We were led past the parade square, with its flogging posts and gallows, through a sample hut (the liberating Allies of 1945 had burned most of them down, as they were infected by disease). We were taken to the crematorium, where the constant stream of corpses had been disposed of, and through the “medical” laboratory where Nazi pseudo-doctors had experimented on living victims. The watchtowers looked down over all of us, only the old machine guns had been removed.
By rote repetition, the commentary was word-perfect, so eventually it became just a drone without inflection or expression. The children were awed into silence as they listened to the explanation of what had been done there.
I noticed that the guides never used the word Nazi and never, ever the word German. Those responsible had been the “Fascists,” even though the Fascists were the Italians. The strong impression being dunned into the children’s brains was that the Fascists had in a way, as if from outer space, simply arrived, performed their inhumanities, and then been hounded out to take up residence in their new natural home, Bonn, the capital of West Germany. No one queried this or mentioned that it was actually the Americans who liberated Buchenwald, not the Russians. The whole lecture was a communist tour de force.
By the time it was over and I could escape, thoroughly depressed, back to my car, dusk was falling. At the bottom of the hill, on a side road, there was a country inn, or gasthof. I pulled in, parked, went into the bar, and ordered a stein of beer. I sat alone; I wanted to think over what I had seen. It was probably similar to that flickering film my father had seen at the War Office in 1945. He had told me about it; I had read about it, but had never actually seen it (or the remaining evidence of it). Until now. Then there was a power failure, not unusual in rural East Germany.
The landlord came over with a candle. There was only one other drinker in the bar, a middle-aged man a few tables away, glowering over his beer. The host asked if I minded if he joined me to share the candle and relieve the need for two candles. I shrugged and the other drinker came to sit opposite me. The atmosphere by candlelight and with the concentration camp on the hill above us was predictably gloomy, like something from an old Dracula movie.
My new companion did not seem to be drawn from the professional classes; workingman’s rough clothes, a pocked and coarse face. After a while in silence, he asked, “Wo kommst du her?” (Where do you come from?)
He used the familiar du form of address, a familiarity that can be either rudeness or an attempt at camaraderie. He had heard me order in German, so I supposed he meant from which East German city. I did not feel like being German at that moment, so I replied, “Aus London.”
He stared at me across the beer glasses, then shook his head. I must be joking, trying to impress.
“Glaub’ ich nicht,” he said. (Don’t believe it.)
Sufficiently irritated, I flicked my blue British passport across the table. He examined it, compared photo and face, and slid it back with something between a mocking smile and a sneer. He jerked his head toward what lay out in the darkness, atop the hill.
“Und was denkst Du?” (So, what do you think?)
We both carried on in German. There was something I was beginning not to like.
“What the hell do you think I think?”
He shrugged again, dismissively.
“What happened happened.”
It was a long shot but I asked it anyway.
“Were you there? In the old days?” I did not mean as an inmate, I meant on the staff. He shook his head, then confirmed my suspicion.
“Not that one.”
So, he had been a camp guard, but at a different concentration camp. And I was sitting opposite him in the half darkness, drinking beer.
It has long been a puzzle to me that I have never resolved. You take a newborn baby, twelve inches of helpless, chubby innocence. You take a toddler, three years old, a bundle of affection. You take a choirboy, ten and possessed of a pure treble voice, a curly blond angel, singing the Te Deum at morning service or helping Dad around the farm. Or you take a fifteen-year-old studying to be an accountant or architect one day.
How on earth do you turn that child in a few years into a savage, cruel monster capable of flogging a tethered man to death or throwing a living child into an incinerator or herding families into a gas chamber? What kind of satanic metamorphosis can achieve that?
But it has happened, not just in Germany, but right across the world, generation after generation. Every torture chamber in every dictatorship in the world is staffed by animals like that. And they were all once gurgling infants.
The lights came on. The landlord came over to snuff out the candle. No need to waste wax. I pushed enough East marks across the table to cover the cost of one beer—mine—and rose to go. The man across the table held out his hand. I left it dangling in midair. I had reached the door when his parting shot reached me.
“Killing is easy, Engländer, too damned easy.”
Years later, I would discover how right he was.
A VERY UNWISE CHOICE
My departure from East Berlin was not foreseen, but advisable. There were very few places worth visiting after dark. I could stay in, but the television was dire, even though I could pick up West Berlin.
This was strictly forbidden for East Berliners, and locally sold sets had all been tampered with to make reception of the West Berlin programs unobtainable. But thousands had a well-paid freelance “friend” come in to restore the facility. It was wise not to be caught watching the forbidden menu, but in my case they did not even bother.
Or I could read, which I did a lot. Almost my entire literary education, such as it is, comes from that year. Or I could help Reuters’s terrible blocked-currency problem by consuming caviar at the Haus Moskau restaurant. Or there was the opera.
One of the few civilized things about the East German government that was not an affectation was their love of music, theater, and opera. The Brecht Theatre was justly famous, but Master Bertolt Brecht was pretty left-wing and I had had enough of that from nine to five. But the State Opera was famous enough to attract international singers and conductors, and the Politburo spent enough foreign currency to indulge it lavishly. Of course, there was the occasional slipup.
One occurred during the opera Nabucco, which was immensely popular and always in demand. In it is the Slaves Chorus, where the prisoners sing (in German), “Teure Heimat, wann seh’ ich dich wieder.” (Beloved homeland, when shall I see you again?) Every time it was played, the entire audience rose and sang along. The Politburo members who attended were gratified by the enthusiasm but bewildered that they never did this for any other aria. Then someone pointed out that for them the “beloved homeland” was not East Germany, but the West. It was their only way of expressing a political opinion. After that, the authorities discontinued Nabucco.
And the opera had the pretty chic Opera Café, for after-performance drinking. That was where I met Sigrid, known as Sigi. She was a stunner, and alone. I checked for an escort. There was none. Move-in time.
An East German had to be extremely careful even taking a drink with a Westerner, but Sigi was old enough and sophisticated enough to know what she was doing, and even learning I was from the West but living in East Berlin did not deter her. After a drink, we shared dinner and ended up at my place. She revealed a remarkable figure matched by a rapacity for lovemaking. But on my second date, I realized there was something odd about her.
She claimed she was married to a corporal in the East German army, who would not have had the income to permit her clothes and lifestyle. Moreover, he was permanently based in the garrison at Cottbus, far away on the Czech frontier, and never got any leave. Finally, she refused to let me drive her home, but after hours of fun in bed, insisted that I order a cab from the late-night rank at the Frankfurter Strasse station.
One day I saw the same cabdriver at the statio
n, and for a hefty tip in West marks extracted from him the address to which he had taken her. It was in Pankow, the very blue-chip suburb where the elite of East Germany had their residences. Further discreet inquiries with some of my contacts in West Berlin revealed whose address it was.
I recall driving back into East Berlin through “Charlie” that night with the words of a popular song running through my head. The opening line was: “The party’s over, it’s time to call it a day.”* I had been sleeping with the mistress of the East German defense minister, General Karl-Heinz Hoffmann.
General Hoffmann was not renowned for his sense of humor. I had just turned twenty-six in October 1964 and hoped for a few more birthdays yet to come. Outside of a prison cell, if possible.
I told Reuters I was stressed out and wished to leave rather sharply. Head Office was very understanding; few could take more than a year in that place, and I had just passed twelve months. Within a week, just before the general returned from Warsaw Pact maneuvers in Poland, I had handed over job, office, secretary, and car and was at West Berlin’s Tempelhof Airport boarding the British Airways direct flight to London Heathrow.
As the airliner lifted off and both Berlins dropped away beneath the wings, I looked down at the divided city, convinced I would never return to East Germany. As it turned out, I was wrong about that.
A MISTAKE WITH AUNTIE
Reuters simply sent me back to Paris to rejoin Harold King, and it was in a silent Paris café in the early spring of 1965 that I watched on a TV screen the state funeral of Winston Churchill.
There must have been a hundred or more around me, all Parisians and not world-famous for their admiration of things British, but they sat in awed silence as the bronze coffin of the old Bulldog was taken to its final resting place in a country churchyard.
I had already made my decision that the future of foreign-sourced news journalism was in radio and television, and that meant the BBC. I got a transfer back to London in April, applied for a job with the BBC, attended the necessary interviews, was accepted, and joined as a staff reporter on the domestic news side that October. As it turned out, that was probably a mistake.
I learned quite quickly that the BBC is not primarily a creator of entertainment, or a reporter and disseminator of hard news like Reuters. Those come second. Primarily the BBC is a vast bureaucracy with the three disadvantages of a bureaucracy. These are a slothlike inertia, an obsession with rank over merit, and a matching obsession with conformism.
Being vast and multitasked, the BBC was divided into more than a score of major divisions, of which only one was the News and Current Affairs Division, which I had joined. That in turn was divided into radio and TV, then Home and Foreign. All starters began in Home Radio, which was to say Broadcasting House on Portland Place, London.
But there was more. It was also and remains at the very core of the Establishment. The calling of a true news and current affairs organization is to hold the Establishment of any country to account, but never to join it.
Then it got worse. The upper echelons of the bureaucracy preferred a devoted servility to the polity of the ruling government, provided it was Labor, and it was.
The icing on the cake was that back then the leadership of the BBC was in turmoil, which prevailed during most of my time there. The former chairman of the Board of Governors had died in office. His deputy, Sir Robert Lusty, presumed the succession to be his. But Labor prime minister Harold Wilson had other ideas. He wanted an even tamer national broadcaster.
Rather than confirming Sir Robert, Wilson transferred his friend and admirer Sir Charles Hill, almost immediately to become Lord Hill, across from the top of BBC’s fierce rival Independent TV to chair the BBC board. There was chaos.
Sir Robert Lusty resigned. Several lifelong veterans went with him. The powerful post of director general was held by a former giant of journalism, Sir Hugh Carleton Greene, brother of novelist Graham Greene, who had set up North German Radio after 1945 to teach the old principles of rigor, integrity, and impartiality. He was the last journalist to head the BBC, and thus to protect the News and Current Affairs Division.
The best German news organization for years was the one he left behind him, but twenty years later in London, he was being sabotaged, and eventually he, too, quit in disgust.
As with any ship, when there is chaos on the bridge, vices were adopted belowdecks. Talentless little empire builders proliferated, using all the Machiavellian tricks of office politics instead of a dedication to the business of news. But at the time this was far above my pay grade and seemed of small interest. Only later did I learn about office politics, just as they effectively destroyed me.
Newcomers began by learning the techniques and technology of tape-recorded radio interviews, working out of Broadcasting House under the aegis of the Head of Home Correspondents and Reporters, one Tom Maltby, a good and honorable man.
Then I secured a transfer to TV news, based way up in north London at Alexandra Palace, whence BBC TV News was beamed to the country. This involved learning about reporting directly into a lens, working with cameramen and sound recordists, and being part of a three-man team.
I recall Alexandra Palace, or Ally Pally, with affection. Being away from the hornets’ nest, it was informal and clubby, consorting with veteran newsreaders like Robert Dougall and just-arrived young women like Angela Rippon. But I still wanted to go back to foreign reporting and to resume being a foreign correspondent. There were still masses more world I wanted to see.
Still, that summer of 1966, out of Ally Pally, I did cover one good story.
A head came round the door and asked, “Anyone here ever flown in jets?”
“Yes.”
“Do you get airsick?”
“No.”
“Only we have an invitation to fly with the Red Arrows.”
These were and remain the spectacular aerobatic display team of the Royal Air Force, centerpiece of just about every air display, with visits right across Europe and the United States.
“Are you interested?”
Is the chief rabbi Jewish? I was out of the door like a greased ferret.
A DAY WITH THE ARROWS
My assigned cameraman was the really marvelous Peter Beggin, a veteran who had been all over the world with his camera around his neck. We drove in two cars to the West Country and found the base of the Red Arrows display team.
Back then, they were flying the Folland Gnat, a converted trainer with two seats, fore and aft, originally for instructor and pupil. We introduced ourselves and were taken out to survey the Gnat. It was very small and very narrow and, of course, bright red. Near the tails were the canisters that, for the final “bomb-burst” display, would stream long plumes of red, white, and blue smoke.
The tight confines of the cockpit did not worry me, but they were a real squeeze for Peter. He was built like a truck, with immense physical strength, which he was going to need.
His handheld camera was a heavy and bulky Arriflex weighing, I suppose, about ten pounds. Beneath it was a spike, and this would slot into a socket embedded in a canvas harness to be worn around the neck and shoulders. With this in place, he could squint through the lens to film the sky, the horizon, the landscape below, and the rest of the squadron flying in tight formation around him.
The problem was the G-forces we would encounter. Pulling 6 G, that camera would weigh in at sixty pounds, all dragging downward on Peter’s shoulders.
We spent the morning in extensive briefings in the crew room, being taught everything that would happen and a variety of emergency procedures if it all went wrong. But if either of us brought up, well, that would just be our problem. No stopping for wax-paper bags. We smiled bravely.
It is perhaps a tribute to the informality of those days that no proof at all was needed that we were fit to fly. No medical, no check for a heart murmur. Our role was clearly
to be strapped in, then to sit tight and shut up. The radios were strictly for those terse instructions from team leader to the rest tucked into his wingtips.
Finally we were led out, and we slid into the seats. Peter was third down, starboard side, so he could see the rest of the team in formation round him. I was to fly with the leader.
It took time to get Peter settled in. Two sweating flight sergeants stood on either side of his cockpit, pushing and shoving as he went deeper and deeper. Then the harness. Then the Arriflex into its socket. When the Perspex canopies came down, there seemed to be nothing inside his but him and his camera. We taxied out to takeoff.
The instructions from the leader, coming through my headphones, were very terse: one syllable, two if he felt talkative. All the maneuvers were simply code words and everyone knew exactly what they meant.
There were nine in the team, taking off as a five and a four, then uniting into an arrow formation once airborne. Thus we climbed to about 10,000 feet. The sky was a cloudless blue, the fields of Gloucestershire a patchwork of green. It seemed quite sedate on the way up. When he was ready, the leader muttered, “Close up.” A wingtip appeared a few feet from my left and right eyebrow. I had done formation flying, but this was very close indeed. For twenty minutes, the two wingtips would not move an inch. Across a few feet of racing air, the other two Gnats were as if bolted on. The rest were out behind them.
In deference (I think) to our innocence, the leader began with some gentle barrel rolls and loops. Then the display began.
I heard him say, “Twinkle, twinkle, roll,” and the horizon went insane. A twinkle roll is fast, along the axis of the aircraft. The sky went one way, the horizon another, and for a split second Gloucestershire appeared above my head. Then we were back where we started. I looked right and left. The wingtips were still a few inches from my eyebrows.