Trucking Through Berlin

We certainly had our share of uncouth louts in our outfit, and dressing them up in nice suits didn't seem to make them any couther. They generally hung out on the Hauptstrasse, where there was a string of bars that catered to that sort of clientele. For the rest of us, there was the Kurfurstendam, which we abbreviated as the Kudam. The Kudam was in the British Sector, but there was nothing particularly British about it. It was a cosmopolitan kind of neighborhood where all the tourists went, and all the GIs who wanted to avoid the uncouth louts on the Hauptstrasse.

Berlin was divided into four sectors after the war for administrative purposes. American, British, French, and Russian soldiers were each stationed in their own sector, but there were no travel restrictions between the sectors until the Berlin Wall went up and the Russian Sector was sealed off from the others. Before that, I think it was in 1948, the Russians tried to isolate the whole city of Berlin, which was totally surrounded by East Germany. The good guys responded by instituting the Berlin Air Lift which, for a time, supplied the whole city completely by air. They couldn't have kept that up forever, they just did it to prove a point. The Russians seem to have gotten the point because they relented and henceforth allowed the city to be supplied by rail and road. Check points were established at border crossings, and loads were frequently inspected, but they almost always let them go through. I think that West Berlin civilians were allowed to go into East Germany, but East Germans and East Berliners were not allowed into West Berlin. Military convoys made regular border crossings both ways. Sometimes they were delayed on one pretext or another, but they always got through eventually.

There was no Italian Sector, but there must have been an Italian neighborhood because we stumbled into this pizza joint once where nobody was speaking English or German. As luck would have it, one of our group spoke a little Italian, so we had him order us some pizza. The only furniture in the place were these high round tables, just big enough for a pizza, where the customers stood around and ate. I saw some customers carrying pitchers to their tables, which I assumed to be full of beer. When I asked for one, the guy behind the counter said, "You wanna the extra grease?" Assuming that he didn't understand me, I asked Jimmy, our Italian speaking friend, to come over and translate. Come to find out, those pitchers were filled with olive oil, not beer. These guys were actually pouring the olive oil on their pizzas, to the point that it ran off the tables and onto the floor, which explains why the whole place had kind of a glossy sheen to it. Jimmy recommended that we not do likewise, and we didn't. The pizza was really good as it was, and we didn't see how drenching it in olive oil could possibly make it better.

I don't remember seeing any of the movies, and I am only vaguely familiar with most of the singers that you guys have been discussing. I guess I just ain't got no culture.