Stasiland_ Stories From Behind the Berlin Wall - Anna Funder [75]
In 1948 the Russians decided they had had enough of the small island of capitalist imperialism that was West Berlin. It seethed with the spies of enemy countries. It was a toehold for the Allies on socialist soil. In a modern siege, Stalin’s forces cut off the land supply routes through East Germany to West Berlin. On the night of 24 June 1948, they switched off the eastern power plant that supplied the city. The West Berliners were to be starved out in the dark.
But the Allies would not give up the two million West Berliners. For almost a year, from June 1948 to October 1949, they kept the city alive by plane. In that time American and British planes made some 277,728 flights through Soviet airspace to drop bundles of food, clothing, cigarettes, medicine, fuel and equipment, including components for a new power station, to the people of West Berlin.
In the west, the aircraft came to be known as the ‘Rosinenbomber’, or ‘raisin bombers’, because they brought food. But in the east, Koch and his classmates were told the enemy planes sprayed potato beetles over East German crops as they flew over, in order to spoil the harvest. ‘Lindau was virtually under the flight path—the planes flew day and night,’ Koch says. ‘This is how they gave us a picture of the enemy: in a place where people get no news from outside, they have nothing else to believe.’
‘Why was it credible that the Americans would do this?’ I ask. It seemed improbable that a nuclear superpower would be loading up planes full of live beetles on leaves and setting out across the Atlantic with them.
‘Because they had just bombed Dresden flat!’ he cried. ‘That beautiful centre of German culture! Senselessly! And they even dropped two atom bombs on Japan! They were clearly truly evil! What more proof do you need?’
Bombs, atomic weapons, and now a biblical pestilence.
‘I am telling you how propaganda works!’ he continues. ‘That is how I grew up.’
At this time, there was still rationing. Sugar was scarce and boiled sweets were a luxury. But there was an incentive scheme for the children. ‘For every beetle we collected we could redeem a penny. For a larva, a halfpenny. And for every hundred, we got ten ration cards for sugar! So we children went into the fields every spare minute we had, collecting beetles and larvae, beetles and larvae. We handed them in and we got more sweets than we could eat!’
In Koch’s mind, the sweet taste of reward is connected with foiling the American plot to spoil the potato crop and starve his people. This story—of insects and sweets and the making of an enemy—is the story of the making of a patriot.
17
Drawing the Line
‘So it was that I came on 5 April 1960 to the Ministry of State Security.’ Hagen Koch nearly swallows the words. ‘Four days later,’ he says, ‘this photo was taken.’ The photo shows a young man in his grey Stasi uniform spruced and tense behind a huge lectern. Koch was giving his maiden speech: why I want to protect and defend my homeland. He took the oath: ‘By order of the workers’ and farmers’ state, I promise if necessary to lay down my life…to protect against the enemy…obediently and everywhere…’ All the top brass were there. Mielke was there.
Afterwards, Koch stood in a loose group with his commandant. The other recruits were pretending to relax and trying to be noticed at the same time. Suddenly Koch felt all eyes on him, a hand on his shoulder. He turned around. It was Mielke.
‘What is your training, young man?’
‘Technical draftsman.’
Mielke addressed Koch’s commandant. ‘I want you to look after this one. His career. This is the kind we need.’
‘And so,’ Koch says, ‘that is how I was lifted out from the great grey mass.’ He was immediately made director of the Drafting Office for Cartographics and Topography. ‘I didn