38 Time November 11, 2019
World
Dissident photographer
Harald Hauswald’s evocative
black-and-white street scenes
from behind the Wall were
published in West German
magazines as well as in a
controversial book, making
him a person of interest
to the hated state security
police. Hauswald escaped
serious imprisonment only
because of his connections
to influential WesternThe bohemian East Berlin
performance artists Else
Gabriel and Ulf Wrede
celebrated their first days
and nights in the West like
many Germans did: together
in a beer-soaked haze. “We
gave pieces of the Wall to
people in bars and they
gave us drinks,” 57-year-old
Gabriel recalls. “Everyone
was so out of control. It felt
like you could do anything;
there were two systems just
collapsing into each other.”
By ripping out pages from
their passports to remove
collection stamps, they say
between them they claimed
their Begrüßungsgeld
multiple times. “I spent
27 years of my life in f-cking
East Germany,” Gabriel
says. “There was no guilt
about [taking] a few hundred
deutsche marks.”
Gabriel had been permitted
to leave the G.D.R. just days
before the Wall fell, and
had earned some deutsche
marks there already. The
couple combined their
funds left over after the
revelries and changed it all
back to Eastern currency,
taking advantage of a black
market exchange rate to
convert around 2,000 DM
into around 10,000 Eastern
marks. After smuggling it
back into East Germany in
Wrede’s socks (“It stank
when we pulled the money
out,” Gabriel laughs), the pair
used their haul to pay off a
loan on a Bösendorfer grand
piano. In his Neukölln studio
apartment today, Wrede, 51,
still plays the dusty black
keyboard, now worth many
times the price he paid for
it 30 years ago. “Best deal
ever,” Gabriel grins proudly.
At the time the Wall fell,
Andreas Thom was already
living a privileged life. At 24,
he had played 51 matches
for the East German national
soccer team, and won the
G.D.R. Premier League five
times with Dynamo Berlin.
Surely Thom had no need
for his Begrüßungsgeld?
“Of course I got the money,”
he says. “Everybody got the
money!” On a shopping trip to
the KaDeWe, he purchased a
pair of soccer shoes: “AdidasSamba Spezial, black with
white stripes.” Just 37 days
after reunification, Thom
made history as the first East
German player to sign for a
West German club, when he
moved to Bayern Leverkusen
for a fee of 2.5 million DM.
He thinks back to his debut
game in February 1990 vs.
FC Homburg. “Everybody was
watching [as if] I had four
arms, two heads, four legs,”
he says. “But I scored, and
everything was O.K.”A GRAND
SCHEME
FOR A PIANO
BLACK ADIDAS, WHITE STRIPES AN EXOTIC
FEAST OF
RARE FOODS
Gabriel, left, and
Wrede with their
Bösendorfer piano