The Summer of 1961

I spent the summer of 1961 in Europe with a university tour group. It was a study group the purpose of which was to learn or improve our German. Classes were scheduled, first at the University of Vienna for three weeks, and then in Salzburg for 3 weeks. The remainder of the summer was spent touring around Italy, Austria, Switzerland. and Germany.

The summer of 1961 was a tense time in Europe. Germany was a divided country with West Germany being occupied by England, France and the US while East Germany was occupied by the Russians. The City of Berlin was similarly divided although at the time we arrived in Berlin there was open access between the two halves of the city.

At the time, I was particularly interested in learning about the second world war, and spent much my time on the tour bus reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William Shirer, so when we arrived in Berlin, I wanted to see those areas of Berlin that had been prominent during the war. I crossed into East Berlin at the Brandenburg Gate and made my way along Unterdenlinden, the main street of East Berlin. The comparison between East Berlin and West Berlin was stark! Where, in West Berlin the main street, Kurfurstendamm, was lively and filled with shops, and people, and music, Unterdenlinden was unusually quiet. There were few people on the street and those who were there, pretty much kept to themselves. The buildings along the street were mostly shells of the buildings that had once stood there, with facades so that the damage was not so visible. I had walked a fair distance in East Berlin and was getting tired, so I decided to take the U-Bahn back to our hotel in West Berlin. There was a line-up at the ticket booth, so I waited in line and when my turn came, I put down my 20 pfennig. The man in the ticket booth gave me a black look, pushed my money out of the way and ignored me. The man behind me picked up my money, hustled me over to the side and asked me what I thought I was doing. Fortunately, my German was pretty good, so I understood him and tried to explain that I wanted to get back to West Berlin. He gave me back my money and told me that spending West German marks, which was the money I had, was strictly forbidden in East Germany, and could get me and the ticket seller into serious difficulty with the law. He then took me back to the line, bought me a ticket with his East German marks and told me that I should go back to the West and not return.

Our tour group left Berlin a day or so later, on August 10th. On August 13, 1961, the Berlin Wall went up!

JMC