The linked story is about how Hungary allowed East Germans visiting Hungary to escape to Austria (and then move on to West Germany).
Two interesting points. The first is that the man at the point of action took action (in this case, no action) that allowed history to flow in a new direction. Why that happened and why the central government did not get its plan out to him is interesting, and instructive about how things go wrong in Government (and industry and families).
The second point is about how elites tend to remain in power. One of the bit players in the drama in the 1989 story laments:
The people in power today are precisely those former leaders of the Communist youth organization who would have ended up in the same jobs even without the fall of Communism.The question is, have those people changed with the times or were they always really just apolitical and interested in just seeking power.
The border between West Germany and East Germany and Czechoslovakia was heavily defended, back in the day. The border that Austria had with the East was also blocked as a means of moving easily from the East to the West. In West Germany military forces patrolled the border, but stayed back from the actual point of difference. The actual last few feet of West German territory, at least in the late 1960s, was policed by West German Federal Employees (Forestry People, as I recall). The US Army used to fly up and down the border, looking for changes that might indicate something was afoot. I got to ride on one of those flights in 1968. It was during the time that Soviet Tanks rolled into Prague to suppress the "Prague Spring". At the time I was the "FAC of the Month,"♠ spending 30 days at Fulda with the 14th Armored Cavalry Regiment, the "Border Legion."
The US Army UH-1 was armed with machine guns attached to the sides, so it could fight its way out of trouble. As we assumed our patrol up the border a helicopter from the other side♥ joined us on the German side, keeping pace with us and making sure we didn't do anything untoward. Back at Bitburg AB, the Air Defense Squadron, which I would soon join, had a mission called CREEK BALL, where fighters would be diverted (or scrambled) to support a NATO Helicopter which was being harassed by one from the Warsaw Pact.
Regards — Cliff
♠ FAC—Forward Air Controller. The fighter pilot up with the ground forces, directing Close Air Support missions.
♥ I am thinking it must have been an Mi-4 HOUND, but it was a long time ago.
From 1981-1983 I was an intelligence officer in the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment which was responsible for border surveillance along the inter-German/Czech border from the city of Coburg in the north to Passau in the south. Troops of the 2ACR continuously patrolled the border on foot, in vehicles and in the air, all in close cooperation with the West German border police. While the primary US mission was to provide early warning of a Soviet attack, the recurring attempts of East German citizens to sneak across the border and the violent attempts by the East German border guards to prevent their escape were always attention-grabbing. Being an eye witness to half a continent walled-in with razor wire, machine gun towers, armed guards and anti-personnel mines gave me a much deeper appreciation of the freedoms we have in America and left me astounded when “the wall” peacefully came down in 1989
ReplyDeleteThe peaceful fall of the Wall speaks well for the insights of people like Diplomat George Kennan, who introduced the idea of containment, and President Harry Truman who accepted the idea. As Churchill is reputed to have said, "Jaw, Jaw is better than war, war." And the man knew war.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the informative comment.
Regards — Cliff