HEINTZE FAMILY INTERVIEW - Wednesday, 14th June, 2006
GEORGE NEGUS: I'm just thinking, sitting here, or standing
here,
talking to you people, that thing, the last remaining pieces of the
wall, really, that dictated the lives of German people for so long,
when you look at that wall now, what do you think, Phillip? Because you
were what, 7.5 when the wall came down.
PHILLIP HEINTZE: When the wall came down, yeah, I think it's a
great
piece of history that I'm looking at and I'm proud of coming from here
from having grown up here and being able to say that this wall has been
part of, an important part of world history and an important part of my
family's life and, to a certain extent, to my life as well.
GEORGE NEGUS: To those of us who are not German, who observed
the
effect of the wall from a long distance, it was a negative thing.
PHILLIP HEINTZE: I was born into the society, into the state
of East
Germany, so it was the only thing that I knew. I was told that there
was something else before, it was called the wild west. For me, the
wild west was always West Berlin.
GEORGE NEGUS: And now that you've seen the wild west, what do
you
think?
PHILLIP HEINTZE: It's nice in the wild west.
GEORGE NEGUS: What about you Gerd, what was it like for you
when the
wall came down? Did you think the wall was ever going to come down?
GERD HEINTZE: It was a very big surprise that the breakdown of
the wall
was so fast.
GEORGE NEGUS: There are, I think, 12% of people who used to be
East
Berliners would like to see the wall back up and 25% of West Berliners,
apparently, would like to see the wall back up. Why do you think some
people, from both sides, the old east and the old west, would like to
see the wall back up?
GERD HEINTZE: I can't understand it. I don't think so. It was
good that
the wall is falling down and that it's a much better life without the
wall. I think there are a lot of social problems and people think that
the wall is a possibility to overcome them.
GEORGE NEGUS: So people are almost nostalgic for the past? For
the old
days and the old ways of east and west?
PHILLIP HEINTZE: I think, yes, they are nostalgic but it's
flawed. They
have memories of the past where they were working in a secure
job…
GEORGE NEGUS: Because, now, things are quite insecure for some
old East
Berliners.
PHILLIP HEINTZE: Yes, the situation to afford your life, to
have a job
and to keep your job, it's just life is just much more difficult now in
West Germany than it was in East Germany.
GEORGE NEGUS: Is there anything that your grandmother, that
Margarete,
misses from the past is there something about living in East Berlin, in
East Germany, that she wishes she still had?
MARGARETE HEINTZE (Translation): Old people, especially,
suffer from
all the crime. Their bags are snatched by youths who ride past on
bicycles. I don't go out at night any more because I'm afraid of being
attacked.
GEORGE NEGUS: When people, non-Germans again, and the rest of
the
world, thought of East Germany and East Berlin they thought of a nasty,
cruel, repressive regime with secret police and life being dominated by
the Communist Party.
MARRGARETE HEINTZE (Translation): No, I can't say that. Of
course there
were a lot of police everywhere. You saw a lot of them on the streets.
But you didn't see schoolkids or children behaving rowdily. At school
it was quiet and orderly and teachers were respected. Marks were given
for good behaviour and diligence and being orderly. That doesn't happen
anymore. It was abolished. Now they want to introduce it. I think the
school system in the East was good. In the West, or as a result of
reunification, or unemployment, so many antisocial elements have
emerged.
GERD HEINTZE: We had a good life and we didn't feel the
repression. We
have our profession, we did our work and we lived good.
GEORGE NEGUS: What about the secret police, what about the
Stasi, did
you ever feel the big communist bogeyman was controlling your life?
GERD HEINTZE: We knew about it but we didn't afraid of it.
GEORGE NEGUS: Most people just got on with their lives?
GERD HEINTZE: We had to learn to live with the police, with
the Stasi.
GEORGE NEGUS: So, if you had a choice between that way of life
you led
when the wall was still up and the way you live now?
GERD HEINTZE: The way now is the better way. I think the
socialist way
couldn't work. We were afraid of international competition. We shut
ourselves off from it. We tried to exist in isolation but that's
impossible. The world is…
GEORGE NEGUS: But now you feel part of the world?
GERD HEINTZE: Yeah.
GEORGE NEGUS: Phillip, you are almost too young to be
nostalgic but
what do you remember?
PHILLIP HEINTZE: It's very difficult to compare my adult life,
now,
with my childhood life then. I remember the supermarkets in East
Germany - where shelves weren't empty, but they weren't crowded as they
are today. And I remember the certain produce, like peaches, bananas,
they only came around once or twice a year for a day, and then you went
to buy them or you didn't get them.
GEORGE NEGUS: So what was your reaction when you first came
across,
when the wall came down and you were able to come to West Berlin, as it
then was, what did you think?
PHILLIP HEINTZE: I think I was aware of crossing a border and
I had big
eyes, looking at all this produce in the shops and just colourful
– West Berlin was colourful when East Berlin was grey. I
remember that but it was a bit scary and intimidating as well. It
wasn't home.
GEORGE NEGUS: 16 years later, does it feel like home?
PHILLIP HEINTZE: When I cross into West Berlin? Some places
I've
crossed so many times that it doesn't feel like I'm crossing a border
anymore.
GEORGE NEGUS: That's interesting, you said “When I
cross into
West Berlin” even though there's no border, it’s
still in your mind?
PHILLIP HEINTZE: I am usually aware of crossing the border
into West
Berlin.
MARGARETE HEINTZE (Translation): You stay an East Berliner,
you don't
necessarily feel... you don't necessarily want to be a West Berliner.
You're an East Berliner and you don't deny your past. We are East
Berliners and East Berliners we'll stay. That attitude will die out
with us and it will be quite different for young people. They won't be
East Berliners, just Berliners.
GEORGE NEGUS: Is life more difficult for people who were East
Berliners
than it is for people who are West Berliners?
PHILLIP HEINTZE: There are lots of East Berliners, or East
Germans,
that started off really successfully after reunification and they found
lucrative jobs or remained in their jobs and started earning so much
more money than they used to before. But lots of people, of course,
they were working in factories that weren't producing really anything,
so they were redundant immediately, really, and never really found a
job again. And, for them, life is, of course, really difficult and
people who grew up in East Germany, they had to come to terms with a
completely new society at an age when you are actually not used to
adapt yourself again anymore.
GEORGE NEGUS: What about you Gerd, you have had to change,
you're a
teacher?
GERD HEINTZE: I am a teacher, that’s right. I was,
for 12
years, a teacher in East Berlin and then the wall fell down and I
became a teacher of West Berlin. The West Berlin school system has been
imposed on the East Germans.
GEORGE NEGUS: Imposed? Is that a good thing?
GERD HEINTZE: It's not a good thing. It would be better to
look at what
is good in both systems.
GEORGE NEGUS: I think one of the most curious things about the
change
and reunification is that the Chancellor-designate of Germany is an
East German.
PHILLIP HEINTZE: I think it's great and it's about time. Not
that we
had many chancellors since the wall came down, maybe it comes, a bit as
a surprise because 16 years isn't a long time. But this woman, she made
her way up in politics and it was a logical thing to happen that the
strongest politician in the country, who happened to be an East German
physicist, that she got the job and it's great that she's on the one
hand a woman and also an Easterner.
GEORGE NEGUS: Do you think it's going to be easier for East
Berliners
to settle into the new life with somebody as the leader of the country
who should understand your problems?
PHILLIP HEINTZE: Yes, she may understand the problems, but I
don't
think that her solutions are always the best for the Easterners.
GEORGE NEGUS: So, not all easterners would necessarily vote
for her?
PHILLIP HEINTZE: No.
GEORGE NEGUS: You voted for the Left Party?
GERD HEINTZE: Yes, we do.
GEORGE NEGUS: What do you say to people who say that the Left
Party is
just the residue, the remainder of the old communists?
PHILLIP HEINTZE: I used to be, I used to get angry when I read
this in
the newspaper. Every single time they talk about the left party they
have to say, "well this is the former East German party”. But
they reformed, they are now talking about democratic socialism and they
want to cope with the system but do as much, get as much socialism
inside the system as they can.
GEORGE NEGUS: What does your grandmother think is the best
thing about
living in this unified Germany?
MARGARETE HEINTZE (Translation) The freedom to travel is, of
course,
marvellous. We were locked up in a way. We could only go to Romania or
the Black Sea. I never went there but I did go to Poland and
Czechoslovakia.
GERD HEINTZE: I think also travelling is a possibility to
travel all
over the world. And I think also that there are a lot of chances for
our children. They are people of the world. They live in the world they
are travelling all over.
PHILLIP HEINTZE: I am a very proud Berliner now. I am really
proud of
belonging to the city. And when I travel that I can always say, "yes, I
come from Berlin" and "yes, I come from East Berlin," from the other
side, actually, from the evil side - as many people think, actually.
GEORGE NEGUS: Why is that? Why do you think we have we had
this
impression for so long?
PHILLIP HEINTZE: Well, because the Cold War produced two evil
images.
Imperialist West was the evil for the communist states and communism
was the evil for the Western states.
GEORGE NEGUS: So which is the lesser of the two evils?
PHILLIP HEINTZE: I think communism was less violent, in many
ways. Only
that we tend to ignore the violence that we produce in our Western
society. When I think of child labour and many people suffering that we
don't know about because we don't see it, but we buy those products and
we want them to be cheap and all those things.
GEORGE NEGUS: We should have an open mind and take the best
from both
worlds?
PHILLIP HEINTZE: That would be great. I think you could win a
Nobel
Prize for that.