We finally rode through Plauen, where officers of Stasi, the GDR’s state security service, boarded and confiscated the official papers of the East German refugees. That was part of the agreement. It also meant that they lost their citizenship. Since I knew that the officers would make their way through the whole train, I had already gone through every compartment and requested that passengers write down all of the information from their passport or identity card on a piece of paper, so that the Federal German authorities would be able to use this information to issue a new West German identity card. “We will accept this piece of paper as a replacement document!” I promised.
This was the official, agree-upon plan. I repeated this sentence in each compartment over the hours we spent traveling from Prague toward the German border. The train was not heated, and there was nothing to eat or drink. Everyone was freezing.
Before we got to Plauen, I took a few random samples. I went into a compartment and requested of one of the passengers, “Show me your paper, please! Did you write down everything? Can I please see your identity card as well?” Then I compared the identity card with the piece of paper. First name Sven, last name Müller. Single. I stopped short. His identity card said he was married.
“Herr Müller, what is this about?” I exclaimed. “If you supply false information, you may be liable to prosecution! And if you marry again later, you’d be committing bigamy!” “Well,” Herr Müller explained, “you see, I only married back then so that I could get an apartment. My wife is not even here with me. The woman sitting next to me is my girlfriend.” I reminded him that he would have to comply with the law and write down his passport information correctly, and then I began checking other passengers’ transcribed information more closely.
I discovered a number of such cases, most of them concerning changes to marital status. That made me aware how many of the refugees had lived their lives under major constraints regarding housing, family, and profession. They were now on their way to freedom, and to give themselves a new identity: “I am going West to start over!” It was truly touching.
But during the trip I had other worries on my mind. How would things go when the GDR officers entered the train? What if they were suddenly to pick someone off the train, for instance, someone who was accused of a crime? How could I prevent the situation from coming to a head? What would I do if there were a scuffle? None of this was clear. I was not really vested with authority of any kind. I had a diplomatic passport, so I certainly would not be arrested, but what about the refugees? I was basically powerless and, accordingly, nervous. To dispel the fears of the people in the train—fears that they had every reason to feel—I told them over and again that I was there to protect them. I promised that nothing could happen to them in my presence. That was not really true, but nevertheless, I repeated, “Don’t worry. I am here. You are under diplomatic protection!”
Fortunately, nothing happened. But I could virtually smell the fear when the police came through the train. And it was not a pleasant smell: cold sweat. It spread through the entire train. Everyone knew how little it would take for the situation to escalate. And everyone knew how the story might end if one of the Stasi agents were to pick someone out. Everyone knew that the alternative to a life in the Federal Republic could mean a life in the Stasi prison of Bautzen. So little separated the dream from the nightmare.
No one was pulled off the train. The GDR police just stoically collected everyone’s passports. We rode on further through the night, and dawn was breaking as we approached the inner-German border. At first light—the searchlights were still on—we arrived in Hof, Bavaria. The whole train erupted in a deafening roar, made up of a single word. And I roared along with them: Freedom! Freedom! Freedom! Uncontainable joy, mass hysteria.
I endured more worries and emotions in this one night than I ever had before, only to experience massive relief and exhilarating joy just a few hours later, as the refugees’ wave of fear for their lives and their futures crashed into their boundless delight at having made it to freedom. It was an incredible experience for everyone who was there.
This profoundly impressed my own understanding of the events of this year and the years that followed. Constitutional and international agreements were not the point. What mattered were personal feelings and fears; it was about hopes and frustrations, and also the hardships people had to suffer, and about deliverance. These first refugees left their children, their partners, or their parents at home, left behind everything they could not fit into a travel bag, because they were so desperate. There was no way for them to know that people would be driving their Trabant cars, called Trabbis, into the West over an open border just five weeks later.
Nearly three decades later, in 2017, I received an email after a flight from Berlin to Munich. It came from the woman I had been sitting next to on the plane:
Unfortunately, it was only after the flight that I realized you had already “accompanied” me on a journey once before! Almost exactly 28 years ago today. For me, a 20-year-old young woman at the time, it was the advent of a new life into new worlds that would never have been open to me before! I remember very well; it was you who calmed the fears of my fellow “adventists” and myself, who prepared us back then for how they were routing us through the territory of the GDR. I had started out all by myself back then, to Prague, hoping for a future, and I got that future. By now I am proudly flying as a pilot for Lufthansa (this time I was on a personal trip). I was only able to scale these “heavenly heights” thanks to the dedication and commitment of people like Herr Genscher, yourself and others.
This email showed me what diplomacy is also good for, and what tremendous effects small diplomatic gestures and seemingly profane tasks can have on an individual. I later met up with Lufthansa captain Ina Krause for a longer conversation, and she allowed me to quote from her email.
My statements during the trip from Prague promised a security that I could not promise at all. How could I possibly guarantee that nothing would happen? But it was precisely this uncertainty that was making everyone on that train sweat. Whether consciously or not, they understood that I wanted to give them courage, reassure them, because panic would have been of no use in this situation; presumably, it would have made everything even worse. In any case, neither Ina nor anyone else ever accused me of lying to them.
All of us have experienced the positive and the negative power of “self-fulfilling prophecies.” When coaches encourage their teams by saying, “Don’t let that goal by the other team rattle you. You’ll outscore them and end up winning the game!” they project confidence, send a signal of trust, and potentially strengthen the nerves of the athletes so much that they transform the deficit into a victory.
Just like the coach, the diplomat, too, attempts to find clever phrases and friendly gestures to pave the way to success. But instead of “winning,” the goals of diplomacy are security, peace, and trust.
Sometimes this includes saying things that may not entirely correspond to the objective truth, but that could become truth if all participants are willing—and if everything falls into place. It is a balancing act between truth and lies, between compliment and honesty, that diplomacy has to strike time and again. It is also an attempt to prevent misunderstandings.
MISUNDERSTANDINGS WITH SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES
In some situations, skilled diplomacy can help find a way out of an impasse of reciprocal misunderstandings and mutual distrust. Diplomacy can also provide important services in interpreting or breaking the ice. But this requires a great deal of patience and sometime does not pay off until years or decades later.
One of my oldest American friends is Bob Kimmitt, U.S. ambassador in Bonn in the early 1990s and later deputy secretary of the U.S. Treasury.