Chapter 4
The journey to freedom begins.
1977 / 1978 . Disco was getting ready to die in the cultural hot-points of Western civilization. In Great Britain strange new bands like these guys started to come on the scene. In East Germany life always seemed about 5-10 years "behind the times". We were still enthrolled with Donna Summer and Heart, while in NYC Blondie was getting to be very popular. Interestingly, for the first time there was a palatable sense of dissatisfaction that could be noticed at concerts in some of the larger cities like Berlin, Leipzig and Erfurt. Kids wanted western stuff. I had a rather lucrative sideline in the trade of records and Levis jeans. 16 years old and already a budding entrepreneur. I suppose the official term is not quite as flattering - I was a "black marketeer". But I couldn't help it. There was a huge demand for British and US music. In retrospect, with twenty-some years of US living under my belt, it is easy to appreciate the musical accomplishments of the East-German groups of that time. Bands like "Elektra" or "City". Most of the members of Elektra had advanced university degrees in music, and their style was quite progressive for the times. But to my 16 year old ears in1978/79 Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin sounded so much better.
Unlike teenagers in the US, the kids In Germany, both West and East, were not able to drive a car until the age of 18. However, starting at 15, an East German teenager could drive a moped, followed by a 150cc motorcycle at age 16 and a 250cc at age 18. (Thats the largest bike built in East Germany). Thanks to my mother I was the proud owner of a 150cc MZ TS150. It had a hefty 21 horsepower and reached the awe inspiring speed of 50mp/h (105km/h). All fun aside, my high school class had close to 40 students. About half were male. Out of the 20 guys, there were only three of us who could afford a bike like this. With transportation in short supply among my classmates, we occasionally managed to ride with 3 people on this bike (of course we were pretty skinny in those days). And to its credit the bike held up well over time.
After graduating High School, through the diligent efforts of my mother, I was offered one of only seven open apprenticeship positions at the Hotel Panorama. Mind you that there were well over 100 applicants for each of these positions. But my mom was well liked and had a bit of inluence with the decision makers. To make a long story short, I became an apprentice waiter. Yes you've read correctly. As I mentioned before, the profession of waiter was just like many other jobs in East Germany. You went to school for it. And when you finished the apprenticeship you were a darn good waiter.
Our education consisted of actual work in the restaurants of the hotel as well as two days of schooling. Looking at this ratio of theoretical and practicum it becomes obvious that apprentices represented a cheap source of labor for the government, since they were generally paid less than a full-fledged worker.
Between school/apprenticeship and ever farther ranging excursions on the bike, life after high school had settled into a routine. What about the possibility of an East-German high-school graduate attending the University? Unlike a US student who has several different ways of attaining a college degree, in East-Germany the State offered a free University degree only to certain students who were hand picked by age 14. I wasn't one of them. I didn't have the discipline necessary to make the cut at that age.
My stepfather had passed away a two years earlier. He was the sort of person that is best not discussed in a polite web site. Suffice it to say that the sudden release from the oppressive presence of my step father caused a bit of rebellion to bubble to the surface.
In small towns of East Germany during those days it was the custom for a widow to wear black for an entire year. Once this tradional period of mourning had passed my Mother was for all intend and purpose single again and in due time began to date. That is how she met Werner Stiller, who happened to be staying at our hotel. I
In those days it wasn't completely unheard of that the folks who worked in the hotel would also stick around for the Happy Hour offered by the various bars in this facility. Like I said, it was a small town, and we really didn't have that many places to go to let off some steam.
Some months ago my mother applied for a travel visa to leave the country and visit her brother in West-Germany. Only the most hard-core communists were able to travel to the West in this manner. It seemed to me, even as a teenager, that we were certainly too much of a "westerly oriented element" to be able to rate a visa like this. After all, I'm sure that in some government file somewhere there had to be a list of all the ant-State activities we had engaged in over the years. By anti-State I'm talking about instances like the local Communist Party elections in 1966 where I, as a strapping 4 year old, approached the party bosses at the polling place and asked if they knew who had the longest way to the bathroom. When they indicated that they did not, I gleefully explained that it had to be Walter Ulbricht - the Secretary of the Communist Party (the top dog) - who for every little sh... had to go to Moscow! You can imagine that this sort of behavior didn't go over too well with the Party bosses.
Many people applied for travel visa's, and I'm sure many did so as a means of attempting defection. Most all applications were denied. Of those that had been denied the ability to legally visit the West, several people attempted to cross the border illegally. One of our collegues had attempted to get from Chechoslovakia into Austria, only to be caught and sentenced to 5 years in prison. In another case, a teenager was taken in and given a temporary home by our local priest while his parents were incarcerated. Interestingly this teenager, Gernot Weller, and his family were able to leave the country very legally after the sentence was completed. I could never quite figure out how they accomplished that.
To make matters worse, East-German was full of Informants. The government, and especially the STASI, had thousands upon thousands of part-time people on their payroll. The primary reason for someone to inform on their neighbors activities was economic gain. Some actually did it out of conviction, but most were simply greedy. In this manner an average East German citizen was sourrounded by the watchful eyes and ears of the State at all times. It helped to reinforce the sense of futility that most of us lived with. After the fall of the Wall, and after many of the archives and individual files were opened for public inspection there was a period of constant reports in the media explaining how people found out their "best" friends had informed on them. With the typical German efficiency, every little iota of information was filed and categorized. Husbands found that their wifes were informants, member of families found that relatives had informed on them. All in all the entire "virus" of people enriching themselves at the cost of some of their closest neighbors really struck me in a morbid and fascinating way as extremely similar to the way the German People acted during WW2. Having the benefit of the perspective that comes from living in another country, I'm almost convinced that there is something built into the Volks-Psyche ( the psyche of the population) that drives this behavior. Almost as though Germans make some of the best "followers" in the world. I'm sure the reason for this odd behavior can be found in the generally autocratic structure of the entire country.
Our small town of 3000 (+ 15,000 tourists ) had its own share of informants. And the funny thing is that we knew quite a few of them by sight. One man comes to mind, who would like to sit at a bar and very ostentatiously open his wallet to show off stacks of West German currency as sort of a lure to try to entice people into thinking that he was a West German, which could then lead to some indiscrete conversations. He didn't try that with the locals anymore of course, because he was well known by us. As a matter of fact we had an appropriate nickname for him: Schweinebacke. Translated that means "pigs-cheek" - and trust me we weren't talking about facial features here. The name fit him especially well since he was an overweight, semi-balding beer lover who from the looks of him would indeed remind a person of a "sweaty" pig.
It was in this atmosphere of "big brother" is watching, that my mother encountered Werner Stiller after her shift at the hotel was finished. Stiller had used the Hotel Panorama as a meeting locale for his intelligence activities. Agents would come from the West and meet with him, or he would stay overnight at the Hotel in transit to an agent rendevous. Stiller recognized my mother as one of the waitresses that served him frequently, and the two began to talk. In his own words, he was taken aback by the frustration that mom vented in regards to the travel visa. He was surprised and stunned because "... he could have been an informer and here was this lady pouring her heart out to him , explaining how frustrated she was with the government ...."
One thing led to another and the two of them began to date. Stiller would come from Berlin to visit us in Oberhof, or on frequent occassions my mother would travel up to Berlin to see him. It was not until several weeks into this relationship that Stiller confessed to her that he was a member of the dreaded STASI. Mother was understandably upset. In an effort to smooth things over he explained that his job had nothing to do with internal security, but rather was focused on espionage in West Germany and Western Europe. When asked later about this deceptve beginning of their relationship mom would explain that Stiller (like many con-men) had a singular quality of being so charming that "he could sell you pieces of coal and make you believe they were as valuable as gold".
And much like other con-men, Stiller led several different lives. While wooing my mother he was actually married and to make matters worse his wife was very pregnant.
Erzebet, his wife, was a Hungarian national who had come to East Germany a few years earlier. As an attractive young woman, she was able to obtain work as a model. A few weeks into the relationship between my mother and Stiller, his wife underwent an extremely difficult labor and delivery.For a while it looked as though either she, or the about to be born son Andreas weren't going to make it. Later that night when Werner Stiller drove his wife and newborn son home from the hospital he told her " I have a girlfriend and can't live without her. I am going to leave you". Erzebet is furious and threatened to contact Stiller's boss . He sweet-talked her into relenting and accepting his proposal that he will try to break it off with my mother.
His "other" life proceeded as well as could be imagined. Somewhere in this heady romance with my mother, Werner Stiller, suggested that they should defect. He reasoned that since they were truly in love, the only place were they could live together without fear of interference by the STASI was the West. He suggested that he was being pressured by his bosses about his relationship. Maybe someone had spotted them together. Perhaps at one of their rendevouz's in Berlin, which ironically would take place in a STASI safehouse (actually an apartment) in the working class neighborhood of Prenzlauer Berg.
("The Castle", as the safehouse was identified in STASI papers, was located on the third floor of an older apartment building at Marienburger Strasse 5. It was a small place with very few amenities. Of course who needs amenities when your in love!)