The House by the Lake

by Thomas Harding

  Finally, Bernd had had enough4. On the morning of 2 July 1980, he told his parents that ‘As Gaby is not wanted here, I will go with her’. He packed a bag, and the two of them left the house. At the Gemeinde office, Bernd said that he was now over eighteen and needed a place for him and his girlfriend. The person in charge of allocating housing said that they were in luck. A few hours later, the young couple moved into an apartment on the second floor of the Drei Linden, at a rent of six marks per month.

  On 14 August 1981, Bernd and Gaby were married at a civil ceremony in Potsdam. Afterwards, they threw a party in the garden of the Drei Linden which over fifty people attended. To the guests’ delight, Bernd played a compilation tape he had recorded from RIAS. It was an eclectic mix, including Queen’s ‘We Are the Champions’ and City’s more plaintive ‘By the Window’.

  Four months later, Gaby gave birth to a daughter whom they named Michelle. The village offered the couple a ruin of a house on Seepromenade, a kilometre south of where his parents lived. It too was a lakefront house, and its access to the shore was similarly blocked by the Wall. As such, it was located within the Grenzgebiet and so5, even though he had lived within the border security zone for most of his life, Bernd and Gaby had to obtain permission from the Stasi to live at their new home.

  It took five months, but on 30 April 1982, their application was accepted, and Bernd promised his bride that he would transform their new house into a ‘jewel’. Five days later, before he was able to start work on the house, he was called away to commence his mandatory military service.

  In the 1980s all East German men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-six had to spend eighteen months in the National People’s Army (NVA). Established in 1956, seven years after Germany’s partition, the NVA was the main armed force of the DDR.

  Initially, the NVA had been a voluntary organisation since the government worried that mandatory service might encourage young men to flee to the West. Conscription had been introduced in 1962 after the Wall was built and the borders made secure. By 1982, when Bernd joined, the NVA had grown to almost 200,000 men. Uniquely, for the East European countries under the control of the Soviet Union, it was possible to refuse to participate for ideological reasons, though such conscientious objectors would often later experience discrimination.

  As a key arm of the government’s security apparatus, the NVA was kept under close political control. By the 1980s, over 95 per cent of the office corps were members of the Socialist Unity Party, and all of its officers were vetted by the Stasi. Such political control was considered imperative, given that one of the NVA’s key tasks was to prepare for the possible invasion and capture of West Berlin. As part of this plan, which had been developed by the NVA’s high command in conjunction with its Soviet counterparts, the main incursion would focus on the fence that bordered the British Gatow airfield base near Groß Glienicke. Indeed, rather than the typical concrete barrier, this section of the Berlin Wall was made of easily penetrable metal mesh. What the NVA didn’t know was that the British airbase commander was ordered to offer no resistance in the event of an attack, and to flee the base as soon as possible.

  When he arrived at the NVA training camp, Bernd was given the basic uniform, a dark green camouflage jacket and trousers, a green cap and black boots. Having grown up next to the NVA base just north of the village, Bernd was familiar with its culture of elevated security and highly strung soldiers. As part of his training, he was not only taught how to operate and clean a gun, but he also had to participate in political education classes, to memorise yet more slogans, such as ‘For the Protection of the Workers’ and Farmers’ Power’. Most of his time in the army was filled preparing for rapid deployment in the event of a NATO attack; endless drills in which Bernd had to dress quickly, run to a parade ground, and present himself to a supervising officer. As a result, the conscripts were usually on high alert.

  Throughout the next eighteen months of his service, Bernd kept his head down, doing what he was told. Consequently, he was considered both militarily competent and politically reliable. On his last day in the army, on 28 October 19836, Bernd was invited in for an interview. As soon as the man entered the room, wearing a long brown leather jacket and a confident, intimidating look, Bernd knew that he was from the Stasi.

  Stasi officers were often recruited from conscripts. Such candidates were considered particularly suitable if they or their family members had been party members, or had acted as informers during their military service. That Bernd’s father had been a Stasi informer – a fact of which Bernd was unaware – would have helped his standing.

  Potential recruits had to be recommended by their military unit’s political officer, along with the local Volkspolizei and the chief of the local Stasi. Once approved, candidates had to pass a series of exams, which tested their intelligence as well as their political reliability. If successful, they would then complete a rigorous two-year training programme at the Stasi college in Potsdam.

  Mentioning passport control, the stranger asked Bernd, ‘Do you want to work for us?’ There was no discussion, simply the request for a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Bernd knew that if he said ‘yes’, he would be given a nice car and maybe some extra money. What he didn’t want, however, was to become one of those people who everyone knew worked at the Ministry for State Security, who everyone feared. People in the village could tell who was in the Stasi. It was how they talked, how they acted. One giveaway was the car they drove, particularly a certain kind of Lada7.

  Indeed, by the early 1980s, the Stasi had a large presence in Groß Glienicke. Liking the proximity to Berlin and the surrounding countryside, many senior Stasi officers had dachas in Groß Glienicke. In addition, the Ministry for State Security’s legal section owned a large retreat on the shores of Sacrower See, the lake located one hundred metres to the south of Groß Glienicke Lake. Here, its officers could spend a relaxing weekend. The Stasi’s military section also operated a group of wooden cottages on Bayerstraße in the village, where its members could spend the weekend, albeit in less style than their legal comrades. Unsurprisingly, Bernd was more than familiar with the customs and benefits of working for the Stasi.

  With the Stasi officer still sitting in front of him, Bernd made up his mind. He was not the right person for the job, he told him. He didn’t want to work for the State Security organisation. A few days later, Bernd returned home to his wife and child in Groß Glienicke.

  26

  KÜHNE

  1986

  AFTER HIS MILITARY service, Bernd resumed his job as a truck driver for the company in Potsdam and, during the evenings and weekends, set about repairing the dilapidated house on Seepromenade.

  He and Gaby liked to socialise. Whenever they could find a babysitter, they went out for drinks at the Drei Linden or the Badewiese (although it had been officially renamed Hechtsprung, or Fish Jumping, in an effort to distract the citizens from the fact that it no longer had beach access, everyone still called it Badewiese). They also co-founded the Groß Glienicke Carnival Club1, a local committee aiming to arrange more events for the village’s young people. As its first creative director, Bernd organised a Mardi Gras, a three-day celebration involving dancing and extravagant costumes.

  Bernd also took Gaby and Michelle to visit his parents at the lake house. Although Irene and Wolfgang were welcoming, it became clear to him that life at home had grown steadily worse. His parents often argued, or sat silently in separate rooms. Irene later recalled how Wolfgang’s excessive drinking, and the violence that usually followed, finally forced her to move out. Bernd’s parents were officially divorced in early 1986. With his wife now gone, and his children having moved out, Wolfgang found himself alone at the lake house.

  As he was once again living in the border security zone, Bernd came into frequent contact with the authorities. At one point, for instance, he was visited by the Volkspolizei who wanted to know why he had assorted building materials in his backyard. To a suspicious eye
, they said, it was possible that he could use the wooden planks and iron bars to climb over the Wall. Once he had explained that he was merely building a shed, the police left him in peace. Bernd suspected that someone had informed on him.

  Shortly afterwards, a neighbour who was leaving the area asked if Bernd would like to take on a little job that he would no longer be able to perform. When Bernd asked him what this was, the man said that he was helping the Stasi by ‘keeping an eye out for people who tried to escape across the border’. Thanking him, Bernd demurred, and wished his neighbour good luck with his move.

  But this was not the end of Bernd’s contact with the Stasi. By now, the security organisation had become even more powerful. With a staff of over 90,000 people, and another 180,000 people working as informers – equivalent to one informant in every seventy citizens in the DDR – the Stasi was intent on keeping a close watch on its population. Perhaps because of his refusal to work for the organisation, the Stasi had kept a file on Bernd. In one note dated 24 February 1986, the Central Filing Department reported that Bernd Kühne, or ‘K’, ‘works well and is reliable. He has a positive attitude and takes part in social activities.’ They added that he ‘is not associated with negative people. K lives within the border security zone. There are no negative comments.’ Not content with reporting on just Bernd, the Stasi file provided an additional commentary on his family.

  The Ks live in Groß Glienicke. The marriage and family life seems harmonious and orderly. He had a good relationship with his father, who is divorced and lives in Groß Glienicke. His mother has moved away. His family seems to be normal and they are living according to their income without anything noteworthy. There are no reports about his in-laws.

  While Bernd was unaware of such reports, he knew that both he and his family – like most of the East Germany’s population – were probably subjects of Stasi surveillance. To deal with such intrusion, he kept to himself any criticism that he might feel towards the state, to be shared only with the limited few that he trusted.

  In 1987, aged fifty-three Wolfgang Kühne married again. He did not like living by himself, and was eager for company, someone to take care of him. His bride’s name was Ingeborg Rachuy, or Inge as everyone called her. She was Wolfgang’s boss at the city of Potsdam cleaning department.

  Inge was four years his senior and had six children of her own. Shortly after moving in with Wolfgang, Inge’s seven-year-old grandson, Roland, arrived at the house. Roland had lived in a children’s home in Potsdam since he was five, having been removed from his mother, a substance abuser who had spent time in prison. Roland was allowed to select his bedroom, and with all of Wolfgang’s children now gone, he had three to choose from. He picked the spare room, the first room to the left on entering the house. Having spent so much time in institutional housing, Roland made no effort to decorate or to make the room his own. And, with his mother in prison, his father absent, and his grandmother and step-grandfather increasingly incapacitated by drink, Roland was often left to his own devices.

  A tall, thin, athletic-looking boy with short dark hair and sad eyes, Roland loved nothing more than playing with a football on the front lawn: shooting at an unmanned goal, honing his dribbling skills, bouncing a ball on the tip of his foot, knee, chest and head, and then back onto his foot. He was often joined by Rex, Wolfgang’s brown-and-white mongrel, who eagerly chased after the ball. Even at such a young age Roland’s talent was noticeable and it wasn’t long before a coach spotted him, and he was invited to play for the village team, the Rot-Weiß.

  Over the next few years, Wolfgang and Inge spent most of their time inebriated, becoming almost entirely withdrawn from the world. As his drinking escalated, so Wolfgang’s efforts to maintain his villa slowed. Now well into its fifties, the lake house was looking its age. Its exterior needed a coat of paint, as did the windows and the shutters. The garage roof had caved in. The walls of the animal sheds were cracked, the vegetable garden had become overgrown with weeds, and the beehives stood empty.

  According to Bernd, there was one exception to this inactivity. One evening, after a day of heavy drinking in which he had stared long and hard at the living-room fireplace, Wolfgang had an idea. Taking a sharp knife to the fake brick wallpaper that still covered the chimney, he carefully removed a square of wallpaper one metre high and half a metre wide. There they were. The blue-and-white Delft tiles, in five rows of six: the child on a rocking horse, the man watering his plants, the windmill on a hill overlooking a lake, the carpenter making a casket, the woman in a large hat walking in her garden. The tiles reminded Wolfgang how much he loved the house; he felt proud of his efforts all these years to care for the property.

  Delft tiles in lake house living room

  Bernd visited less and less, the gradual deterioration of his childhood home depressing him. His father and stepmother appeared to be always drinking or drunk, and paid little attention to Roland, a fact he reminded them of whenever he visited. Bernd focused instead on his family – Gaby gave birth to a boy, Christian, in 1987 – working hard at his job, and building a new life for himself.

  Like many of his friends, Bernd was desperate to leave the village. Ever since he was a boy he had wanted to live in the West. From the programmes he watched on Western television, he felt golden opportunities lay just on the other side of the Wall. He had spoken about his dreams of a better life with Gaby, but he was scared. He had heard of people trying to escape;2 a few had succeeded but most had failed. He knew that an escape was technically possible, but understood that there were real risks, both to him and his family.

  The most famous local escape incident involved a twenty-four-year-old guard from Behrenshagen near the Baltic Sea named Ulrich Steinhauer3. Steinhauer had been stationed with Border Regiment 34 at the barracks in Groß Glienicke. An unenthusiastic employee, he had been counting the days until his release.

  Scene of Ulrich Steinhauer murder, with Steinhauer’s body visible, far left

  On 4 November 1980, Steinhauer was assigned as the guard leader at the Staaken–Schönwalde border section, some six kilometres north of the village. There he was joined by a soldier named Egon Bunge, a recent posting to Groß Glienicke. A little after 4 p.m., as they were walking along the barrier, Bunge flicked a switch to deactivate the border communication system and clicked off his gun’s safety catch. Steinhauer was startled. ‘Don’t fool around,’ he said, before removing the machine gun from his own shoulder. According to his later testimony, Bunge issued a warning, ‘I’m taking off now, throw down your weapon!’ and fired two shots over his colleague’s head. When Steinhauer did not lower his weapon, Bunge fired five rounds at Steinhauer and then rode his bicycle to the Wall, climbed up and over, and turned himself over to the West Berlin police.

  The Stasi’s initial report stated that Steinhauer was found dead in front of the barrier with bullet holes in his back and side4. ‘They were standing in the area of the non-manned towers along the border patrol path. Steinhauer’s weapon was not loaded. He did not shoot from it,’ stated the report. ‘The guilty party, Bunge, was without doubt aiming at him.’

  Ulrich Steinhauer’s death became a cause célèbre for the DDR authorities5, who used it to build a narrative of the West’s villainy, and the heroism of a young DDR soldier. The story sent the small village of Groß Glienicke into shock. Over the next few weeks and months, the town spoke of little else, bombarded by successive media reports. There was a ceremony in which Steinhauer was posthumously promoted to sergeant; another in which he was awarded a medal ‘for service to the people and fatherland’, by the East German defence minister, Heinz Hoffmann. A street in Groß Glienicke was even renamed Ulrich Steinhauer Strasse.

  Yet it was another escape6, which took place on 10 March 1988, that most impressed Bernd. That evening, some of Bernd’s former colleagues were drinking in a local bar when the conversation turned to the West and a trip dort drüben, or ‘over there’. One said that he knew of a truck loaded with prop
ane gas canisters that they could drive through the checkpoint. The drunker the men got the better the idea sounded. A few hours later, the men climbed into the truck and, with the siren blaring and engine roaring, drove at full speed towards the barricade at the Glienicke Bridge border crossing in Potsdam.

  As it happened, the barrier was not properly locked, and, travelling at over fifty kilometres per hour, the truck easily smashed through, narrowly avoiding the alarmed border guards. As they crossed the bridge, a few of the canisters bounced off the truck, crashing into the glass window of one of the guard huts.

  This last attempt may have inspired Bernd Kühne, for in the spring of 1989, while having a few drinks at a party in Groß Glienicke, Bernd and one of his cousins decided to see West Berlin for themselves. Around seven that evening, they grabbed a ladder from the garden and carried it to the first inner wall. This they climbed before jumping down, laughing uproariously, on the other side. Tripping the first alarm wire as they crossed to the outer wall, they were seen and chased by a guard. But before the guard could act, Bernd and his cousin were quickly over the second wall. Next came the lake, which at that stage in spring was very cold, and in the water was yet more fencing and possibly mines that they would have to make their way around. Fuelled by alcohol and adrenalin, however, the two men swam across the lake to the West Berlin shore, a distance of around five hundred metres. There they scrambled out at Ludwig’s Restaurant, where they were met by a barking dog and the puzzled owner.

  As soon as they had explained their adventure, the restaurant owner silenced his dog and invited the pair in for beer and sausages. Hours later, at midnight, Bernd said it was time for them to go home. The restaurant owner was incredulous that his guests would want to return to East Germany. ‘My wife will be furious if I don’t go back,’ said Bernd, nervous about having to swim across the freezing lake again. There was a better route, the restaurant owner told them, over the large metal gate through which the border patrol crossed from East to West. And so, after a few encounters with a series of holes large enough to trap a small bear, and still giggling from drink, they finally made it home, without meeting a single soldier or border patrol guard.