Danny puts his head into the Lion's Mouth.
All down the years I've had it in my head that the road corridor (Helmstedt to Marienborn - Funny, always thought it was Marienfeld) to Berlin was about 60 miles. Turns out it's not. Google gives 110 miles, and the distance across from GK to Helmstedt another 270. Totals 380, a good day's driving - I must have got on the road early that morning. Across W.Germany a lot of it would be autobahn, but not all. I don't remember much about the first part of the trip, but must have reached Helmstedt (Checkpoint "Alpha", it seems) in early afternoon. It wasn't just a simple matter of going on.
You needed a thorough briefing before embarking on the last stage of your journey, for the Russian regulations were strictly enforced. Stops were not permitted: if you broke down you had to stay with your car until the (E.German) police picked you up. You could start only when you got clearance, one vehicle every five minutes. It was believed that the police phoned your departure time through to the other end as you left.
You must drive at a steady 100 kph (63 mph). If you turned up early, I suppose they would have you for speeding. If late, you were suspected of the worst crime of all - stopping to pick up an E.German thumbing a lift at the roadside (I don't think it was wired off at all). For if you could get him into West Berlin (in your car boot ?), he was as good as out to the West.
I saw no petrol stations, but naturally you'd tanked up with (coupon) petrol in Helmstedt. The briefing was delivered by the military police, who'd saved the best for the last. This was a gallery of photographs of the autobahn junctions you'd meet as you neared Berlin. Take a wrong turning, and you might end up, not in Marienborn, but in clink as an illegal entrant at another point; it might take quite some time to get you out. Naturally no bomber pilot or nav ever scrutinised target photos longer or more carefully than we did.
There was a lot of paperwork, travel orders, car registration and identity documents examined, and at last you got the green light. Two hundred yards along on the verge a Russian tank was parked, gun barrel trained on the Checkpoint. These people meant business (We are the masters now !)
The memory of the next 1½ hours will be with me for life. Never have I made such a lonely and nerve-wracking drive. The 5 min separation meant that the nearest vehicle would be roughly 5 miles ahead or astern, well out of sight. I rolled along, keeping exactly to the 63mph, listening to the thump - thump of the concrete joints (we had no car radio).
Every fifteen minutes or so, an E.German police car would come racing up from behind, stay beside me for a half minute (it felt like an eternity) while the boot-faced passenger, notebook and pencil in hand, examined me and the car minutely from end to end, then without any sign or wave of acknowledgement steam away off ahead to, presumably, overhaul the next man and give him the same treatment.
What I could see of the flat landscape was rather depressing. There was little farming activity going on; I noted that in the wide fields at the roadside horses were still being used extensively in place of tractors. At our briefing we had been told to commit to memory details of any Russian military vehicle convoys we saw on the journey (but never to make notes) and report them to our military police when we reached Berlin. But I saw nothing of the kind on my transit.
At last the first of the potential traps appeared; the photographs at Helmstedt served their purpose admirably. I stayed on the right path throughout, and soon saw a long queue of vehicles stationary on the carriageway ahead, obviously awaiting inward clearance. With the true British instinct not to "queue-jump", I slowed down to meekly take my place on the end. But out stepped an E. German police officer from the roadside, vigorously signalling me to carry-on past the others, which I now saw to be all German civilian-registered cars and trucks.
I was being given priority, it seemed. I could almost feel the resentment of the unfortunates (who would be subject to long delays), but they would have been most unwise to show or voice it. For supervising the road police was a Russian officer at the head of the column: a W.German did not bandy words with him , or he (the civilian) would probably be out of circulation for quite a long time.
I was at Marienborn (aka Checkpoint "Bravo"). The formalities were remarkably light. "Nothing untoward seen", I told the RMP Sergeant. He wasn't interested in my "harassment" on the road: it was SOP, he said.
Finding Gatow was easy, I was in good time for dinner and an early night.
Now Gatow/Berlin will have to wait till next time.
Cheerio,
Danny42C.
"Will you walk into my parlour", said the Spider to the Fly.