The Tampa Tribune from Tampa, Florida • 14

The Tampa Tribune, Friday, November 10, 1989. 14-A THE WALL IS COMING DOWN i 1 4 -j i ll liHiHWIWlll HI' ai "'fl" W- -6 I If I 1 mm i 1 Of slW' I I tmmt9' Tribune file photograph Tribune file photograph A monument in West Berlin pays tribute to the An East German border guard leaps to freedom over the Berlin Wall in 1961. The many who died trying to cross the Berlin Wall, guard planned to join nis ramuy, wnicn previously nao escaped to tne west. Tribune file photograph East German police lift the body of a 19-year-old who was shot in 1962 while trying to escape to the West over the Berlin Wall. Snarprised Bush hails IlfosrQtion'l German immigrants amazed at the news By JOHN STEBBINS and DONNA VAVALA Tribune Staff Writers ST.

PETERSBURG When Paul Richter and his brother escaped from East to West Germany in 1947, they left behind their parents and a young sister the too old and the too young. "Escaping is for the able-bodied," Richter said. Thursday, Richter's thoughts turned to his now-grown sister' and her family as he watched the i T. Se 1 111 IIIUIIIIIIHILIU in urn VI "I li hi sss EAST i GERMANY EASTV WEST A BERLIN I BERLIN U.S. Embassy z00 Jje Brandenburg Gate Memorial L.

Church jTJ detailed Sea viFrench7 K. r-V" 1 1 VSsovtet VTA Hamburg Berlin 5 Uridr' sector 7 sector EAST ij1" American v. xS WEST CZECH, Th V. GERMANY "He After World War II, the 1 Munich States, Britain, France and AJysA the Soviet Union split Berlin AUSTRIA four occupation zones. miles rS 1 I I DesJardin behind the Iron dramatic events Petersburg.

"We never talked politics. Not when I was there. Not when she was here," Richter said. "We never write about it or speak about it. It would cause trouble.

It is a dictatorship. We know what would happen." But now, said Richter, there is hope. And for Gerda DesJardin, there is hope of a unified Germany. Born in what is now East Berlin, she fled with her family when she was 4. Thursday's news amazed the 69-year-old Largo woman.

"Now we're one country," DesJardin said. "I believe it' With Gorbachev behind it, it will be. I trust that man; I've liked him since the first time I saw him on television." In 1968, DesJardin returned to her home, Ober-Schoneweider, a. suburb of East Berlin. Ernst Schmitt, 79, lives six months in Darmstadt, West Germany, and six months in St.

Petersburg. He was astounded by the newfound freedom in East Germany. "Only a few weeks ago, it was unbelievable," he said. "The government was stubborn. For 40 years, the people could only do what the government wanted.

They were slaves. All of a sudden, these people stand on the streets in Berlin 100,000, 200,000, 500,000. That is unbelievable. It's like a miracle." Gertie Neiger, now 68, came to America as a war bride in 1948 from her native Rudesheim, West Germany. "I think it's great that people can finally get to see their relatives," she said.

"They don't even know if they're alive. "I met a couple of young people from East Berlin who visited here last year," she said. "I asked them if the Berlin Wall would be torn down anytime soon. They said, 'Not in our I wish I could see them now." By JAMES GERSTENZANG of The Los Angeles Times WASHINGTON President Bush Thursday hailed the opening of East Germany's borders as a "liberation" but he urged East Germans to resist the pull of the West and remain at home to reform their country. The announcement from East Berlin caught Bush administration officials by surprise, sending shock-waves through the White House and the government's foreign policy establishment and leading some U.S.

officials to worry that the changes that have rocked East Germany are coming too fast. "What I'd like to think is that the political change in the GDR (German Democratic Republic) would catch up very fast with this liberation," the president said. at some point I think a lot of Germans who have felt penned in and unable to move are going to say, 'look, we can move but wouldn't it be better to participate in the reforms that are taking place in my in our So I think it's too early to predict that everybody is going to take off." In Congress, the East German decision was portrayed as a step that will lead to the destruction of the Berlin Wall, which has divided the city since 1961. Congressional leaders called for the Bush administration to work swiftly with West Germany and others to support further changes. "It's a dramatic happening for East Germany and, of course, for freedom," Bush told a hastily assembled group of reporters in the Oval Office, with Secretary of State James A.

Baker III seated nearby. Throughout Thursday afternoon, stunned officials groped for explanations and an understanding of the potential long-range ramifications, while calling for stability in the face Curtain unfold. "We are happy," said Richter, 66, of Seminole. "And so are other German-Americans because we all have brothers and sisters on both sides of the Wall and the border. Every German has someone over there." And so it was for many German-Americans in Pinellas County Thursday, as they sat transfixed before their televisions watching what until recently was only a fantasy: the opening of the Berlin Wall.

But even as the symbol of a divided people began to crumble, many held on to fears of retribution and treachery. Despite the elation both he and his native German wife, Kaethe, feel about recent events, Richter was reluctant to discuss the situation or even give his sister's name. "Just because the border is open, that doesn't mean they are free," Richter said. It took six years for the Richter brothers and Paul's new wife, President Bush urged East. Germans to remain there toi take part in the reforms.

i of rapidly moving change. With free emigration, "this wall will have very little relevance," said Bush, whose six predecessors have overseen a U.S. foreign policy toward the Soviet bloc built around the symbolism of the East-West di-; vide. Nearly 2 years ago, then-President Reagan stood on the western side of the Brandenburg Gate, the symbol of divided Berlin, and called on Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorba-; chev to "tear down this wall." On Thursday, Bush said that while the administration "imagined" open borders between East and West Germany, "I can't say that I foresaw this development" at this point "Clearly, this is a long way from; the harshest Iron Curtain days a long way from that," said Bush, who spoke in measured tones although he said that he was "elated" by the development.

He added that others In the Soviet bloc could no longer resist the pressure for change. About the Berlin wall Divides Communist East Berlin and non-Communist West Berlin. The city, which lies deep within East Germany, was divided after World War II. The Western allies control West Berlin. Built of ennnreto in 1Qfi1 to nmvfmt Fast Hermans frnm eminratinn West.

I Stretches 28 miles long, stands 13 to 15 feet high. Many sections are topped with barbed wire and pipes. Augmented by armed guards, guard dogs, barbed wire fence, mines and trenches on the East Berlin side. At least 70 people have been killed trying to cross over the wall. Kaethe, to leave Germany.

And They have returned twice. twice, Paul's sister has visited St. Tribune graphic by CAITLIN HOPE WRIGHT I Wall divides East and West Carnival atmosphere prevails at Berlin Wall From Page 1A From Page 1A 4 Some historians have linked Kennedy's inaction in Berlin to Khrushchev's decision to test American firmness by putting offensive missiles in Cuba in 1962. In one of history's twists, 77-: year-old Erich Honecker, who was Instrumental in putting up the wall In 1961, has been swept out amid rising demands for change in East Germany, and a new flight to free-, dom by thousands of East Germans has forced the communist government to declare free travel, remov-: Ing the wall's meaning as a political barrier. Over the years, visiting presi-l dents, prime ministers and other Western dignitaries have made what became almost obligatory vis-Its to the wall, calling ritually for its removal and denouncing the system, of government that needed walls and wire to control people.

In 1970, the United States, Brit-; aln, France and the Soviet Union the victorious World War II powers that occupied the city reached an agreement aimed at easing allowing the west easier access to West Berlin, 110 miles inside East Germany, and visits beyond the! wall for West Berliners. While East Berliners were forbidden to travel to the west, West Berliners and non-Germans gained access to East Berlin through a se-; rles of checkpoints, Including' Checkpoint Charlie. structure that overnight sundered a great city and its people. At first a crude 28-mile expanse of cinder blocks and barbed wire that split the city, the wall in time became a 103-mile stretch of fortified concrete and steel that encircled and imprisoned West Berlin. It is 13 to 15 feet high, topped with barbed and razor wire, and set with hundreds of watchtowers, gun emplacements and explosive mines.

The East Germans asserted that the wall was Intended as protection, to prevent an attack from the West and to preserve the peace. But the West condemned it as a cause for shame and mourning, a symbol of moral differences between Democratic freedoms and totalitarian communism. The wall divided friends, families and neighborhoods. Thousands of commuters lost their Jobs. But in a country from which 2.5 million people had fled from 1949 to 1961, the wall also stemmed a flight of 3,000 people a day to the West and briefly generated another crisis over Berlin.

President John F. Kennedy decided against dismantling the wall, believing that the East Germans would just re-erect It and that a confrontation with the Soviet Union over the wall was not warranted. beginning this morning. With decades of fortified frontiers apparently at an end, the wall that for decades represented the literal division between the East and West may become a mere monument to the Cold War. Since it suddenly appeared during an August night 28 years ago and East Germany's borders were sealed, 191 people are known to have died while fleeing to the West.

President Bush said If East Germany makes good on its promise to allow free emigration, "this wall built in '61 will have very little relevance." The White House announced later that Bush had ordered U.S. military units In West Germany to give "all possible assistance" to the West German government, which is struggling to cope with a flood of East German refugees. The Pentagon said it was making available housing for 980 people in three off-base Installations. "The United States is responding urgently to a request from the government of the Federal Republic of Germany for assistance in accommodating" the Influx of refugees from East Germany, said White House press secretary Martin the streets of West Berlin. "It's crazy! It's crazy!" shouted one young man as he sat in the back seat of a car with his parents after a brief trip past the once-impenetrable Berlin Wall.

His parents said they just wanted to see the West and then drive back. They declined to give their names. "We heard it on TV; we just decided to go over and have a look," said the young man's father. "We want to show our son a little bit of Kurfuerstendamm." The Kurfuerstendamm Is one of Europe's most elegant shopping strips. For decades.

East Germans locked up behind the now-crumbling Iron Curtain could only dream of seeing It. All apparently were arriving without visas, although visas technically were necessary under regulations announced earlier Thursday. A spokesman for the West German border police in Braunschweig said the East Germans had been allowed over the border there without visas. East German radio announced that East Germans would be required to get a visa for such trips A man rejoices Thursday after the East German government announced it would allow citizens to pass freely Into the West I rigid one-party rule. I As the news spread, the number of East Germans heading for Bavaria through Czechoslovakia rose dramatically.

The official East German news agency ADN reported up to 4,000 an hour entering Czechoslovakia at the Schoenberg crossing, 10 times the number of people entering Bavaria a few hours earlier. More than 200,000 East Germans, nearly 1 '2 percent of the nation's 16 12 million people, have left so far this year 50,000 since Saturday alone. Most are young, skilled workers vital to the economy. Hundreds of thousands of people who stayed home have filled the streets to demand democratic reforms and an end to 40 years of 1.