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286 D Chapter Eighty-Seven d eAsT germAnY Among those who wished to express their condolences during the reception following the memorial service was a delegation from East Germany, the so-called German Democratic Republic.A long-winded letter from Erich Honecker,praising my late husband,was handed to me by the country’s chargé d’affaires. My casual remark that the GDR, the “other” Germany , was practically unknown to me, had consequences that I could not possibly foresee. One week later, I found myself in the possession of another Honecker communication, an official invitation to visit the German Democratic Republic, not just for a day, but for two weeks, and in the style usually reserved for heads of state, as I was soon to find out. The invitation, placed in a red folder with the GDR’s emblem of hammer and circle, was handdelivered to me by a messenger.Vastly amused by the thought of having been on the Communist hit list until the day I married Martin Niemoeller, I accepted. On June 29, 1984, I boarded a train to Erfurt, an undertaking that in itself was nothing short of a miracle. Since the erection of the Berlin Wall, with the exception of a handful of foreign tourists as well as political functionaries, the right of Germans to travel back and forth was strictly reserved for aged pensioners in both directions. Having flatly rejected the GDR’s request to mail my US passport to their Diplomatic Mission in Bonn to have it stamped with the entry visa, I was informed that the required permit would be issued to me on the train. Sharing the first-class compartment with several elderly pensioners, I noticed that, as we approached the “Iron Curtain,” some of them were frantically trying to hide forbidden items like Western magazines from sight, for fear that the “People’s Police” would confiscate them, or worse. Following a hunch, I told them that, at least today, they had nothing to fear, being certain that the police would know better than to search the compartment in the presence of their president’s guest of honor.As it turned out, I was correct in my assumption; at the border, displaying almost embarrassing servility,twopolicemenenteredthecompartment,saluted,and,leavingmyco-travelersgasping , restricted themselves to stamping my passport, after which they saluted again and left. On the platform of the Erfurt station, the same one on which West German Chancellor Willy Brandt recently had been received by Erich Honecker on his first and only official state visit, I was met by two friendly but nervous females, one of them carrying a bouquet of red carnations, the only flowers abundantly available in East Germany, I would soon surmise. The women introduced themselves as my “escorts” for the weeks ahead. In truth, The Promised Land 287 those“ladies-in-waiting”were obviously not solely delegated to please me,but to make sure I was never out of their sight, so I would only notice the sunny side of socialism and not the ever-present shabbiness and poverty lurking just around each corner,inches away from the ostensibly displayed Communist party splendor in every city and village we visited. It did not escape me that my two companions took turns each evening sending detailed telephone accounts to East Berlin, most likely reporting every remark to the “Stasi” (Staatssicherheitsdienst ), the feared Secret Police. Wondering how much they really knew about me and my anti-Communist past—including the spy activities that I had been involved in some thirty-five years before while working for the anti-Communist,American-supported League Against Inhumanity—our way of communicating with one another turned into a rather amusing game.We reached what would be a silent understanding; not only did they probably know exactly who I was,but they also knew that I knew that they knew.Once that seemed an established fact, we had a wonderful time together. Included in the red-carpet treatment was an official, government-owned, black Volga limousine, complete with Uwe, the baby-faced chauffeur, probably also a Stasi snitch. The wonderful German “Democratic” Republic, a worker’s paradise, was presented to me on a golden platter. Undoubtedly, I would come to understand just why Honecker’s precious jewel deserved to be protected by a wall,one that was constructed of concrete and tastefully adorned with control towers and ample supplies of barbed wire. I received the information that,contrary to the capitalists’false belief,it was...

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