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Berlin guard: Opening wall 'terrible' but right
Updated On: 10 November, 2009 08:21 AM IST | | Agencies
Harald Jaeger was a loyal East German border guard respected and trusted to command a crossing point to the west on Berlin's Bornholmer Strasse.
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Harald Jaeger was a loyal East German border guard respected and trusted to command a crossing point to the west on Berlin's Bornholmer Strasse.
So when his checkpoint was swarmed on the evening of November 9, 1989, as East Germany announced the border was being opened after 28 years, Jaeger felt ashamed as he let the thousands pass through.
"It was terrible because I realised that the party and the government had let me down and that my own colleagues did not stand behind me," he said.
"And particularly, my ideology completely fell apart back then."
Two decades later the 66-year-old Jaeger whose border crossing was the first opened that night now sees things differently.
So when his checkpoint was swarmed on the evening of November 9, 1989, as East Germany announced the border was being opened after 28 years, Jaeger felt ashamed as he let the thousands pass through.
"It was terrible because I realised that the party and the government had let me down and that my own colleagues did not stand behind me," he said.
"And particularly, my ideology completely fell apart back then."
Two decades later the 66-year-old Jaeger whose border crossing was the first opened that night now sees things differently.
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