Wouldn’t you know it: the day we leave Berlin, the sun shows up. It still rained, but for the first time we saw the sun. And for the first time since 1968, Doug visited the Zehlendorf area of Berlin where his unit was headquartered.
Talk about a stark return to the scene of the crime. The entire compound is abandoned except for a building that fronts Clayalle where the American Consulate is located. Weeds are growing between the cobblestones, all the windows are dark and secured by metal bars, and vegetation is overrunning the place. The somber appearance is an unsettling postscript on the end of the Cold War and how it played out in Berlin.
Anyone stationed here in the “hot” years of that war likely would be similarly struck by the contrast between then and now – between the urgency these buildings represented in the years West Berlin was an isolated outpost of freedom, and how the former command central for US Army intelligence activities in West Berlin appears today. And it wasn’t just the MI effort that was buzzing here; these buildings were where the US Army in West Berlin was commanded and coordinated. To see them abandoned and apparently neglected seems like an unfitting end for the victorious side’s headquarters.
Unlike East Berlin, the West side of the city was pretty much an open book, and it was not uncommon to see vehicles with East German and East Bloc license plates in the Zehlendorf neighborhood. Counterintelligence personnel of the 66th Military Intelligence Group spent their days ensuring that American operations were secure from the other side’s espionage efforts, while Doug’s unit – Berlin Station, 513th MI Group – was in the information “collection” business.
After we had snapped several photos, a guard ambled down the street from his post to inform us that photographs of these buildings aren’t allowed. Doug told his story of having an office “right up there,” and the guard allowed that it was OK for a returning soldier from the old days to take some shots. Lennie snapped one of the two new friends in front of the gate.
We made an unsuccessful run at the Consulate for permission -- “Tomorrow perhaps, but everyone who could escort you is in a meeting now” -- to go inside and up to the second floor and visit Doug’s second office, the one he occupied after the 513th went through the exercise of abandoning its well-known intelligence headquarters offices and adopting a less conspicuous operational mode in 1966. (Although the Statute of Limitations surely has run its course after nearly four decades, Doug is avoiding use of the “C” word here.) The unit’s HQ element took on a new identity as a medical detachment in the hospital compound some distance away. The collection teams all adopted new identities, too. Unit commanding officer LTC Lindsey Henderson determined that with two journalism degrees under his belt, Doug could pull off the role of an Army Public Information Officer, so that’s what he became – head of the Berlin office of the newly-created-on-paper-only “United States Army Europe (USAREUR) News and Pictorial Service.” This undoubtedly is the first time the UNPS has been mentioned on the Internet, and so be it.
We drove through the nearby apartment-building zone where military personnel and their families were quartered and took some more pictures. Doug’s old 1 Pritchardstrasse residence was also the residence of Richard Conoboy, an MI officer Doug was stationed with in Can Tho, South Vietnam who coincidentally was stationed in Berlin at the same time as Doug. They never met while in Berlin but are in touch now, and some of these photos were snapped for Dick’s sake.
The drive back to Hinterzarten took 8 hours on the nose, including two or three stops for fuel and food, and seemed to go quicker due to the consistent 160 kph speed throughout the return trip. Two near-fillups of the Mercedes' tank on this Berlin trip cost 66 and 68 euros respectively. That's upwards of $80 apiece and makes the $2.71/gallon cost we encountered back in Honolulu seem cheap by comparison.
The ride across Germany was spent trying to find news of the bombing tragedy in London, and we finally stumbled across National Public Radio's "world service" on the AM dial that was new to us. We listened into the afternoon as "Morning Edition" continually updated the developments from the terrorists' attack.
It rained off and on, of course, and Hinterzarten was completely socked in. We began to wonder whether another full day in this rainy corner of Germany made any sense. We’ll soon see.
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