Finding work outside of the Russian Ruble fueled Government projects was not easy. We did find a few jobs bricking homes, but those projects were of type that we finished each of them inside of a week. While the brigade was bricking a home, I had to be out on the streets looking for people who wanted to rebuild. If we could find them, they would pay us in East German Marks, the DDM money German Democratic Mark. We believed that once we escaped, Bill would help us covert our money into West German Marks. He knew all about that stuff.
All of us were tight with our money. We didn’t go out and splurge on things. Actually, Eastern Germany had an economy that was crawling back from knocked out to almost awake. Western Germany was dancing along. The American GIs who were stationed there after the war, were spending their money like they would if they were back home in America. The West Germans hated them, but when the GIs laid their money on the counter to pay for something, the West Germans didn’t turn away from it. We wouldn’t have turned away from either. We were realists. We didn’t like the war any more than any other German, and we knew who had started the war, but the Madman was dead, and we had to deal with the aftermath as best as we could.
We had returned to the apartment one evening after work and turned on the radio. The announcer was reporting a major Intelligence coup by the allies. We had the radio set on a West German station because we wanted to hear truthful news not censored by Communist thugs. We always moved the dial off of the West German station when we turned the radio off in the event that the Communist police ever came into our apartment if we were away for the day. They could do that any time they wanted to. Their behavior reminded me of the time, during the war, when the SS could drag people out into the streets and beat them in front of everyone.
Anyway, one of the guys tuned the radio to a Western radio station. The announcer sounded happy as he read the news about the Intelligence coup. He was saying that the East German authorities and the Russian Army had created a plan to secretly, during the night, move all the way across Berlin, past the Brandenburg Gate and take all of Berlin under Russian control.
The odd thing was that two or three times a week we would hear that the Allies were going to gear up and push the Russians out of Germany completely. We learned to discount those stories as wishful thinking by Germans who hated Russians. Their conspiracy theories made for interesting conversations and invasion suppositions. But this thing about the Intelligence coup, had a ring of truth to it, to us, at least, because we had placed a camera, with a microphone in the wall of the Intelligence building. The more we talked about it the more nervous we became. The more nervous we became, the more scared we became. Finally, the guys asked me to put a note in Bill’s drop box asking him to come and talk to us.
I wrote on a slip of paper, “Ivan: We would like to talk to you about some cookies. Fritz.” I stuck it in his hole between the bricks and headed back to the apartment. As I walked back to the apartment, I thought the few people walking on the streets that dark evening. Most of them would even be cordial or say good evening. Some of them gave a look that dared me to say anything at all. I thought to myself, this is caused by the intelligence coup? I’d better get back and tell the guys.
I ducked my head, pulled my cap low over my forehead, and scurried home. When I arrived at the apartment, I told the guys that I had delivered the note. Then I told them about how strangely people were acting on the streets.
Erwin volunteered, “Oh, yeah! Ever since we heard the announcement on the radio! Just look across the street at the dark windows. Many of the windows used to be lighted against the darkness. He walked to the window and pulled back the curtain. He waved a hand toward the sparse living quarters up and down the barren Berlin boulevard. It’s like the war, All over again!”
A knock at the door made all of us jerk and freeze in whatever position or posture we were in. Erwin threw out a hand a hand as if spreading seed, “See! That’s what I mean!” Then, he said, “Would somebody please open the doors?”
Because I had just come in the room and was still standing, I said, “I’ll get it!” I walked over to the door. I stood close to it when I opened it a few inches. I stuck my head around the door’s edge. I saw Bill, who had knocked on the door. He hurriedly whispered, “Let me in, Manfred! Hurry!”
I let him into the living room where the guys had been talking moments before. Bill said, “Oh good! Every one is here, no need to repeat any instructions.”
I said, “Good evening, Bill. And, how are you?”
He looked at me strangely for a few seconds. “He said in a slow voice, “I am fine, Manfred, what is going on?”
“I was just about to ask you the same question.”
“No problem! I was just asking because when you came in, you looked some calamity had overtaken you. What’s wrong?”
His eyebrows rose a couple inches on his forehead. Breathlessly he said, “It’s not my calamity. It’s your calamity!” He looked at the group of us and pointed at each of us. I was already was scared. It wouldn’t have taken much more to terrorize me!”
His was a slow nod as he said, “You men have make plans this week to leave. You have to be ready to go by Friday!”
There it was, out in the open, two short sentences, and anyone listening would know that we were planning on, breaking the East German law against leaving the country without the proper paperwork! I had never heard of anyone getting proper paperwork approved! But there it was.
I looked at the guys. It was weird. They were frozen with Whatever expression was on their faces when Bill announced we had to be ready to go. We spent our days and evenings out in the public measuring the meanings of each word we were to speak. Just to be on the safe side, we quit going to Zum Kellar!
Erwin, who spent his evenings being upbeat about East Germany having a recovering economy, and who had complained about the way the area looked wartime Berlin. He had a stunned look on his face.
Hans was transfixed somewhere a look of terror and a look of future happiness that he had hoped would be filled with girls!
Martin had a look I had seen on the faces of thwarted race car drivers when they wanted desperately to pass another driver.
George had a supremely happy look. He was getting his girl friend to go with him when he escaped., and he was going to get married.
Me? I was in a state of neutrality. I didn’t feel anything. That must be the reason Bill grabbed me and keep me from falling. I didn’t think I was really falling until he had to help me walk across the room.
When Bill had everyone’s attention, he explained, “I have just a few more things to do to arrange transportation for everyone. Then, I will come here, explain how we will get transport you out, take you out to the truck, load you in, and leave East Germany behind. The main thing I need for you to do is for each of you to have already packed the items you want to take with you already packed by tomorrow morning, because if things start to go off rail, I will have to come after you immediately. Remember the bag into which you will pack your escape items must be no longer than one meter and no wider than a third of a meter wide. That’s the only way we can do this. It’s the only way things will fit.
He had told us this information previously, and most of us had already acquired the travel bags, everyone except George, that is. He had claimed that he and his fiancée would go shopping for one. When Bill finished his explanation, I made it a point of looking directly at George.
Bill saw me and asked, “What?”
I pointed at George!
Bill asked George, “Have you not purchased your get-away bag?”
George replied, “We were looking for a matching set, something in burgundy!”
Bill almost erupted, “My god man! This is no pleasure cruise. This is a life or death situation. If you’re not ready when it’s time to go, I will leave without you! If you are running late, and if I have to wait for you, and if the authorities stop us, they will kill all of us!” Then he said, “Burn this into your memory, “I will be on a tight schedule when I load everyone into the truck, and I will not wait for anyone. This could happen as early as tomorrow, or as late as three days from now. Be ready to go! Any questions?”
I raised my hand.
He nodded at me!
I asked, “Why the requirement for the shape of a soft sided bag, I mean the length and the with numbers?”
He nodded again, “I can’t go into detail right now, but take only the things that that you must have in order to go looking for a job. However, mainly the dimensions are calculated for the bags to fit between your legs!”
He walked to the door and opened to leave. He pointed at everyone in the room, “Be ready to go” No exceptions!” He closed the door and left.
I stood up from my chair, “I’m going to pack my bag right now, just in case we have to leave early!” All the other guys except George agreed. They rose to go retrieve their bags from under the beds.
George looked wildly around and complained, “Come on, guys!”
Erwin raised his eyebrows at George, “Get a bag as soon as you can. You heard the man! If my life depends on asking Bill to wait for you, I’m not going to ask him to wait!”
We other guys voiced our agreement.
George left to go tell his fiancée! We all had girlfriends or girls that we were seeing, but aside from George, none of us felt like George felt about his girlfriend. George made the situation difficult for the rest of us, but we couldn’t just abandon him. He was part of our small family.
e left for work the next morning. I thought everyone was walking like zombies. Maybe it was just me because I felt like I was walking like a zombie. I didn’t sleep much the night before. I kept waking up thinking that Bill was standing at our front door yelling, “Run for your lives, you’ve been discovered!” But each time I sat straight up in bed ready to yell, “Run!”, all I heard was the clanging of the steam heating system as the hot water pumped and banged its way through the heat radiators.
I asked myself over and over, “How am I supposed to act when at any moment Bill might run to where were working shouting for us to run for our lives. Morning arrived slowly. We ate, trudged off to work, and settled down to work, laying brick on a house that was being restored. The brigade sent me to find our project foreman to ask if he had heard anything about where the next government project was going to be. He was hard to find. I followed his “he was just here” trail across half of East Berlin before I caught up withy him. He couldn’t tell me much except that the authorities had put the next project on hold because they were conducting an internal investigation. My hearing the word, “internal” sort of reassured me, but hearing the word “investigation” kind of turned my stomach!
I left the foreman and began my walk back across Berlin. As I walked, twice, I saw the Russian approved German authorities dragging men and, sometimes, women with infants in their arms out onto the streets and throwing then down on the street. They beat them and kicked them. It reminded me of the times during the war when my mother, brothers, and I lived in Potsdam and saw the SS doing the same things to German citizens. I knew for certain that many of the SS officers became Communist approved authorities in post war East Germany: same philosophy, same thugs, same brutality. It must have been bred into them for them to seek out the same jobs in the new Germany.
It just scared ne almost senseless. I must have looked like I was frightened for my life when I arrived back at our work site. The brigade stopped working and surrounded me. Each of them asked me if I was sick. I told them about just missing the foreman across half of East Berlin, and they were sympathetic. When I told them about the foreman’s telling me about the “internal investigation,” they gagged on the word “Internal,” but they became frantic when they heard the word, “investigation.” They wanted to run right then! They wanted to hide. I told them about the new Communist/German authorities, and they wanted to leave East Germany right then! I asked them, each of them, “If you are so ready to leave East Germany right now, why haven’t you already left?” They blustered and gave lame answers, except for George, who said he had waited for approval of his girlfriend to go with us.
I pressed harder, “I’m serious.” I insisted, “why haven’t any of us left this place?” I continued, “It’s because we don’t have the first idea of how to escape. We’re lucky that Bill came along when he did! We just need to calm down, duck our heads, and continue living our lives like good East Germans. If we don’t control our emotions, we’ll attract attention, and we’ll get caught!”
My harangue calmed me a little bit. It calmed the others a little, too, but we were all still scared. Anytime we heard a loud noise, we all jumped. In fact, we looked guilty!