Tag der Mauerfall (1989)

Yup, it's that time of year again! Happy Mauerfall! (link to write-up)

Thank You Rev. Jackson!

Hats off Rev Jackson -- Thanks for helping me out in West Berlin! (background) ...

Name-Change to Street in Berlin

Interesting change of name for a street in Berlin. Just noticed! It's gone from Manteuffelstr. to Audre-Lorde-Straße -- at least the section which I used to live on. More info here:

Part of Manteuffelstraße to be renamed after American poet Audre Lorde ...

Tag der Mauerfall (Day the Wall Came Down)

Yup, I've written about this before (link). It's a day I'll never forget...

Mentioned in Der Spiegel Magazine Article

It's been a while but I just noticed a mention in the German weekly Der Spiegel:

"Hönkel jedenfalls hat Spuren hinterlassen, sogar in Chicago: Dort erinnert der Publizist Leo Klein aktuell an den „Summer of Hönkel“ in Berlin 1987". (link)

[Translation: 'Honkel in any case left traces, even in Chicago: there publicist Leo Klein remembered the period in the blog entry: "Summer of Hönkel in Berlin 1987.']

Berlin Wall -- I Knew It Well

Berlin Wall -- I knew it well! I lived in West Berlin for over five years -- back when West-Berlin was an island of freedom surrounded by the awful police-state of East Berlin and East Germany. Life in our part was totally wild and free -- full of things to do all night especially for boys and girls in their twenties.

One thing I enjoy doing nowadays is going through pictures of the Wall itself. You see, one evening after a few drinks back then, we went over and I painted my name ('Leo') in large letters on our side of the Wall. I haven't found it in any of the pictures online -- but I'll keep looking!

Two Days Later

So after all that talk, I think I may have come upon a photo of the Berlin Wall showing where I painted my name ('LEO'). It's on the round top part of the Wall:

Old Hang-out in West Berlin Getting New Street-Name …

Going from well-known (and well-remembered) 'Manteuffel Strasse' to 'Audre-Lorde-Strasse' -- named after Audre Lorde (link)

Hats off to Rev. Jackson!

Hats off to Rev. Jesse Jackson! Event this Thursday (2/8) at the Chicago History Museum. Thanks, Rev. Jackson, for getting me into that party in West Berlin for free !!! (We're talking 1980's - link).

Tag der Mauerfall (Day the Wall Came Down)

I've written about this before (link). It's a day I'll never forget...

Hey, That's Me in That Rock Video from the 1980s!

 

I probably knew about this at the time (1987) and just plain forgot but yes, that’s me on the left. It's a brief appearance in the 'official music video' by well-known rock band 'Faith No More' in their tune, Anne's Song. I happened to know Anne and hung out with her and a whole bunch of other fascinating people during my one-year stay in NYC*.

Here's some background info from the FaithNoMore website: Faith No More released their second single Anne's Song 30 Years Ago!.

Here’s the YouTube video: "Faith No More - Anne's Song (Official Music Video)". (I appear at around 1:50.)
________

* For the record, I returned to Berlin at the end of the year, staying there till Reunification in 1990 -- at which point, I returned to Manhattan for more than a decade.

Interview with WGN-TV

Tuesday, Nov. 5th, 2019 was an important day -- or rather important evening. It was when WGN-TV broadcast the interview with me [link here] produced by the excellent reporter, Erik Runge. The actual interview took place a few days earlier at the DePaul Library.

The topic was my experience in West Berlin both before and after the Wall came down. The segment also included other witnesses both here and in Berlin. The fact that the reporter included so many other photos of me -- from my days in Paris to a shot of me in lederhosen at 4 years old holding on to Mayor Daley -- made the whole thing seem so much like a personal biography.

That said, I truly appreciate how the reporter let me have the last word. For so long the east side of Berlin was a symbol of oppression while the west side observed tolerance and liberty. It truly was a triumph of democracy -- something I shall never forget.

Update: Erik Runge and the good people at WGN-TV aired a follow-up segment on Thursday evening. The title was, "Lessons from the Fall of the Berlin Wall Still Ring True, 30 Years Later" [link here]. As the title suggests, the piece looks at the lessons from this period together with what people born afterwards think about it. My own comment which they include was to agree that lessons were drawn but that people can forget them -- if only (one hopes) temporarily.

'No, Herr Policeman, Chicago is nothing like your East German Communist Dictatorship.'

What with all the talk of the 25th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, I recalled an episode that happened to me a bit earlier while visiting East Berlin.

The way it worked is you got to spend a day there but had to be back by midnight or they'd make you pay a fine. Normally we'd go there, visit the sites (such as they were), head to a couple of bars to spend the practically worthless East-German marks, and then head back to Checkpoint Charlie.

One night as we were racing back, we got stopped by an East-German policeman or border guard or I don't know what -- on the final street right before Checkpoint Charlie. "Why", I asked the guard.

"Because you crossed the street against the light," he explained. The fine for this trespass was 20 marks (West German of course). Naturally I grumbled as I handed over the ransom money.

"But," he said by way of defense, "we have our laws, you have your laws. It would be the same in Chicago."

I looked at the deserted street I had just crossed and then the huge forbidding Wall stretched left and right with watch-towers, spotlights and men armed with machine guns -- all to keep their own people trapped inside.

"No," I assured the guard, "this is nothing like Chicago."

Jesse Jackson & Me

I ran into Jesse Jackson while in Milwaukee. I've run into him a couple of times before. One memorable occasion was in West Berlin during the Eighties. He had made a speech to thousands of Berliners at the Gedanknis Kirche (i.e. the center of town) finishing with the line, 'we defeated the 3rd Reich in Germany and we'll defeat the 4th Reich in South Africa'. The Berliners cheered. Then he added that he'd be at a party in Dahlem later that evening.

Party in Dahlem! With Jesse Jackson! The moment we heard that, we headed straight to the location -- a lefty social center for students. Unfortunately what Jackson forgot to mention -- probably because he didn't know -- was that they were charging at the door! Charging at the door? Impossible! So instead of going in, we waited. Finally a car arrived and Jesse Jackson got out. "Jesse," I said, running over to him, "I'm from Chicago and they won't let me in!"

He turned to me. "You're from Chicago", he asked. "Come with me!"

We walked arm-in-arm into the place. I headed straight to the liquor table. I filled up my glass and then sauntered back to the entrance to wave to my companions who were still outside. I motioned to the doorman to let them in. Having just walked in arm-in-arm with Jesse Jackson, the doorman assumed that I had a certain elevated degree of mojo -- so he let my friends in.

I reminded Jesse of this episode when I saw him in Milwaukee. He was in good spirits and laughed.

NY Times ArtsBeat Blog: Stew in Africa: A Long Time Coming

"Pathetic Eurocentric Negro!" That's how Stew, an old pal of mine from my Berlin days begins an account of his first trip ever to Africa. He's working as one of the creative advisers for a program in Kenya that coaches upcoming African theater people. He's also agreed to share his experiences by posting regularly on the New York Times' ArtsBeat Blog. Stew was the lead guitarist of a good-time band we had in Berlin called 'The Wonderful Guise'. Tony Millionaire was also a member of the group. Anyway, it's good to see Stew maintaining the spirit of those free-for-all wild times in passages like this:

The workshop I'm giving on Manda will probably consist of a song by song analysis of the Rolling Stones 1966 release "Between the Buttons" which I'll compare and contrast with "King Lear," even though I've never read "King Lear" and I'm almost certain absolutely no connection between the two works actually exists. But Sundance can handle this sort of thing.

You can read the whole post here...

'Er Kommt' - Or My Short Stint as a False Prophet

Of the many encounters I had in Berlin recently, one of the more interesting was with a woman who I had never met before. It was at the Bauhof Anniversary Party and she came up and gave me a photo which she had taken over twenty years earlier.

The photo was of a poster of me with the words, 'Er Kommt' (i.e. 'He's coming'). She had seen the poster plastered all over the neighborhood and like a few others at the time, had interpreted it as the harbinger of some significant event.

The truth was far more mundane. I had spent much of the year (1987) in New York and when Tony Millionaire heard I was coming back, he grabbed a photo of me from my expired passport, enlarged it and proceeded to paste photocopies of it all over Kreuzberg. So I guess you could say it was a significant event -- but more along the lines of Tony Millionaire finally getting his American drinking buddy back. I hope she wasn't disappointed.

Party in Berlin

Don't want to miss this:

"Party in Berlin: Squatters' Ball. Dresscode: Evening Attire."

Berlin, Oct. 3, 1990

 

I remember the ceremony out in front of the Reichstag very well. The flag was raised and they played 'Deutschland, Deutschland'. It was the culmination of events that had started a year earlier with the opening of the Berlin Wall (11/9/1989) and the upheaval all over Eastern Europe.

This date has always had personal significance for me. I had been in Europe by that time for 10 years (Paris, Rome, Berlin). The reunification of Germany represented a new beginning. I had known the old way: the two Berlins, the Wall, the crazy lovable nut-house ('Bonnie's Ranch') on one side and the police state on the other.

That was coming to an end -- and thank God it was -- but the new beginning prompted me to think about what I was doing and where I wanted to go.

I got into an airplane and flew back to the United States the next day.

In Berlin When the Wall Came Down

I was in Berlin when the Wall came down. In fact I had been living there since 1984.

I had just woken up from an early evening nap when one of the people from the Wohngemeinschaft where I was living told me the Wall had come down.

This seemed strange since it looked perfectly intact only an hour before when I had gone to sleep.

Of course my room-mate was exaggerating. In fact, the Wall hadn't come down -- it had simply opened up. You still had to show your ID to get through. There was one or maybe two cross-points. These are important distinctions which I'll get back to in a moment but at that point it really didn't matter. I like everyone rushed out to welcome the incoming East Germans at Checkpoint Charlie, buying a bottle of Sekt (German sparkling wine) along the way.

East Berlin in the Bad Old Days

East Berlin up to that point had principally been a source of cheap booze and tyranny. It was drab beyond imagination. Other than official communist exhortations plastered on walls here and there, there was absolutely no advertising -- or color of any kind.

Of course, the people living there knew what was going on. They had access to the same radio and tv we did. The Wall surrounded West Berlin but it was the 'Ossies' as they were called who were trapped.

Long Weekend

By the time we got to Checkpoint Charlie that night, there already was a huge number of people. It seemed like the East Germans were being processed in lots. Every time a group came through, people would cheer.

Some that night came over just to have a look. They clogged the buses and U-Bahn. It was extremely difficult for the next three days to get into the center of the city. In front of all the banks, there were huge lines of East Berliners waiting to pick up their Begrüßungsgeld (Welcome Money) of 100 DM. They used this money to buy oranges and radio-cassette players -- things they couldn't get in East Berlin.

Everywhere there was this extraordinary sense of euphoria -- summed up best by Walter Momper, mayor of West Berlin, when he called Germans "das glücklichste Volk auf der Welt" (happiest people in the world).

When the Wall Came Down for Me

As days turned into weeks, more and more entry ways were opened between the two parts of the city. The Brandenburg Gate was opened in December. You still had to show your ID to get through but the level of scrutiny became less and less.

I remember one particularly sunny day several months later -- it may even have been summer -- when I was going through the new entry point at Mariannenplatz and there didn't seem to be anyone around. I kept waiting to be stopped at some point as I moved further across -- first through the West Berlin side, and then through the East Berlin side -- but again there was no one. I simply walked through! It was the first time I had been able to do this. That's when the Wall truly came down for me.

Postscript

I never got into taking a hammer to the Wall. It was something I was glad to leave up to the tourists. And I don't really know what I'd do with a chunk of the thing any more than I'd know what to do with a pair of handcuffs from the Stassi or a uniform or hat.

I don't need those things. It's enough to remember what the people I met back then had to endure and that no matter how free-wheeling and wild we were on our side of the Wall (west), that there was a fully-certified police state just a block away (east).

That was the Berlin I knew. By the time of the unification, it was clear that the city and country were embarking on a new chapter.

It was time for me to leave. I had been in Europe for more than ten years, six of them in Berlin. I witnessed the unification ceremony near the Reichstag and flew back to the United States the next day.

More Berlin Stories - Stew and 'Passing Strange' on NPR

So I'm listening to NPR's 'All Things Considered' and they start talking about an old pal of mine from my days in Berlin, Stew. The segment is called, "Wondrous 'Strange': Spike Lee Makes A Musical" and it's about how Spike Lee produced a film version of Stew's musical 'Passing Strange' which won a Tony last year (see my write-up).

The musical is about Stew's experiences growing up in L.A. and then going to Amsterdam and Berlin. Since that's when I knew him (we were in the same group called the 'Wonderful Guise'), I look forward to seeing the film. Here's the trailer.

Three Events in My Life

They're selling Obama hats at my local 7-11. I know 'business is business' but this is the first time I can recall when the 'swag' from a presidential campaign was thought valuable enough to hit the retail shelves.

Three world events have affected me in my life. The first was the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. I was there, had been there since '84 and knew what it was like to have a police state just a block or two away. I was working construction in those days. I had finished up and had taken a nap. When I woke up one of the people living in the house told me the extraordinary news that while I was asleep, the Wall had come down.

Of course, the person exaggerated. The Wall which surrounded the entire western half of the city hadn't come down. Rather an opening had been made at Checkpoint Charlie and also at the Brandenburg Gate where people from East Berlin -- the 'Ossies' -- could cross over. What followed were three days of absolute euphoria as tens of thousands of East Germans came over, swamping the local public transportation, waiting in long lines in front of banks to pick up their "Begrüßungsgeld" (i.e. welcome money) of 100 DM with which they bought items absolutely unavailable in their part of the city such as cassette radios and bags of oranges.

The downfall of that Wall and the regime it represented was the most positive experience of my young adult life.

More than a decade later, I was living in New York City. When I first heard that a jet had struck one of the World Trade Towers, I thought maybe it was an accident, albeit of horrendous proportions. When the second plane hit the second tower, I like everyone else in New York knew otherwise. I can remember walking north to work, up 1st Avenue, and seeing the emotions of people looking past me in the direction of Lower Manhattan. I finally turned around to see what they were looking at and there the towers stood, clearly visible as always, but now smoking and about to collapse. The ruins continued to give off smoke for weeks.

Now I'm in Chicago. Just three days ago, the eyes of the world were focused on our city. It was the final act of a series of events whose beginnings, I would argue, stretch back to the turmoil of the election in 2000. It was a period of abnormal excesses, exacerbated in reaction to 9-11, where we as a nation didn't always come off as a preeminent force for good. In fact, in many ways, we lost ground.

So after an unbelievably long campaign that could have ended in any number of ways, we all gathered in Grant Park, not wanting to risk fate by putting into words what so many of us were hoping and some of us had worked for. Pennsylvania was declared, then Ohio. The polls in California and the rest of the Pacific-coast states were closing at 10pm Central Standard time. At 10pm the people in the park started counting down from 10 to 0. Exactly at that point on the large TV screens, Wolf Blitzer from CNN said he had an important announcement to make, that CNN now projected Barack Obama to be elected President of the United States. The crowd in the park, all 250k of them, went wild.

It's a moment, like the two others, that I'll never forget.