Memories of the Berlin Wall

As I said before, by the time I got to Berlin everybody who wanted to get over the Wall had already done so or died in the attempt.  The Wall had become somewhat of a tourist attraction by then, and there was a viewing platform on our side looking over to the Commie side.  The Commies had erected a large propaganda sign on their side that said something about the Wall being a direct result of "the Dulles-Acheson-Adenauer agreement".  John Foster Dulles was our Secretary of State, Dean Acheson was our Secretary of Something or Other, and Conrad Adenauer was the Chancellor of West Germany at the time.  I thought the sign was just Commie bullshit, but one of my buddies, who claimed to be knowledgeable about such things, said that there was some truth to it.  He said that so many refugees had been coming over that the West Berliners were having a hard time dealing with them, so our governments agreed to let the Commies build the wall as long as they promised not tell anybody about their agreement.  Well, the lying Commies went back on their word and put up the sign, but nobody on our side believed it, so no harm was done.  How's that for anecdotal evidence?

Another stop on the tour was a place where some escapees had climbed over the Wall with the assistance of a couple of our guys who happened to be passing by at the time.  The Commies shot at everybody involved, but I don't think they hit anybody, just made some pock marks in the masonry wall of an apartment building across the street, which had still not been patched years later.  After that, our guys were ordered to not render physical assistance to anybody climbing the wall.  The question became moot shortly thereafter because the Wall was topped with barbed wire and a "death strip" was established on the Commie side with another fence set back from the Wall and the intervening space filled with landmines.

Although we were not supposed to help civilians over the Wall, we were not ordered to prevent them either.  If I had been ordered to fire on unarmed civilians crossing the Wall, I'm pretty sure that I would have recognized it as an illegal order, refused to comply, and reported the incident to my commanding officer.  There might have been circumstances that persuaded me to do otherwise, but I can't imagine what they might be.

I sent my sister an email asking her what she remembered about that "chicks up front thing".  I also plan to see what I can find on Wiki when I get a chance.