Berlin Experience Was a Chip Off the East Bloc

The excited passengers dutifully assembled at London’s Gatwick Airport for the 6 a.m. Caledonian Airways charter flight No. 7320.

Nearly 300 day-trippers had each paid 100 (about $160 U.S.) for the round-trip tour to Berlin, and they all waited anxiously for the wide-body plane to leave the gate.

One by one, as each passenger put his or her carry-on bags through the X-ray machines, a security guard laughed and shook his head.

“Hammer . . . chisel . . . hammer . . . hammer . . . chisel,” the guard said, as he monitored the screen and stopped each bag.

“We’ve had plenty of these here today,” he said as he tucked the implements into a red pouch and had passengers fill out the “Declaration of Surrender of Prohibited Articles” form. “We’re planning to give a prize to the 200th person who arrives with a hammer and chisel.”

Once checked in, the passengers eagerly awaited their turn to board the aircraft.

But alas, there would be a delay. After 40 minutes an announcement said:

“Due to the inordinate number of hammers and chisels brought on in carry-on bags,” said a humorless woman on the public-address system, “we will be delayed while they are all stowed in the cargo department.”

The airplane cabin erupted in embarrassed laughter.

An hour later we left for Berlin.

Following the incredible events of Nov. 9, when the 27-mile wall that runs through Berlin was opened, the city has become the hottest tourist destination in Europe. It seems that everyone wants to visit and cut out their chunk of the Berlin Wall.

Two hours later, pilot Tony Meredith descended from 31,000 to 9,500 feet and began his run through the Berlin Air Corridor.

He dipped the wings of the L-1011 slowly from side to side so passengers could see the cities of West and East Berlin below.

At Berlin-Tegel Airport, the confiscated hammers and chisels failed to materialize.

Some passengers boarded prearranged tour buses that would take them into East Berlin. I grabbed a taxi with some friends and headed for the Brandenburg Gate.

The streets were jammed with cars all pointed in the same direction. The cab driver turned up the volume on his stereo.

“Everyone goes to the wall. Ich bin ein Berliner ! It is now one big party,” he said, as he made a sharp turn and the Mercedes cab passed by the Reichstag (Hitler’s wartime headquarters) and brought us in front of the daunting, graffiti-covered walls.

At the Brandenburg Gate, throngs of people were singing, playing musical instruments or buying souvenirs from hastily constructed stands. Freiheit (freedom) T-shirts ($20), buttons ($2), hats ($10), pins ($4), bumper stickers ($2) and coffee mugs ($6) were for sale.

Atop the wall surrounding the gate, which remains in East German hands, East German guards stood their watch.

The crescendo of singing and music was matched by the sounds of hundreds of snapping camera shutters. Nearby, on a specially devised press stand overlooking the wall, two TV cameramen maintained their own sentinel on the chance that something interesting would happen on the other side.

But about the only thing of interest they could photograph were some of the East German guards--once the abominable “no” men--standing on the wall, tapping their feet to the sounds of the Western music.

We headed along the wall to Potsdamer Platz, where the first section of the 27-mile wall had been erected. Almost everyone was chipping away and those who weren’t were trying to catch little bits of shattered concrete as it flew off the wall.

The hammer and sickle had been replaced by the hammer and chisel.

Some of the more enterprising visitors brought makeshift ladders, larger chisels, gloves, goggles and small wheelbarrows to haul away chunks of concrete.

Others rented chisels and hammers--$3 each for 20 minutes. Some even sold larger chunks of the wall--$1 to $8 each, depending upon size.

Left untouched for the moment was one small piece of the wall upon which was painted the most appropriate, if not prophetic message: “One Day, All This Will Be Art.”

A hundred yards away, Ian Leong, a New Yorker who now lives in Bangkok, was chipping away at the wall and placing the concrete nuggets in a plastic bag.

“We’ve managed to get a bag full,” he said. “We’ve only come here for a week. It was an opportunity you couldn’t miss.”

One American tourist took his two children to a graffiti-covered spot in the wall.

“Stand back, kids,” he said as he brandished his pickaxe-hammer. More of the Berlin Wall began to crumble.

Toward Checkpoint Charlie a man sat astride the top using a big rock to smash pieces of the rounded, pipe-like cowling. People below stopped to pick up the pieces.

At last we made it to Checkpoint Charlie, the largest and best known of the border crossing points. Hundreds of people stood in line waiting to go to East Germany. Another line of small, ugly East German Trabant cars, each belching its own obnoxious clouds of fumes, waited to drive into the West.

Soon it was time to head back to the airport and our flight to London.

Once airborne, the passengers pulled out and compared their chunks of the wall. Others regaled fellow passengers with their adventures of the previous seven hours.

“It was incredible,” said Teresa Soriano, a Georgetown University student on holiday. “We went into East Berlin and the guards were friendly. We gave some a dollar and they gave us a piece of the wall from their side. Another sold us a chunk for a chocolate bar.”

One group of British youngsters rented an Audi at the airport and drove it across the border and 20 miles into East Germany to have a look. They made it back to the flight just before the cabin crew shut the door.

Caledonian co-pilot Peter Brent joked about the weighty return.

“We hope we don’t have too much of the Berlin Wall tucked in your bags and pockets,” he said. “We tried chipping ourselves; it’s a lot more solid than it looked.”

Maggie Parker, an assistant director from “L.A. Law,” brought back a huge chunk of the wall she bought for $20, as well as a handful of souvenir badges and about half a dozen commemorative T-shirts.

“It was an opportunity I couldn’t miss,” she said. “The chance to chip away a piece of history was just too much. These will undoubtedly be some of the most unusual Christmas presents I have ever given.”

Laurie Naismith, the London-based director of the International Internship Program for James Madison University, was also an enthusiastic visitor.

“It was a fascinating experience,” Naismith said. “It was festive. The East Germans were anxious to meet people. A young East German woman came up to us to talk. She said that last week in her classes the teachers simply canceled the economics and planning courses, saying they were no longer valid.”

GTF Tours (184-186 Kensington Church St., Nottinghill Gate, London W8, England) is continuing its Berlin Airlift service. It may also begin similar trips to Prague.

American Express in London offers weekend trips to Berlin from about $385 U.S. for two nights (must include Saturday night) to about $775 for five nights. Pan Am also offers a tour to Berlin.

There are also hotel discounts. “Dial Berlin” is an association of local hotel operators. It has a U.S. toll-free number: (800) 237-5469.