 gray pile that formerly housed Hermann Göring’s Air Ministry. Here, at several open windows facing the wall, Vopos stood with submachine guns over their shoulders and binoculars at their eyes. There were no civilians in sight.
Up on the rubble mountain, I could hear some of the commentator’s words over the continuing din below. “In West Berlin,” he was saying, “they deny who the real enemy is. The real enemy is the West German militarists. We ask: Do you want to wait until your last bit of security has been played out? The people of West Berlin must realize that the way to peaceful coexistence lies in peaceful negotiation with the German Democratic Republic.” At length, he stopped. The West Berliners immediately broke into a chant. “Mauer muss weg! [Wall must go!],” they shouted in a chorus that developed into a roar. I looked around at the participants. Most of them were men in their early twenties. There were a few young women, a number of older people, and a handful of children, including a couple of boys, standing nearby, who appeared to be around twelve. Each of the boys held a pair of old aluminum saucepan covers, which they used like cymbals. I asked one of them why he was making so much noise. “To get even,” he replied. He explained that the other boy was his brother, and that they lived, with their mother, in an apartment a block away. “Every night, we have crazy words and music,” he said. “It is so loud we cannot practice our piano lessons. We cannot hear the notes. Sometimes they keep up the noise until nine o’clock. Sometimes all night, playing those crazy marches so loud nobody can sleep.” He and his brother took up their task again as the commentator resumed.
Down on the street, a West Berlin television crew had arrived. After recording the scene below, the cameramen climbed up the rubble mountain and began photographing over the wall. This created consternation among the Vopo officers. First, they all raised their binoculars. Then they began talking among themselves. Presently, two Vopos lobbed three tear-gas grenades over the wall into the crowd on the street. The instant the grenades landed, two young men, one of whom had been idly standing with his arm around a girl, ran over, picked them up, and threw them back over the wall, where they exploded. This brought a tremendous roar of applause from the crowd, and further disconcerted the Vopos, who sent for reinforcements. Before long, two personnel carriers roared up beside the sound trucks, and soon the vacant lot and the street itself were alive with Vopos in battle gear, lying on their bellies with guns at the ready. The hooting and jeering of the West Berliners grew even louder. The troops were still deployed half an hour later, when, with the dinner hour approaching, the crowd began to drift away and Max and I also left. We were going in different directions, so I looked for a taxi, but didn’t find one until I had walked several blocks. Away from Wilhelmstrasse, I discovered, the voice of the commentator was loud and clear as he warned the citizens of West Berlin: “You live under the rule of capitalism in the middle of a sea of Socialist people. How do you expect to survive in the storm that is coming? We can find a way to help you.” On some street corners, small clusters of people were gathered, apparently listening to the harangue. On the sill of a second-floor window somebody had placed a radio, facing Wilhelmstrasse and playing jazz at full volume. Over the music produced by this gesture of defiance came the voice of the commentator, clear as a bell: “Citizens of West Berlin, your time is running out. You must realize there is only one solution for your trouble. You can achieve an honorable agreement with the workers and farmers of the German Democratic Republic and the fruitful rewards of peaceful coexistence. Citizens of West Berlin . . .”
That night, at dinner with the political editor of one of West Berlin’s newspapers, I mentioned the events of the afternoon on Wilhelmstrasse. “As you saw, West Berlin is at a disadvantage in the loudspeaker 