Replies

There was no "no man's land" on any of the border areas between Western Europe and the East Bloc.

I was walking in a park. There were barriers and no people around. My friend and I climbed unter the barriers and continued our walk through the park.

All of a sudden we heard yelling nad saw a guard in an elevated guard house yelling at us.

It was near Brandenburg Gate.

I got to West Berlin by first going to East Berlin by train from Yugoslavia. I entered West Berlin through Checkpoint Charlie. I have looked down the BerlinWall from both sides.

I know from experience what I'm talking about...and you obviously don't!

YOU WERE ON THE INSIDE OF THE WALL, not the Outside!

So, where did the guard yell at you? At the Brandenburg crossing (where they were constantly shifting the large concrete barricades around all the time to fool folks who might try the "drive a truck through it" trick) or somewhere along the West Side of the Large Fence that had a mine field on the East Side?

That was several hundred miles long and extended from the Baltic to Austria ~ Hungary's border fence with Austria was not removed until May 1989.

I think I told you I was assigned duty ALONG the American sector in West Germany, not the Russian sector of the GDR.

Like I said there were no "NO MAN'S ZONES" ~ just a fence or wall (in Berlin), a clearly identified and fenced in mine field, and on the Freeworld side a chickenwire fence that marked the furthest you wanted to go if you wanted to avoid getting hit with shrapnel should one of the mines explode.

But if you walked in a park where the Berlin Wall ran, and just climbed under barriers, you are quite lucky you weren't shot.

BTW, I am speaking from hundreds of hours of experience and it's pretty obvious you have absolutely no comprehension of how extensive the East Bloc fences and mine fields were. I have photos, memories, and so on. Recently I retraced on Google.com one area where I spent a little longer time than normal. This was in a Salient from West Germany sticking into East Germany. We had a narrow neck of land with a road to get there, but once we were in we were pretty much surrounded by East Germany. They even kept us lit up with infrared at night. You couldn't take a dump without being under observation.

Now, a question for you ~ why would you leave Yugoslavia to go to GDR? That sounds remarkably strange. Those people were crazy.