June
10, 1972, was a Saturday. The sun was shining at a bright blue sky, and the
birds were singing in the gigantic blooming magnolia in front of the dated Women’s
Hospital in Rostock. The streetcar was ringing a greeting in front of the red
brick building, and a smell of cooked potatoes from the Rostock Brewery was in
the air.
Together with nine other women Astrid lay in room number three of the
maternity ward. With nine women in one room it was loud. But the advantage was that there was at least one woman with whom Astrid enjoyed chatting –
across the whole room, if necessary. The newborn babies were not disturbed by the
noise; they would sleep peacefully in the nursery at the end of the floor. Every
four hours friendly nurses in pink would bring them to their longing mothers, a
rigorous “nursing nurse” making her round and giving advice if there would be
difficulties with the first breast feeding.
At this day, meteorologists form Madison, U.S.A., reported the latest
frost of all times, in Rapid City, South Dakota, a hurricane caused a flood,
killing 237 people, and in Washington, President Nixon presented the Senate the
disarmament treaty SALT I with the Soviet Union for ratification, while at the
other end of the city, rocket scientist Wernher von Braun retired from NASA. In
New York City Elvis Presley gave a concert at the sold-out Madison Square
Garden, where even John Lennon and Bob Dylan would applaud the King.
These events took place far away from the white washed labor room at the
Women’s Clinic in Rostock and could as well have happened on another planet, because
even if there had been a television in the room – which was unthinkable back then
– Astrid and her room mates would not have seen anything of this at the news.
Instead, the “Aktuelle Kamera“, the
daily news show at 7.30 pm, reported from the XI Farmers’ Congress in Leipzig
and the fulfillment of the state agriculture plan. Clips of the routine speech
of the Chairman of the State Council, Erich Honecker, at the People’s
Parliament were shown, broadcasting the fife-minute applause in full length,
zooming in on the smiling faces of the MPs. It was hardly surprising that there
was nothing about America on the news, as in 1972 East Germany did not maintain
any diplomatic relations with the United States. Briefly and tediously, but
grammatically complicated and lengthy to give the impression of intelligent
analysis, the newsreader also covered the Baader-Meinhof Group’s assassination at
the West German embassy in Dublin on that Saturday, where luckily nobody was
hurt. It was a day like any other day in
Rostock, East Germany – no unusual incidents, no unusual news.
That Saturday, on June 10, I was born. I was early, which was surprising
to my mother. When she had a stomachache on Friday morning, she complained
about the heavy food her mother had cooked the night before, and when it didn’t
get better during the day, she went to her neighbor who was a doctor and would
know what to do, since now the pain came every fifteen minutes. “This is really
not indigestion,” she told my mother, “you are in labor.” Well, how was my mom supposed
to know? The doctor had told her that the child was supposed to come in three
days, and mistaking contractions for an upset stomach can happen at the first
pregnancy – even to my considerate, well-read, doctor-to-be mother.
When the pain did not stop, her brother Bubi (trimming the hedges in
front of the house) decided to call the ambulance and went straight to his
neighbor across the street who had a telephone. Why he had a telephone – a
privilege only a selected few in East Germany was granted – was now of marginal
importance. At this emergency the Stasi-telephone
had to do.
At Madison Square Garden Elvis was getting ready for his concert. While
a beautiful blonde helped him into his blue Adonis jumpsuit, styled his hair
and put make-up on his eyes, an eager nurse helped my mother into her blue
night gown. Elvis went on stage, the audience screaming. And when he was breathing
„Love me tender“, rolling his hips, and hundreds of female fans were
screaming and passing out, Astrid was yelling even louder, moving her hips even
more passionately, and almost passed out herself because of pain and exhaustion.
Then everything was over. Elvis disappeared from the stage, and a new
child entered the world’s stage. Astrid had given birth to a tiny, delicate girl -- that was me.
In East Germany my mother was considered to be rather old for having her
first child, even though she was only twenty-six and thus three years younger
than me when I had my first child. In the GDR the average pregnant woman had
her first child with twenty-two. This delay due to medical school had its
advantages, since in April the Central Committee of the SED (the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands,
the governing party in East Germany) had introduced new socio-political
measures. Now mothers received 1,000 Marks of “Welcome Money” for every newborn
East German citizen. Perfect timing – my parents could use the money well for new
furniture.
Seven days later mother and child were released from the clinic. Meanwhile
Claus’ ship had arrived at the Port of Rostock. My parents phoned, sent each
other telegrams, and hoped to see each other – in vain. My father did not get
shore leave and his ship left the port soon after, not coming back home for
another two months. At the same day men broke into the Watergate Building in
Washington D.C. and were arrested. While Nixon did everything to cover up the
affair so as not to move out of the White House, I moved into the basement
apartment at my grandparents’.
In August I got to know my father. Fondly, he held me in his arms, and I
looked curiously at him, while the world looked at Munich and the Summer
Olympics, and was shocked at the assassination of the Israeli team. The games
went on nonetheless, and “our” East German athletes came home with twenty gold,
twenty-three silver and twenty-three bronze medals, scoring place three in the
overall medal score, after the Soviet Union and the United States. Erich
Honecker shook the Hands of “his” athletes. 1972 was also the year of the
European Soccer Championship, in which the West German team won 3:0 against the
Russian team and became European Champion, and all East Germans cheered for the
Germans (no matter how much of a Big Brother the Soviet Union was supposed to
be).
Proudly my parents presented me to my great-grandparents. With 5.5 lbs I
was a rather delicate child, and my great-grandma doubted whether something
would become of me. I was indeed so small that I did not fit into normal baby
clothing, but I grew and I had a lot of time for growing since 1972 was the
longest year of the Gregorian calendar: as a leap year it was two days and two
seconds longer than usual. Hence there was enough time for international
events. 1972 was the year of Apollo 17, the first pocket calculator HP-35, and
the start of Star Treck in West German
television. The German Playboy captured
men’s hearts in the West, and secretly and privately in the East; Heinrich Boell
received the Nobel Prize for Literature, and Charles Chaplin the Honorary Academy
Award for the “incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art
form of this century”. It was a year of RAF assassinations and the arrest of Andreas
Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Ulrike Meinhof, a year of plane crashes in London, Tenerife,
Moscow, Miami, Uruguay and Königs-Wusterhausen (East Germany),
a year of earth quakes in Iran and Nicaragua, of floods and hurricanes in the
US and Lower Saxony (West Germany), and of the hijacking of a Lufthansa plane
by Arabian terrorists in South Yemen, to whom the government of West Germany
paid five million dollars of ransom money.
1972 was also a year of boundaries. East Germany was still fighting for international
recognition until on 26 May the Basic Treaty between the Federal Republic of
Germany and the German Democratic Republic was signed, which established the invulnerability
of the borders, the recognition of the Four-Power Authorities and the exchange
of permanent representatives. Strengthened by these arrangements, Honecker
instantly declared West Germany an „imperialist country“ and legitimized four
months later the shoot-to-kill order at the borders. At the “State Border West”
guard bars and prohibited areas were set up, and the use of firearms by the East
German border troops was legitimate according to the regulations of the
Ministry of Nations Defense. At the end of the year even Switzerland had to
accept the German Democratic Republic as an independent country.
All the while I was growing and thriving well, and my grandpa organized
a playpen in which I could practice standing up. I pulled up at the colorful bars,
curiously looking at my surrounding in our living room from this fascinating perspective
and intently trying to climb over the bars. While I would be able to overcome
the borders of my playpen in due time, I would grow up being aware to live in a
country whose borders were clearly defined and impossible to overcome, but maybe I was already dreaming of a free country all the while.
