The Fall of the Berlin Wall "I mean, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, that was also very strange, I, like many others, had no idea about the fall of the Wall. And most importantly, I couldn't believe it. I was sitting in front of the television, watching this meeting of the People's Chamber or even the Central Committee [of the Communist Party], in which Schabowski took that famous paper and said: 'With immediate effect, travel to the NSR is permitted.' Yes, with immediate effect. No applications, no everything, just like that. And I couldn't believe it at all. It was in the late news. And still that night many who didn't live far away, they went by cars, it was a crowd, there were thousands of people. The border guards didn't know how to react at all, they didn't know anything yet. They detained a few, with guns drawn, but nothing happened. Around midnight, I guess everyone knew that the gates were opening..."
Those IMs [Industrielle Mitarbeiter] were the most dangerous ones. These were some neighbours or so-called "friends" who watched you, who hated you, who made up the craziest things. Yes, as I said, I was credited with the third child! I didn't even know I had three kids! And many other things... They actually stood under the window in the evening and listened to what was being said inside, which programme people were watching on TV. They would go to the pub, sit down at the table, maybe even provoke people to say something, and then they would go home and write their protocols, whether it was true or not - they didn't care! I still have the figures in my head, those were published after the coup, that how many IMs there were: 108,000 agents worked for STASI! These were the smallest ones, the informers, and on top of that there were the professionals, the whole system of the ministry, I don't know the number anymore, but there were very, very many of them. And if you divide that 108,000 by the 17 million [population of the DDR], it's quite a nice number.
Even socially there were big differences compared to West Germany. While in the West various groups of displaced persons [from the Czechoslovakia] could organise themselves in home or regional associations, this was forbidden in the DDR. The only possibility was regular private meetings in the summer in the beer garden, where families would meet every weekend during the summer on Sundays, and tell their stories. Whole families would get together and I was often there too, and it was in a pub opposite the railway station in a nice beer garden.
Co-organizer of the partnership between Spišská Bela and Brück, thus symbolically connecting the two cities, the two homelands of his ancestors, the past and the present
Roland was born on 15 April 1947 in the East German town of Brück, where his parents, originally Germans from Spis, settled after their forced deportation in 1946. Here he received his primary and secondary education, in exchange for obedience to a system his parents rejected in principle. His studies in the field of oil extraction, which promised him the opportunity to work in Iraq and Iran and from there to emigrate to the West, did not work out due to the political changes around 1965. He changed his field, became an engineer, settled down and started a family. When he wanted to change jobs and residence in 1978 because of his son’s illness, he became suspicious - STASI had him followed. His wife died while visiting family in the US in 1988, and the dilemma of whether to return was solved by the very real threat that his children would end up in a juvenile correctional institution. As soon as it was possible to leave the GDR, his father took him with him to Germany and Slovakia. Contact with the West and conversations with relatives who had to leave Slovakia and with those who were allowed to stay but endured injustice opened his eyes. He took an active interest in the past of the Carpathian Germans, became vice-chairman of their regional organisation (KDLM) and was instrumental in establishing a partnership between Spišská Bela and Brück, thus symbolically linking the past and the present.
