How was it meeting DDR soilders like and reunification like
My service time ended befor the reunification ... so as a active soldier I never meet a active soldier from the DDR.
To be honest the Bundeswehr officer and NCO Corp was extremly nervus in the time befor the DDR citizen trapped in the German embassy in Prag were allowed to leave to west Germany... later they told us why... and that had put fear into the NATO Partners... chancelor Kohl secretly made a clear statment to the NATO partner and the Bundeswehr if the DDR Army, DDR Police or the Russian Army in the DDR stop the freedom movment with brutal force he would have ordered the Bundeswehr to immediately rush into the east to protect the DDR citizen.
From a more distance point of view with time passed by he played a extrem risky game... and only pure luck and the will of a vew in charge brought everything to a happy end and not the biggest military clash in human history... just imagine it was the high point in the cold war with the biggest Armys ever in human history facing each other.
We as young soldiers were not old enough to realize the dramatic point of history we went through. But my barrack was directly effect, the barrack was increased in size with new buildings for a rocket Artillery batallion, we had several newly build buildings so our barrack was choosen to take some 300 German DDR refugees from the embassy in Prag... that was the first contact we had... the people were extremly happy but were some kind of shocked that they were send in Army barrack with fence and wire and guards with fireamrs... But they quickly realized that they were allowed to move freely in and out of the barrack...it was only setup to give them shelter till they could move into German towns they wanted to life in... they stayed less than one week first impression...wow mostly highly educated people who understood the sign of time and took the chance to escape the east. After first DDR citizen we recived a large group of German/Russians... extremly poor people, I once guided a bus with about 40 people from the main gate to the refugee buildings...the people looked scarred at me I was in uniform part of the barrack guard (each company had to guard the barrack for one week so every 8 week we had one week barrack guard) armed with a UZI loaded wearing black barret...as we arrived at the building I told them to get their baggage and follow me into one of the buildings were they were registered and recived ID cards. 40people were standing there and they had only one suitcase...I asked the german civil driver of the bus were their baggage is... he told me boarder troops in the east had taken away everything they only had what they were wearing they did not even toothbrush or something to clean... I was curious what they had in the single suitcase that theywere allowed to take with them to the west... a older lady owned the suitcase...she said it is only earth from their home...if she dies in the west she simple wanted to get buried partly with earth from here old home... that was a touching moment for me. It opend my eyes how bad the situation was in some areas that people left everything behind just the clothes they carried to start a new life. The soldiers phoned their parrents friends to spent clothing toys everything to help the people... in reward they were standing each morning at 6am at the guard box and ask if they can do something like cleaning up the barrack or trim the green. They stayed several weeks and were the nicest most friendly people I have ever meet, after a few days they realized they were safe they started to smile all the time to eye witness that was a great experience... after they left and the boarder to DDR was completely open we experienced many good and bad situations with or brother and sisters from the DDR.
The most funny was on a Friday in Hannover central train station... My company had weekend and we drove home, for me and several other this mean take the train from Hannover to Frankfurt am Main.The trainstation was packed with people... something I have never experienced befor... similar to Tokio subway were the service people had to push the guests into the train in oder to close the doors. Part of help for DDr citizen comeing to BRD was giving them 100,-DM welcome money that they can buy something and not only had to look around... they tryed that in the Hannover trainstationand completely lost control which ended in the funny situation that the government worker simple gave everyone a 100,- DM bill who pass them... they did not ask from were you are...we passed them in full west german Bundeswehr uniform... everyone recived a 100,-DM bill including us... just a sidenote the monthly payment as conscript was only 300,-DM so for us 100,- was hell a lot of money.
Later I meet former GDR soldiers ...same stupid guys like we were... we did similar funny silly stuff during service and we both agree that we were better than the other side. We never talked about what if cold war would have turned hot... both side knowed that average life time of front line soldiers in a Nato vs Warsaw Pact war was counted in minutes not hours or days or weeks... the calculated life time of a Bundeswehr tanker was 18minutes...
