Guard who opened Berlin Wall looks back
Dom
Guard who opened Berlin Wall looks back, says it was right thing at
right time
By Dorothee Thiesing The Associated Press
Posted: 11/09/2009 01:00:00 AM MST
BERLIN — Harald Jaeger was a loyal East German border guard —
respected and trusted to command a crossing point to the west on
Berlin's Bornholmer Strasse.
So when his checkpoint was swarmed on the evening of Nov. 9, 1989, as
East Germany announced the border was being opened after 28 years,
Jaeger felt ashamed as he let the thousands pass through.
"It was terrible because I realized that the party and the government
had let me down and that my own colleagues did not stand behind me,"
he told Associated Press Television News in comments translated from
German. "And particularly, my ideology completely fell apart back
then."
Two decades later, the 66-year-old Jaeger — whose border crossing was
the first opened that night — now sees things differently.
"Fact is that it was right and necessary, and exactly the right
time,"he said. "Although thinking back now, 20 years later, I think I
should have done this earlier. It would have spared us a lot of
trouble."
Jaeger, a lieutenant colonel in the Stasi secret police, said his work
shift was already over that night. He had retired to the checkpoint's
canteen.
Then on the television in the background, he heard East German
official Guenter Schabowski make an almost offhanded comment: New
travel rules allowing East Germans to head west were to take effect
immediately.
"I had really just had one bite and then I heard the memorable
sentence from Schab- owski," said Jaeger, whose story is the focus of
a new German-language book, "The Man Who Opened the Wall."
Deprived of clear guidance from his superiors, Jaeger decided the only
way to control the swelling crowd was to open the border completely.
Thousands streamed through.
"I'm no hero," he said. "I only did what was the right thing to do on
that evening back then.
"There's one thing I can take credit for. That no blood was shed that
evening — just tears of joy and cold sweat."