Berlin / Tempelhof Central Airport , 1973 - 1976
6912th Security Squadron, USAFSS
An Ex-Airman Remembers
Part 5 - February 1975 through December 1975
Getting Acquainted with Roommate Jim
Monday night Jim was in our room smoking. I tried to retreat into my own world for a while, but later gave it up. Jim got tired of watching TV, and we started talking. I found out that he was an okay guy. I had the feeling that he had been regarding me as a rather strange and unsociable person since we had become roommates, so it was good that we finally had a nice talk. To my surprise he said that he liked classical music, and even played the piano and organ! I played some records for him. Then we started cleaning the room together for a while, focusing on the refrigerator and the sink. Before midnight I turned in. It felt really good to be able to sleep at night for once.
New Faces at House Meeting
Tuesday I went to visit Aleksandra, arriving at the Haus Elisabeth at about 1:15. This time I took along my cassette recorder, and had her tell me her life story again, capturing it all on tape. I left feeling good about having practiced my Russian again.
That night I went to the house meeting, feeling a bit anxious and unprepared. There was a full house that night, with ten of us in all. Berndt and Christel were both there, as well as Rudi, Dörte, Sabine, and Brunhilde. Two newcomers to the group were Bodo T., and Uwe B. Uwe I had never seen before. He was about thirty years old, had dark hair, and spoke Berlin dialect. He became a regular comer and a permanent addition to the Nolli community. I would be getting to know him a little better during the coming weeks, and he would soon be playing a role in my own life.
At the meeting that night there was a lot of talk. They talked about the situation in Germany with all the foreign workers, about unemployment, and finally about the good and bad points of beer. Rudi then told about Riad the Lebanese guy, and about his situation here in Berlin. Brunni, I noticed, was very silent all evening. Occasionally she smiled, but out of politeness only. I could tell that she was very depressed.
Bodo drove me home that night, taking a route that led past the Reichstag. He was an employee of British Airways, worked at the airport, and knew his way around the place fairly well. When we got to Tempelhof he showed me a new way of getting onto base, and led me as far as a military checkpoint, where we parted.
I was feeling pretty good that night, but was still concerned about Brunni.
IG Report and Shift Change
Wednesday the 5th was the first day watch. The IG report was out, and everyone was reading it. Nearly everything was "marginal." I'm sure that Joyce, Major S., and others were not too pleased.
Thursday it was foggy and very cold, the coldest day of the winter so far, and it was a dead day watch at Marienfelde. Friday the 7th it was cold again. It was a fairly busy day this time, and I was pretty busy all day. There was a notice posted saying that the four-flight schedule was going to be restored on February 26th. The schedule that included the day/swing X-flight had been trashed. That was not particularly good news as far as I was concerned, since on the existing schedule the mid shifts were few and far between. Now they would be coming with brutal regularity as before. Also, they would be mixing up the composition of the flights again, and it wasn't clear how things would turn out.
West Lake in Neukölln
Monday the 10th was the second day of break, and was another bright, cheerful day. I went to Steve's place that afternoon, arriving at 5:00. He had been wanting to take me to a local Chinese restaurant for a long time, and we finally went there together that night. It was the "West Lake" located on the Karl-Marx Straße, near the Neukölln U-Bahn station. It was a very nice place. I was reading the Chinese on the walls, and the waiter and waitress took notice. "Do you know Chinese?" they asked. I told them, and they soon brought me a Chinese magazine to read while we waited. They were both very nice.
Business there seemed to be very light, and the restaurant was nearly empty. I ordered a pineapple chicken, and it was absolutely delicious. Steve and I sat and ate our meal with chopsticks, and continued our discussion of the Brunhilde affair, and of other matters. It was a very nice, relaxing time together, and the atmosphere at the Chinese restaurant brought back pleasant memories of my Chinese adventures at college five years earlier.
Riad from Lebanon
Sometime around the middle of February, Riad, the refugee from Lebanon, invited me over to his place for English lessons. I had noticed him before, and remembered when he first showed up at Nolli, speaking only French. Friday, February 21st I went to his place on Damaschkestraße, where he lived with Schwester P. from Nolli, and thereby got to know him. We soon became fast friends, and the sad, quiet Riad that I had seen months before, became for me the happy, good-natured Riad that I remember from my later years in Berlin. Thus started our friendship, which lasted throughout the year, and it all started during those dark, rainy, cold, depressing days in February, when my mind was still filled with painful memories of Brunhilde.
Riad lived in a spacious apartment on or near the top floor of an Altbau building on Holzendorffplatz, at the end of the Damaschkestraße, which, incidentally, also marked the western end of the Sybelstraße where Brunhilde lived. To get to his place I had to take the 19 bus down the KuDamm to the intersection of Damaschkestraße, and walk the rest of the way. During those first few visits in February, that usually meant getting very wet. I remember that during my first visit it was raining terribly. Riad was renting a room from Schwester P., one of the "old-timers" at Nolli, an aristocratic old lady who spoke German with an unfamiliar accent. She had no family, and decided to rent one of her rooms to Riad when she saw his need.
A Resurrected Dog Flight
Wednesday the 26th the new shift schedules started at Marienfelde, and remained in effect until I left the Air Force in April 1976. It was the old original 4-1-4-1-4-4 schedule, which meant more frequent mids. I was put on Dog flight, which was made up of scraps from the other flights. Captain T. was our commander; Bill M., Rob A., and Pat from Baker were on the flight as well. Others were Mike B. from Able flight, Wiley T., Jim H., and Patty McC. from Charlie flight. New faces were Jean F., Pat B., Sam W., Dave A., and several others. Bobby A. came onto Dog flight also. All in all it was a pretty good flight, and I ended up satisfied with how it turned out, although I was at first disappointed with leaving Baker flight. The 26th worked out to be Dog's last day watch, and then we went on break.
Sabine's Birthday
Sunday March 9th was Sabine's 26th birthday, and it turned out being a very memorable day. Brunni, with whom I was beginning to develop a tenuous platonic friendship, had recently purchased a Volkswagen bug, and we had made a date for me to see it. When she picked me up at 3:30 that afternoon, Sabine was along. I was a little disappointed, thinking that Brunni and I would be alone. We ended up driving down to Sabine's apartment in Lichtenrade, after having a bite to eat in a café on the Tempelhofer Damm, at the corner of Albrechtstraße, on the route of the work bus. It was a nice summery day. That day was the first and last time I ever went to Lichtenrade, one of the extreme southern districts of Berlin. I have some foggy memories of being in Sabine's apartment for a few moments, where we apparently stopped to pick something up. After leaving Sabine's place we drove to Brunni's. That was the very last time for me in her room at Sybelstraße, where I had spent so many happy hours. We three went to see a movie that night. Afterwards they dropped me off at base, where I changed into my fatigues, and from there they drove me down to Marienfelde to my last mid.
March 9th was in general a very happy day for me. It was nice to be with Brunni again, and to ride around town in her car. The weather was very sunny and cheerful. While in the café I was thinking of how nice it was sitting there and eating a pastry, rather than being in the work bus riding off to work. It would be nice if they could see me there, I thought to myself. However, in spite of the general good feelings of the day, I was still quite sad about having broken up with Brunni. It was a bit awkward for me being part of a threesome rather than a couple, and all the more so since I often felt like I was the odd man out.
Daniel from Iraq
A new friendship blossomed during the second week of April, this time with Daniel the Iraqi. On April 7th he invited me to his apartment at Willibald-Alexis Straße in Kreuzberg, not far from Tempelhof. He was interested in taking Hebrew lessons from me. I was over to his place on the 8th also, and then for the last time on Friday the 11th. Our meetings were then suddenly interrupted by his wedding in Beirut, from where he returned on April 27th.
Daniel was another fascinating Arab. Actually, Daniel wasn't an ethnic Arab, but an Armenian from Iraq. He of course spoke fluent Arabic, but spoke Armenian as well. He was a refugee from Iraq, and during the course of our friendship he had me translate his "life story" from German to English, as part of an application for political asylum in German. He had apparently suffered some persecution from the Iraqi government because of his Christian faith, and was forced to flee the country.
Gassed at Rose Range
On April 4th I attended an emergency destruct training out at the Rose Range. The instructors put on various demonstrations with devices for destroying documents and equipment. For one demonstration they filled a large metal barrel with scrap paper, sandwiching in a chemical at various intervals. They then instructed us to stand back as they ignited it. At first nothing particular happened, but then the barrel began to tremble. A few moments later it erupted like a volcano, violently spewing out a tongue of flame several feet high. It looked like a jet engine firing downward into the ground. Another device was a thermal plate, a rectangular metal plate which, when properly ignited, reaches an extremely high temperature, sufficient to melt electronic equipment into putty. This demonstration proved to be a bit more dramatic, but not by design. Someone had inadvertently left some tear gas canisters in the junk that was being melted down, and they went off. Seconds later everyone was running around in different directions, trying to escape the gas. It was a very odd experience. The gas was invisible and odorless, but when it hit you it burned your nose terribly. I remember running around wildly to the edge of the clearing, several yards away from the site of the accident, trying to find some fresh air, and still encountering pockets of gas that were wafting around the area.
Daniel's Wallpaper and Rudi's Garden House
Friday the 25th I met Riad at Daniel’s apartment, and we started putting up new wallpaper. Daniel was in Beirut at the time, where he had just gotten married. A German and an American Christian friend of Riad’s were there helping out also. Riad was doing this as a nice surprise for Daniel and bride when they returned.
On Sunday the 27th Riad and I continued wallpapering at Daniel’s place. Suddenly, without warning, Daniel and his bride arrived in the middle of our mess, arriving from Beirut two days early! He was furious that Riad was doing this without his approval. "La, la, la, Riad," he kept repeating. ("No, no, no, Riad.") Riad afterwards confided to me, "Das habe ich für Gott getan," ("I did it for God"), "…and he didn’t even say ‘Shukran’" ("thank you"). Later, though, Daniel cooled down somewhat, and finally said "shukran".
Sunday, May 4th, Rudi invited me along to his place again, and I saw his garden house for the first time. This was located in a Kleingärten area south of Rudi’s home, and just south of a large power plant of some sort that had a large smoke stack. It was a very nice little house. It was smaller than a regular house, but larger than just a shed, and was very comfortable indeed. It was a really nice place, and I liked it a lot. Rudi was such a wonderful person. He took me under his wing during this period of time and the following months, and I developed a great respect for him, whether he ever knew it or not.
Brunni in the Hospital
On Tuesday, May 27th, Brunhilde went to the hospital for her foot operation. The clinic was located on the Methfesselstraße next to the Viktoria Park, not far from TCA. She mailed me the address and phone number, and I visited her for the first time on Thursday.
This was another very memorable period, the visits to Brunhilde in the hospital. She looked so beautiful and peaceful there when I saw her on Thursday and on the following days until her release. During this period I fell in love with her all over again, and cherished hopes of restoring our relationship, a hope that turned out to be very foolish. After seeing her on Thursday I took a walk up into the Viktoria Park for the very first time, and saw the Kreuzberg. I went back to base and watched an unusually good Russian movie entitled "Dom, v kotorom ya zhivu," ("The house in which I live").
The next few days I visited Brunhilde nearly every day, and each time my hopes grew larger. She was very friendly in return, and I almost thought she was developing similar ideas. I met her mother and father there, and also Uwe B. showed up a couple times.
I no longer remember when Brunni finally left the hospital, but I do remember a couple memorable visits subsequent to the first visit on May 29th. Early in June was her birthday, and I brought her a boquet of flowers. I’d never bought flowers before on my own, and I remember boldly asking the flower lady in the Flughafen U-Bahn station what a good boquet for a young lady in the hospital would be. Brunni was pleased with the gift, but not as much as I would have liked.
Getting an Apartment
Saturday, June 21st brought a new turn of events in my life. Steve B. had been telling me about an apartment in his building that was opening up, and he felt very strongly that I should rent it. Steve and I inspected it with the current tenant, a certain Frau Viebrantz, who showed us around. It was located on the ground floor, on the north side of the building, on the street side. It was one of the larger apartments, as I recall, and was quite larger than Steve’s. Steve’s apartment, however, was bright, cheery, and quiet, whereas Frau Viebrantz’s was dark and subject to street noise. Moreover, she wanted an Abstand of 1400 Marks! I thought that was a little too much for me to pay, but Steve insisted that it was a good deal.
The next Monday morning before my second swing I quickly dropped by Brunhilde’s place to ask her for advice. Brunni now shared an apartment with her friend Sabine in the Erkstraße in Neukölln, right across the street from the Rathaus, which wasn't that far from base. It was a hot and humid day, and I traveled to her place by the 4 bus, which ran from the Columbiadamm down to Hermanstraße, and then through some local streets to Karl-Marx Straße and Rathaus Neukölln. I had never taken that route before, and the newness of the bus ride, the hot weather, and the prospects of visiting Brunhilde blended together to make an impression on me that forenoon which has lasted to the present day. Brunhilde told me that she thought the 1400 DM Abstand was too high, and I decided against taking the offer.
The following day I took a note to Steve’s place explaining my decision: no higher than 1100 Marks. On Wednesday I dropped the money off at Steve’s, and then went to visit Brunni again. This was a very pleasant time together. Inwardly I was happy to have an excuse to go and visit Brunhilde and consult her about important matters in which she could advise me.
Friday I went to Steve’s place and picked up the keys to my new apartment! Steve thought that it would be a pity if I didn’t take advantage of this apartment, and himself paid the extra money for the Abstand so that I could get it! So my first step towards settling in Berlin had been taken: a place to live.
Monday evening the 30th, Brunhilde came over to inspect the place. She just smiled when she saw it. Today I know what she probably was thinking! The place was a dump, and certainly not worth the money we had paid. Brunni was in a carefree and relaxed mood, and sat in my front window and smoked. She apparently was enjoying the experience of "giving me a bad reputation" with the curious neighbors, nearly all of whom were elderly people.
That evening at 6:00 Steve B. and I met with Herr Heimann, the owner of the apartment building, and signed the rental agreement. Herr Heimann was a very old man, probably in his eighties, and was married to an ancient white-haired lady. Frau Viebrantz was there with us also. Herr Heimann and company were all smiles as I signed the contract and received my money. I sometimes wonder if part of the 1400 Marks went to the Heimanns.
The building
I had moved into was on Silbersteinstraße 99, near the corner
of a tiny dead-end side street called Bambachstraße. It was an old neighborhood,
populated by old people, and was very peaceful and quiet. In the neighboring
building there seemed to be a couple Turkish families, but this neighborhood
was definitely an island of aging Berliners. The Hauswart, the building custodian,
was a cranky old lady of about sixty. Her life seemed to depend on how much
she could scowl and scold people who left messes, or who didn’t properly
dispose of their trash in the common trash recepticles in the courtyard. The
building itself was ancient, and I can’t imagine that it had been rebuilt
after the War; it must have been for the most part (if not entirely) a structure
that had escaped bombing – a conjecture which was not entirely unlikely,
considering its proximity to Tempelhof airport, an area which was spared from
bombardment. There was no central heating, and no hot water. Each floor had
a common toilet located in the hallway, and consisting of a tiny room with a
primitive flat wooden commode, which, fortunately, did have a flushing mechanism.
Each resident was given a key to the toilet. The rooms were heated by large
tiled ovens, which burned briquettes. The briquettes were stacked and stored
in the cellar independently by each resident. I never did learn how to properly
use the tile ovens while in Berlin, and as a consequence was forced to suffer
several cold winters at home.
(Amazingly, I ran across this very same apartment being advertised for rent on the internet in December, 2000. The site offered a virtual tour with photos of my tiny bedroom facing the courtyard and the living room facing the street. There is now an indoor bathroom, with toilet and shower, apparently in the room that was formerly the kitchen. The place looks a lot nicer than when I was living there, but the rent has also skyrocketed to DM 490 per month. Back in 1975 I was paying only DM 88 per month.)
A New Roommate
Monday July 7th I was surprised with a new roommate. Jim had moved out some time ago, and I had been living alone again. The new guy was Mike C., dark-haired, friendly, very proud of his wife and baby, and also a little bit on the crazy side. That evening I went to see a movie in Friedenau with Sabine and Brunhilde. It was "Vom Winde Verweht," the dubbed German version of the American classic "Gone With the Wind." It was very long, and I probably would have followed the plot more closely had it been in English. After the movie I went home with Brunhilde, and we ended up having a nice, long talk and some deep discussions, which lasted well into the night. I really enjoyed the time with her that night. She took me home at around 2:00 in the morning.
I tiptoed into the room without turning on the light, thinking that my new roomie was in bed. I quietly undressed and slipped into my bed, not wanting to disturb him. A few moments of silence went by, and my thoughts were dreamily replaying the events of the evening with Brunni... WHAM!! The door suddenly burst open and the light was turned on! My new roommate, stark naked and stone drunk, flew into the room, gagging and sputtering incoherently! He had been out on the town in drunken revelry, and now had come back to shower and barf in the latrine.
Talk about first impressions...
Getting Settled in at Silbersteinstraße
My main concern around this time was getting moved into my new apartment. Naturally, I turned to Brunni and her Volkswagen for help. This was finally accomplished on Saturday the 12th, when we moved my stereo and various other items. That night after the meeting at Nolli, I slept in my new apartment for the very first time.
Tuesday evening I rode to my second mid from my apartment for the first time. Tom K. drove me home the next morning, and while getting out of his car I dropped my badge. Later he returned it to me. Before that, however, I was pretty shook up, not knowing where it was. It made me feel guilty about living off base like that. I felt even guiltier when, on the same day, Robin matter-of-factly told me, "Why, of course it's illegal, Bill." That statement made me feel extremely uncomfortable. I decided I had better keep quiet about the apartment.
On the evening of Thursday the 17th Jürgen and Dörte visited my apartment. "Das ist alt hier!" exclaimed Jürgen. ("It's so old here!"). Friday Riad visited. He thought the place was all right for my purposes.
Supershort
Sunday the 20th was Rob A.'s last day at work. He had been one of the guys on Able flight in 1973, and he was now a "one-digit midget". He had gone completely crazy with silliness, and had dressed up as "Super Short", with a cape and a large "S" on his chest like Superman, emphasizing the fact that he was very "short." I remember him cavorting up the street near the chow hall, wearing his costume over his uniform, shouting and carrying on. I always wondered how he managed to get away with that prank without being busted. Being out of uniform was no laughing matter with the brass.
My Friend Brunni
Monday the 21st was my first day of break. I had invited Brunni over to my place for the day, and waited around for her to arrive. It grew later and later, and still she hadn't arrived. Finally it got so late that I lost patience, and I got up and left to get on the bus. At the bus stop, just as the bus arrived and I was about to get on, someone rushed up from behind me and grabbed my arm. It was Brunni! She had just arrived on same bus and had seen me. Her car was on the blink, she explained, and had been busy trying to get it repaired.
In spite of that little snafu, we ended up having a nice time together that afternoon. She went shopping with me in Neukölln, and I got some bedsheets and almost got some new shoes. Then we went to her place and talked for a while. She had just told me about Uwe's crush on her, dating from the time she was laid up in the hospital, and that piece of news came as a complete surprise to me.
That afternoon in her apartment was probably the one time at her place that I remember the best. We were both in good spirits, both of us apparently enjoying the friendship that had developed after the rough experiences from earlier in the year. I felt myself being drawn deeper, though, and felt myself falling for her all over again. I started telling her how I felt about her, and that I loved her. Brunni replied, "No, you don't love me, Bill." But I was convinced. She just smiled, put on an old 1960's hit record with romantic lyrics on the record player, and left for the kitchen. I felt so sad, and the music made it even more poignant.
On the 23rd I was supposed to have an appointment with Udo. He had said he would be coming by to TCA in his truck to transport some furniture to my place. When Brunni heard about it, she was alarmed. "Don't let him see where you live!" she warned. She felt that Udo was not a fellow to be trusted, and that he might come by later and do a little burglarizing. At the time it seemed believable to me, and so without letting Udo know, Brunni arranged to pick me up before Udo arrived and take me to her place.
We went over to her father's place in Schöneberg, and spent the evening together with him. Unbelievable as it sounded, Brunni's father had just inherited a large sum of money from an uncle in America, and he needed me to translate a letter that he had just received regarding the matter. The evening was spent in his smoke-filled apartment with the television blaring away.
Friday morning the 25th was another memorable day. The friendship with Brunhilde was coming along nicely, although not without its subtle frustrations for me. Brunhilde seemed to be enjoying spending time with me, and on Friday morning she dropped by and took me downtown Neukölln, where she did her wash in a laundromat. She was wearing an attractive dress. I complimented her on it, and she replied that she "knew that I would like it." Brunni was planning a trip to East Germany to visit some relatives, and I wouldn't be seeing her for a few days. In the early afternoon she drove me back to base in her car, and I still remember riding up Tempelhofer Damm with her past the west side of the airport. It was a cheerful, summer day. It was nice riding with Brunni, but it would be the last time seeing her for about two weeks.
Putzfrau with Pat
During the short period of time that Brunhilde was absent, another minor episode took place in my life. Instead of working my regular four mids, I had been put on "Putzfrau" duty with Pat McC. from Tuesday, July 29th, through Friday, August 1st. It was four days of drudgery, doing odd jobs, and mowing lawns all day long in the hot sun. The last day, August 1st, was spent at the motor pool on base washing cars! During this period of time, I got a little closer to Patty.
Pat McC. was one of the Marienfelde WAF's that had come on board during the past year. She had light blue eyes, dark blonde hair, and wore glasses. She was cute, and I couldn’t help being slightly attracted to her, in spite of her cool and distant demeanor. Dan B., who soon became a close friend of mine, felt the same attraction to Pat, and entertained hopes of having a closer relationship with her, but didn't experience much success.
After the drudgery of the four-day Putzfrau experience, I was ready for a vacation. I applied for a two-week leave from August 9th through the 21st, a whole work cycle.
Two New Friends
Thursday the 7th of August I was approached by Dan B., Hector's roommate, about helping him with some German. He wanted to buy a kite in a store in Mariendorf, and wanted me to go along with him to translate. So I accompanied him and he bought the kite, as I remember, but I didn't have to do much translating. Afterwards we got some ice cream in a nearby store on the Mariendamm, across the street from the area where there was a park and pond. It was a nice day, and Dan was very chummy. That marked the beginning of a closer acquaintance with Dan, whom I had known only superficially up to that point.
Sunday the 10th Steve B.'s neighbor Gerd S. invited me to his place to play a game of monopoly. Gerd was a friendly, easy-going, lanky, unkempt-looking fellow of about 23 years of age who had long, stringy, brown hair, and scraggly facial hair. He was a very laid-back and congenial person, with an intrusive kind of friendliness that at times was almost annoying. He was always seeking Steve and me out to have a chat, or just to sit around in his apartment over a breakfast he would never touch, while he smoked his hand-rolled cigarettes. His cigarettes had a rauchy kind of stench that continually radiated from his person and permeated his room. He lived in the apartment right next door to Steve, and his room was the very picture of bachelorhood, with clothes, food, and belongings strewn all over, a messy bed, and a stereo system that was continually droning on chaotically.
The Last Day with Brunhilde
Brunhilde returned from East Germany that same day, and we got in touch that evening. Monday evening the 11th she came by my place to visit.
On the 12th I went to the base BX and bought two microphones for my stereo cassette recorder. They were rather fancy microphones, and they worked very well. Brunni drove by that evening and took me to an apartment on the Markgrafenstraße, where a young couple named Bäthge lived. They were acquaintances of Gerd's, and they had some old mattresses ("Notmöbel" ("emergency furniture") as Brunhilde termed it) for my empty apartment. The mattresses, stored in their cellar, were old, dirty, and musty. They were better than nothing.
I had my cassette recorder all set up with the microphones, and recorded Brunhilde a little while she was in my apartment. Later we went to pick up Sabine from the Kinderheim where she worked, and drove off to an open-air restaurant. It was a nice, clear evening, and there I sat under the open night sky with two silly girls at a table with a candle to light our meals. Brunni mentioned the fact that it was Volkhard's birthday; he was 32 years old that day.
Afterwards we three all went to my apartment. I was excited about recording them with my new microphones, since I had an interest in Berlin dialect. We did a little recording, but the girls of course failed to share my enthusiasm in the project, and the whole thing fell flat. "Man kann nicht auf Befehl berlinern," remarked Sabine. ("You can't speak dialect on command.")
Little did I know that that was my last time together with them.
"Wir müssen uns leider trennen"
Wednesday morning the 13th I had breakfast together with Gerd again. He had invited me, and I reluctantly went. He, as always, had bought some Schrippen (rolls), and made coffee, and ended up spending the whole time rolling and smoking cigarettes and talking to me under the blare of his stereo system, never touching his food until after I had left. I got the impression he just wanted someone to talk to.
That evening at Nolli I talked with Brunhilde about going to the Neukölln swimming pool for a swim the following morning. She had made this invitation to me before, but I had always refused. Now I decided that it was a good idea after all, and wanted her to come along. She flatly refused. Why? She wouldn't say. She had an appointment for Thursday, and wouldn't tell me what it was or with whom. This upset me considerably, which upset her even more. She remained adamant, so I just left her in my frustration and anger, not even saying good-bye. After getting home I felt foolish for having acted the way I did, and decided to call her up to apologize. From the Bambachstraße phone booth around the corner I called her up. Her answer was like ice. Something had taken place deep inside of her. Even at Nolli I could sense something was wrong or troubling her, which made me even more curious about the situation.
"Bill, wir müssen uns leider trennen," she declared. ("Bill, unfortunately we must separate.") She didn't want to get together with me any more. She saw that my feelings towards her were more than just the attitude of a friend, and I was constantly causing us both problems by falling in love. If I couldn't just be a friend, then we would have to avoid all contact, she said. I was crushed and bewildered, and tried to talk her out of it, but she was not to be persuaded. She had made up her mind. And that was really the end. August 12th was the very last time we were together. From then on, it was only casual encounters, always brief and awkward, and I never again knew anything of her private life.
Adventures with Gerd
Sunday afternoon I was feeling very sad and lonely. Steve came to visit me, and that night we had a talk. That same day I got a bed from Gisela R., the female tenant who lived under Gerd's apartment. Gisela R. was a nice but very conservative single Christian woman whom I had met through Steve. I think she may have gone to Steve's apostolic church; I no longer remember. There was some friction between her and Gerd, since Gerd's free-spirited lifestyle and loud music was a source of torment for her, and she was continually complaining about the noise. The Heimanns of course sided with her, which made Gerd quite bitter and sarcastic about the old people in the place, and Fräulein R. in particular, whom he lampooned as a grumpy old maid. "Die fromme Helene," he called her, ("Pious Helene"), referring to the character in Wilhelm Busch’s humorous stories of the same name.
Tuesday
the 19th was spent with Gerd at Krumme Lanke and Schlachtensee. We went for
a boat ride on the Schlachtensee, an oar boat which we took turns rowing, and
I took pictures here and there. On the 22nd Gerd and I went to the Rehberge
and took pictures. This was another park I had never visited before, and Gerd
and I spent a leisurely day exploring it. It was very nice place with forests,
meadows, and ponds.
That afternoon we met an old man sitting on a bench and struck up a conversation
with him. He had been a biplane pilot during World War I, he said, and proudly
showed us some certificates he carried around in his wallet. He had not only
been a pilot, but also an aircraft designer. Gerd had me pose with him, and
he took a picture of the two of us sitting together.
That afternoon it turned out a little rainy, and he took me to visit some good friends of his who lived on the Torfstraße, between the Amrumerstraße U-Bahn station and the canal. He had been raving about them for weeks, and when I met them they gave us a lukewarm reception. Apparently Gerd's personality was well-known to them, and the friendship that he boasted was fairly one-sided.
Gerd then dragged me on to a local bar where they sold some "fantastic" English beer. He insisted that I drink some, and ordered a large glass of it for me. It was dark in color, and tasted absolutely horrible. I never did like beer, and managed only to down half of the stuff. I could go no further. Gerd finally reluctantly drank the rest for me. It was an experience I have never forgotten, and consequently the last beer I have ever drunk in my life.
Meeting the Squadron Commander
I had been on leave for two weeks in August, and on Monday the 25th I went back to work. Wednesday the 27th was to be my third swing, but I had to work CQ instead. While running up the stairs on a routine fire check, I met a short black Lieutenant Colonel I had never seen before. I quickly said "hello," and went on my way, but was abruptly stopped. "Airman, do you know who I am?" he snapped. It turned out to be the new Squadron commander, and a real stinker at that! He pointed out to me my need for a haircut, promising to check on it later. "Airman Price," he mused, reading my name on my fatigue shirt. "I'll remember that."
That was my first and last encounter with him. I doubt if he remembered my name at all, and he never followed up on his promise to check my haircut.
On Wednesday, September 3rd, the first day watch. I came strolling into base from my apartment very casually at around 6:00 that morning, only to find out that there had been a base recall. This shook me up somewhat, thinking that I would be able to get into trouble for not being able to be contacted.
Tuesday there was another base recall. That time I was sleeping on base in my room, since we had caught wind of an impending recall, and I wanted to make sure that I would be around for that one. It turned out to be a mistake on my part. I should have stayed in bed. Very few showed up for it, and those of us who did just wasted hours standing around waiting in smoke-filled halls, dressed in fatigues down at the orderly room end of the building. I spent the time reading Gogol's story "The Portrait", a curious little surrealistic story, which I finished two days later.
That day I looked into getting a passport in anticipation of my Berlin discharge the following spring.
Pat's Birthday Doodle
On Thursday it was
Pat's birthday, and at work I drew one of my elaborate doodles in the log book,
commemorating the occasion. I was careful to draw on a space on the page that had no
writing on the opposite side. As a result, I was able to cut it out later, and salvage it
from the burn bags. It was the one and only of my masterpieces that escaped a fiery death,
and ended up in my permanent art collection.
Open House Cleanup - Again
On the weekend of the 20th through the 21st our flight had to do Open House cleanup. It was the third year in a row for me! If I remember correctly, it was after working our day watches. I was very upset. Some of the guys just sneaked off without having to do anything. After it grew dark, I thought we’d be able to quit, but they lined up trucks behind us with headlights on so that we could see to pick up the trash. A consolation was getting to see the big transport jet take off. It seemed to move very slowly and sluggishly for such a giant.
On the 30th the house meeting finally divided, since it had grown too large. I preferred to stay in the "old" group with Berndt S., and made my decision accordingly. The new group was to meet at the house of Manfred L., a fellow whom I met for the first time that night, and who a few months later was to become one of my closest friends. I had seen him before a couple times, perhaps a year or more earlier. His course appearance gave him the impression of being a rather dull person; moreover his swarthy complexion and Afro hairstyle led me to suspect he was some kind of foreigner. Consequently, I was surprised to hear him speak in Berlin dialect.
A Dark Damp Autumn
The last few months of 1975 are marked in my memory by dark, damp days in my Neukölln apartment, Rudi’s untiring help in getting me settled, and all under the fading shadow of the Brunhilde aftermath.
The mid on Wednesday night, October 1st, was dominated by the Ali-Frasier boxing match. The guys had set up a TV set in the cafeteria to watch it. Sam W. especially was quite a boxing fanatic.
Watching
Thursday night Russian movies and taping them had become a big thing with me
that year and afterwards. I had my TV in the apartment, and could watch without
being disturbed. On the 2nd I recorded part 2 of the movie "Moya Sud’ba."
This was a fictional life story of a member of the Cheka, who was portrayed
as a wise hero. The movie was fairly well put together, and had a lot of good
dialogue for me to record. There was also a theme song that stuck with me afterwards.
Friday and Saturday the 3rd and 4th I went to the Victoria park again and reminisced the Brunhilde hospital days from the summer. There were autumn leaves on the sidewalks, and I strolled around and buried myself in my loneliness. Saturday I returned with my camera and took some pictures.
My Last USAF Roommate
It was around Monday the 6th that Ed M., my last Air Force roommate ever, moved into the room. He was a thick-set guy with curly, blondish hair, blue eyes, and a down-to-earth friendly disposition. He was just beginning his hitch, whereas mine was drawing to a close. It was satisfying to me, in a way. His father owned a store in Pennsylvania, and his mother made hummels for a hobby. In December he tried to sell me his camera, and I almost bought it. In the course of our stay together he rearranged the furniture at least once, as I recall. All in all it was a pleasant guy to room with, and a non-smoker to boot.
Riad, Briquettes, and Russian Chocolate
Friday the 10th I got a form signed by the apartment owner, and finally got myself registered with the Berlin foreign police.
Saturday morning the 11th was spent with Riad again, and Schwester P. showed me how to heat a stove with briquettes. She even gave me a bag full of briquettes to get started with. I still remember coming home that afternoon, waiting at the 65 bus stop at Hohenzollerndamm on the Stadtautobahn, the traffic zooming by, and a tall metallic-colored building nearby rising high in the clear, blue sky. At the apartment I tried lighting the oven with the briquettes as I had been instructed, but with little success. I later got Steve B. to help me out.
Monday through Wednesday I spent the swings learning Arabic and reading Kishon stories in German. On Thursday the 16th I visited Aleksandra, and she had some Russian chocolate bars for me. The wrapping was fascinating to me, since it was all written in Russian, and the chocolate itself, a dark variety, was very good.
Getting Furniture with Rudi
On Friday the 17th Rudi told me that an old lady at Nolli named Belitz had passed away, and had bequeathed her furniture to needy people in the church. Rudi singled me out as a deserving recipient, and made an appointment with me for Sunday to have a look at her apartment.
Sunday afternoon Rudi drove me there. It was located on the Marbacherstraße in Wilmersdorf near Breitenbachplatz. There was a lot of nice, solid furniture for the taking. Monday Rudi rented a pickup and a driver, and we three spent the afternoon transporting some of the furniture to my apartment. Among the items I received was a very nice solid wood table, and some equally solid chairs. These items I had in my possession for the rest of my stay in Berlin.
Rudi took the opportunity of the rented pickup to drive out to a city dump somewhere out in the western part of the city down past Wannsee. He and the driver were having quite a conversation, and I was just along for the ride. I helped dump some junk for them. When the moving was done, Rudi had me tip the driver five Marks. Later I realized that Rudi had probably financed the whole deal out of his own pocket, whereas I should have been paying for most of it. At the time the thought never occurred to me. Rudi was always so efficient and businesslike, rarely explaining himself. Sometimes I felt I didn't even know what was going on. For years afterward I felt a bit guilty about that afternoon, that I didn't realize what Rudi was doing for me, and that I didn't pay for the whole expedition myself.
Life on Silbersteinstraße
Monday, November 3rd, I had supper with Steve B. at a small restaurant in the Silbersteinstraße, not far from our apartment building. I was served Klöße, Rotkohl, and Schweinebraten, a typical German meal, and in a typical small German restaurant. It was a foggy evening that I remember well. The neighborhood on the Silbersteinstraße had such a quiet small-town atmosphere to it. There was a laundromat around the corner on Hermanstraße, and a hardware store on the corner. The side streets were all old apartment buildings occupied mostly by middle-aged and older middle-income Germans. Steve had blended into the German community very nicely, and he was, so to speak, my guide in a lot of things around the neighborhood.
Wednesday the 5th Uwe came by to my apartment again, and replaced a fuse for me. Uwe was an electrician, as I recall, and he came to my place on occasion to fix things for free. The place was very old, and the plaster in the walls was brittle and crumbly. "Allet morscht hier!" ("It's all moldy here!") he would blurt out while digging into the wall to fix a light or repare some wiring. It was really an ancient place, my first private residence in Berlin.
Manfred's Family
Saturday I went to Manfred L.’s place in Reinickendorf for the house meeting for the first time. I was just visiting, with the possibility of switching from the house meeting I had been going to. The visit proved to be very pleasant, and I made the decision to switch. At the door I was met by a gray-haired woman who couldn’t speak German, only Serbo-croatian. As I later found out, she was Manfred’s mother-in-law. Jagoda, Manfred’s wife, was Yugoslavian. They had recently had a baby. The group consisted of Manfred and family, Bodo, Christiane H., Christiane’s girlfriend and neighbor from Siemensstadt Marina R., Christiane’s Indonesian boyfriend Ken W., Jürgen B., Dörte E., and Dörte’s father Andres E. The group proved to be more lively and fun than I had thought. Eventually out of this house meeting grew the world in which I was to live for the next year or so. After January 1976 Rudi started fading from the scene, and he was replaced by Manfred and family.
European Out
Friday the 21st I found out that my European out had been approved! I was following in Steve B.’s footsteps in being allowed to be discharged in Berlin without having to return to the US. Normally one was required to return stateside to McGuire AFB in New Jersey to be discharged, but Steve had found a loophole in the rules whereby one could remain in Europe. As I recall, Steve was the first Airman at TCA to have done it, and was, so to speak, a trailblazer for someone like myself. Staying in Germany required a series of steps to be followed, one of the first of which was to obtain approval for the European out. Once you got out, the trick was then to be allowed by the German authorities to stay. Normally one obtained a three-month temporary visa upon your discharge, once you could demonstrate that you had a place to stay - and getting the apartment off base was for that very purpose. The next task at hand would be to convince the local authorities that you had the means and a good reason to stay; and this meant that you had to find a job. But that was not always easy, since in order to get a job you had to have a work permit; and in order to get a work permit, you had to have a residence permit. But you couldn't obtain a residence permit unless you had a job. So it was a kind of catch-22 situation that required a lot of luck and coordination. Steve had done it, and I was determined to try.
Dirnsa, Hildchen, and Ox
Saturday the 22nd Berlin had its first snowfall of the season. It was my first day watch, and we were visited by DIRNSA, the Director of the NSA. Sunday the 23rd I got an early hit from the second day watch, and walked back to the 11 bus stop with Jim H. On the way I picked up a fresh copy of the Morgenpost that someone had discarded in the snow. This is another one of those random memories that sticks out in my mind for no particular reason
On Thanksgiving Day the 27th I had Hildchen, a 50-year-old friend from Nolli, over for dinner at the chow hall. There were hordes of people there and gobs of fancy food. She arrived in a thick fur coat, and was all eyes for this new strange world. She just couldn’t get over the multicolored frosting on a huge cake that was on display, something that for German tastes was completely outrageous. "Zum Piepen!", she kept saying. ("It's a scream!"). The German cook overheard her and just smiled. We managed to find a place to sit, and then she started eating and talking. She told stories of Berlin during and after the War, and how she and a girlfriend ran through the U-Bahn tunnel in Kreuzberg, not realizing they could have been electrocuted. The U-Bahn of course ran on electricity, and the rails that the cars rode on were all "hot". (Once I heard a story of a drunk who had been electrocuted by urinating onto the tracks. What a way to go!)
Saturday night was the first swing for our flight. A new Staff Sergeant on our flight, nicknamed "Ox", called us in for a meeting and announced that he had just taken over supervision of the operators. He outlined his hard authoritarian policy, and explained how things were going to change at the site. Afterwards he let us go and gave some of us hits, including me, as a demonstration of his fairness. We walked back in the dark, took a shortcut down the side of the hill, and in the process I got my boots very muddy.
Hector and I Out on the Town
Thursday the 4th and Friday the 5th of December were the first two mids, and I got hits for both. Hector had gone ROD, i.e., relieved of duty, and on Thursday and Friday we went out on the town taking pictures. Thursday we went to KaDeWe, and we got him a Bavarian hat for his uncle. Somehow the price came out to be more than we had thought; I wonder if the sales clerk wasn’t taking advantage of us. Later we took the 73 bus to Alt-Tempelhof, where we bought some goodies at a bakery there on the corner. Hector had always wanted to walk into a German bakery and order something, but never did, since he didn’t know any German. He therefore took advantage of his being with me to do it once before leaving Berlin. From there we went to my apartment via the 65 bus. I taped him on my stereo cassette recorder before he left that evening.
Friday
Hector and I went down to the Marienfelde site, since he had to turn in his badge. I took
along my camera with the intent of taking some good pictures of the area. It was a little
dreary and overcast, which in my opinion was the perfect atmosphere for taking pictures of
the place. We did it down on the muddy plowed field near the street where the 52 bus ran,
and we got some nice photographs of each other, the Marienfelde site standing out stark
and ugly in the background.
We walked up to the site, where Hector turned in his badge. After he got done with his business there, we walked all the way down Diedersdorfer Weg to the Wall and back, taking a few pictures. It was funny seeing the site from the "back side."
A Visit to T-Berg
On the mid of Saturday the 6th "Ox" drove a few of us over to visit T-Berg and have a tour of the place. T-Berg was the "other place", Marienfelde's big brother, located on a rubble-hill called Teufelsberg, i.e., "Devil's Mountain." It was my first time inside, and I found it to be a fascinating place. This is where my Goodfellow buddy Robin worked, and where I had originally wanted to work, until I had gotten settled in at Marienfelde and no longer had the desire to switch. The facility was much larger and elaborate than Marienfelde. In the chow hall I met Steve Ch., who told me a Chinese limerick, which impressed me so much that I can recite it word-for-word to this day. Our guides took us to some of the other departments where the operators worked. We saw the place where the "Brits" worked, and had a boring briefing.
Dog Christmas Party and Dan B.
Friday
night the 12th was the Dog flight Christmas party, held at McNair Barracks. We all went
there on a bus. I took along my camera and took pictures of various people. There was a
dinner, and an exchange of gag gifts. Jean F. got an autographed picture of Stu
Engbretson, since she was such a conscientious worker at Marienfelde. Among those in
attendance that evening were "Ox,", O.B. (drunk and boasting of his Russian),
Mike B., Jim H., Wiley T., George C. and Julie R. (who had been a pair for quite some
time), Jean F., Michelle and boyfriend (or already husband?), Pat McC., and Dan B. Dan and
I got along very well that night. He and I left the place together before things got too
wild, and walked together to the 96 bus stop, talking together on the way. It was a cold
winter night, and I remember telling him some about my feelings about Brunhilde. Hector
was leaving Berlin the next day, and that night more or less opened closer relations
between Dan and me.
Dan B. was a nice guy, different from the common run of airmen. His best friends included Lisa (the women’s-libber), Carol, and Connie. He was a women’s libber himself, and even called 13-year-old girls "women", something that struck me as extremely odd. He was from Flushing near New York City, and spoke with a slight New York accent. He was very much people-oriented, talkative, and was loyal to his friendships. After his roommate Hector left, he attached himself to me to a certain extent. One of his areas of interest was history – he was very well-informed and intelligent on the subject.
Saturday Hector left Berlin, and I never saw him again. Dan had lost a roommate, and I had lost another Marienfelde friend.
Colonel Bird at Nolli
Saturday evening at the Jugendmeeting the husband of the lady in the wheelchair
who always sat up front during the Sunday morning services, Col. Eugene
K. Bird, was the featured speaker. 
He
had always made the impression of being a quiet skeptic in church, always looking
around the room critically as if he were a first-time visitor, but the talk
he gave revealed quite the opposite. Eugene Bird was a retired Army colonel.
It was later that I found out that he had once been the Army commandant over
Spandau prison, where the Nazi war criminals were kept. During that period he
became a close friend of prisoner Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler's former right-hand
man and hand-picked successor, and had written a book about him called "The
Loneliest Man in the World." 
He
was, in fact, Hess’s closest friend during that period. However, according
to the military regulations, what he had been doing with Hess was quite illegal.
The second-hand story I seem to remember is that the Army somehow caught wind
of it all, and as a result forced him to retire, after which he sat down and
wrote his book. He lived in a villa in Dahlem, which had been personally designed
for him during the Spandau prison years by none other than Albert Speer, Hitler's
personal architect. During my later years in Berlin I saw a German TV documentary
on Col. Bird, as well as a full-page article in the Morgenpost, and an article
in a Berlin yearbook. Nolli certainly had its share of interesting personalities.
1975 Comes to a Close
Monday the 22nd I went to the hospital for my separation physical. When they took blood from me I passed out. The next thing I knew I was lying on a cot, with nurses walking around. I came to not knowing where I was or what I was doing. It was a very bizarre experience, as if I had just been dropped onto planet earth with all of my memories erased. It felt like I’d been out for several minutes, but they told me it had been just a few seconds.
Tuesday through Thursday I was sick, and on Christmas day I had to work CQ! That was unfortunate for the holidays. It had been just a year ago that I had to work CQ on New Year’s Day.
Tuesday the 30th I hand-delivered a letter to the Ausländerpolizei (foreign police) at Puttkamerstraße in Kreuzberg concerning my stay in Berlin, and a friendly man at the door took it for me. It was, as I recall, a letter requesting permission to stay in the country after my April 1976 discharge from the USAF, informing the German authorities that I had a local address. After permission was granted, I would be set to stay in Berlin through July.
Wednesday was New Year’s Eve, and the traditional evening service at Nolli. It went well until the American guest speaker gave a passionate message which struck me as awkwardly out of place for the occasion. Later Rudi confided to me that he felt the same way. Thus, under the American speaker's tirade, ended 1975, a year marked by new friendships, the beginnings of civilian life in Berlin, and dominated by the fading shadow of my experiences with Brunhilde.
See the pictures behind the story:
MARIENFELDE / TCA PHOTO GALLERY
Disclaimer:
The purpose of "Marienfelde, 1973-1976, An ex-airman remembers" is only to entertain. These are personal memories of one individual, and as such they are subject to error. The names of individuals have in nearly all cases been abbreviated or altered in order to protect their privacy; therefore the reader is STRONGLY cautioned against making any assumptions as to the identity of any individuals referred to in this narrative. The views and opinions communicated on this website, whether explicit or construed, are those of a private individual and not those of the United States Air Force, the USAFSS, or any other government agency.
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