Former East Germany – June, 2016

What’s the busiest commercial canal in the world? The Kiel Canal – never heard of it. Built in 1895 by Kaiser Wilhelm, it connects the Baltic Sea to the North Sea, thus saving 275 miles of sometimes treacherous sailing around Denmark. We cruised its 61 miles waving to the locals who came to “boat watch” on a nice spring day.

We docked in Wismar, Germany which was just inside the East German border fence during the Cold War. I’ve always been curious about the re-unification of Germany. It seems to have gone very well despite the huge financial disparities that developed over the 50+ years of Soviet rule. The town of Wismar and the neighboring countryside and villages were beautiful. Almost everything is new. Our guide told us that West Germans agreed to an incremental 9% income “solidarity tax” for the rebuild. She said that when she first came to Wismar after the wall came down, buildings were all grey with most windows boarded up for lack of replacement glass – they looked like facades for a movie set. Residents could save money, but there was nothing to buy. Once freed to visit the West, oranges and bananas quickly sold out – some didn’t even know what the fruit tasted like. I could only find one of the old buildings – the rest of the town and countryside we saw was beautiful.

We traveled inland with good friend Marianne, who is German, to visit a former military base where a private club have accumulated a vast collection of Soviet era cars, trucks, planes, and military equipment. It was like going back in time. The highlight was a wild ride on an old Russian tank – not a very comfortable trip. I tried to video a bit (below), but mostly I was hanging on for dear life!

Having Marianne with us was not only helpful for her language skills, but to gain an appreciation for the outrage East Germans must have felt that a foreign country occupied their homeland and put up fences to keep people in! I don’t think I ever really considered what that would be like. Imagine if we (the U.S.) lost the war and our country was split up with a fence, dogs, and armed guards ordered to shoot anyone trying to leave our zone. It wasn’t that long ago.