Archive for the ‘Wende’ Category
Bornholmer Brücke
Friday, November 9th, 2018Günter Max Brock
Friday, November 10th, 2017
Jens Karney
Friday, September 16th, 2016
“In the fall of 1982, six months after I arrived in Berlin, I started to have doubts about my job. Most importantly I felt we were engaging in certain activities to achieve specific intelligence goals without regard to the risk, no matter if it cost lives or pushed us closer to nuclear war. I felt we were sacrificing our morality for an end result. In the media we were presented with distorted statistics that gave the impression that the West was doomed and that we would be overwhelmed by sheer force of numbers in the event of war. But it was never mentioned that those statistics were often negated by Western technology. ”
-Jens Karney
Jens Karney, code-named “Kid,” was one of a pair of agents the Stasi had used to infiltrate the US military in West Berlin during the 1980’s. American authorities estimated the damage that he had caused by betraying secrets at $14.5 billion.
Timm Gossing
Wednesday, September 7th, 2016
Klaus Steiniger
Tuesday, June 21st, 2016..June 2016.. ..Berlin..
“My comprehensive view of the world has nothing to do with victory or defeat.” -Klaus Steiniger
I found out that Klaus Steiniger passed away on April 9th, 2016. Klaus was the Foreign Affairs editor for Neues Deutschland during the East German (GDR) times. I photographed him for my book about the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Wende.
He was an honorable man who always had time for me. When I first contacted him from NY in 2013, he told me to come Berlin tomorrow because he was already ill. He wrote me frequently to tell me about his experiences in the GDR. He was a passionate Socialist. What came out of his mouth politically was completely opposite to what I had learned.
I found him fascinating. I didn’t agree with the majority of his political beliefs. But I understood the argument he made and I respected it.
He was the first person to explain to me the necessity of the Berlin Wall from the perspective of the East German government. He described the wall as both the most necessary and the most ugly monument of the GDR. And he articulately explained the complex reasons why the GDR is no longer. He was proud of his beliefs. He described the GDR as a country not without mistakes or shortcomings. But only once during Germany’s existence had a situation where the exploiting social classes were expelled from power and divided from the means of production.
The terms used by Reagan to describe what was on that side of the Iron Curtain, “The bear in the woods….” and “The Evil Empire” jarred me. In the 1980’s, I grew up fearing that everyone on the eastern side of the wall was really a bear with blood dripping off their teeth. But when you get to know people for who they are, you realize we have more in common than not.
I did not see eye to eye with him on many things but he made me think. I will always be thankful for that and his friendship.
Simmelsdorf
Monday, January 4th, 2016
Pastor Christian Führer
Saturday, November 7th, 2015
Günter Schabowski
Friday, November 6th, 2015….May 2010 ….East Side Gallery, Berlin….
During an infamous press conference on November 9th 1989, Günter Schabowski, an unofficial government spokesman for the East German government and member of the Politburo, hastily announced new travel regulations allowing East German citizens to cross the border with proper permission. His confusing answers gave the impression the borders would be opened immediately. Hours later the Berlin Wall crumbled.
Günter Schabowski passed away this week, about a week before the anniversary of that history changing night. Four years ago when I began photographing people who had their lives changed by the division of Germany, Mr. Schabowski was already seriously ill and living in a nursing home. I regret not being able to get his portrait.
October 8, 1989 Dresden, DDR
Thursday, October 9th, 2014
Nikolakirche
Thursday, July 3rd, 2014