem