Day 11 (Wed 12 Sep) Another Challenging (and rewarding?) Day of Travel

Up early again for a second scrumptious German country breakfast and a taxi to the train at Celle station.  Doug is prepared to admit that the challenges that came with most of our rail journeys were all his idea.  He asks us to remember that also applies to the rewards, so you can be the judge

Today’s journey arose from his desire to follow the general route of the railway and motorway which were permitted to be used by British military road and rail traffic which had a legitimate reason for travelling from West Germany across East Germany to the British zone of West Berlin (and back).  He says we will also be travelling under the permitted military aircraft ‘corridor’ and we will be in close proximity to the Luneberg Heath/Letzlinger Heide training areas.  Furthermore, he says, we will pass very close to the Start Point for an Annual Field Training Exercise (FTX) for the 4^th British Division, in which he partook.  These will be rich in memories for him, harking back to his attachment to BAOR in the Autumn of 1971 and his posting in the UK Ministry of Defence in 1978-80.  As full justification, he says Helen will enjoy them just as much, when she sees them.  We’ll see!

So, the itinerary for today (instead of the direct, luxury, express Hannover to Berlin - 2.5 hrs), included five ‘legs’, consequently five repetitions of the mount-dismount routine!  It involved a branch line from Celle to Hannover, a regional train to Braunschweig, same again to Magdeburg, same again to Potsdam and finally a Berlin S-bahn service to the suburban station at Savignyplatz.  Start time 08:30, arrival about 16:45.  Well!  Hadn’t we all done five legs like this just two days ago?  Learning takes time!

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The train trips themselves went smoothly.  Our mount-dismount routine was now almost perfect and we had deciphered the clues as to where to wait for the right carriage and seat numbers.  The train staff were friendly, helpful and informative and the trains very punctual.  So, everyone was learning.  Because each station was a new ball game, the remaining puzzle was to identify and get to the outward-bound platform in the transfer time available.  Getting better!

The highlights of the day’s travel, as related by Doug were:

1.     Crossing the Intra-German Border.  In 1971, I had lined up in our deployed positions East of Braunschweig with 4^th British Division.  At the sound of the starter’s gun, we proceeded to withdraw to the West across the German Plain, systematically destroying the Warsaw Pact Armies as we did so over the next week or so.  Prior to the start, I’d been for a drive forward to where we could study the Intra-German Border from where the forward troops would start the exercise.  It consisted of a ploughed strip about a chain wide, a complex barbed wire fence and guard towers every 600 m or so, manned by border guards with rifles and some lean & mean-looking dogs.  I was told there were mines in the ploughed strip.  Today, I was on the alert as we set out on the Braunschweig-Magdeburg leg of our journey as I knew the railway converged on the E2 Autobahn at Helmstedt, where Checkpoint Alfa was located and where there is a tourist exhibit.  Lo and behold, as we crested a ridge-line and descended towards the plain, there it was – guard towers and a ploughed strip.  I rose up from my seat with an ecstatic shout of something like “HERE IT IS!!”  Helen became quite animated.  After it was out of sight, I fell back into my seat and, had I still been a smoker, would have lit up.  The other passengers looked concerned and I felt like telling them that if I’d crossed that line from West to East 47 years ago, I might have been shot.  Helen thought it best to keep that just between the two of us.

2.    Approaching Berlin from Potsdam.  Potsdam was the location of the 1945 conference to determine how occupied Germany would be administered.  It was an outer ‘suburb’ of pre-war Berlin and lies just about 2-3 Km from the South-West extremity of what was to become the British zone.  It was in East Germany (the Soviet zone) and also the place where some facilities were made over by the USSR for use by the British Liaison Mission were located.  It was also quite close to Checkpoint Bravo, the permitted crossing from East Germany to West Berlin and the Gleinecke Bridge, the place of ‘exchange’ for captured ‘spies’ later liberated.  I was keen to see if that route would provide a glimpse of any of those key Cold War sites.  I didn’t exactly get a great eyeful, but the area still had the faint aura of the spy.  It was good to know I was in the vicinity.  As the travelling day drew towards its close, I could see that Helen had enjoyed the experience as much as I just knew she would.

We had carried out a map reconnaissance of the short walk from Savignplatz S-Bahn station to our hotel and had a simple route card to see we kept to the straight and narrow.  Seemed simple enough, and would have worked, too, if we hadn’t fallen into the trap (having spent a lifetime in the Southern hemisphere) of assuming the sun was always to the North.  So where the route card said turn West, we turned East.  Regrettably, this was before we had perfected the technique of using Google Navigator to get out of trouble and we got ‘bushed’ Helen’s very sensible decision (rather tersely put Doug might say) was to get a taxi to finish the journey – which we did.

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But it turned out that there was time for a stroll down the Kurfurstendamm as far as the Kaiser Wilhelm Church, which has been left as a reminder of the bombing raids.  The Wilhelm in question isn’t the one who made all the trouble for everyone in 1914, but an earlier one, who had been the last Konig of Prussia and the first Kaiser of Deutschland.  On the way ‘home’ we enjoyed a pilsener, a weissbier und a snackplate of some very tasty savouries.

And so to turn for 'home'.  After riding the lift (one at a time), we retired to a very comfortable bed

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