|
|
The Tunnel OpensApril 25, 2006
| Almost 50 years to the day after the discovery of the famous Berlin spy tunnel, the Allied Museum opened an exhibition recalling what was probably the most sensational operation by western intelligence services of the Cold War era. On 22 April 1956, members of the Soviet armed forces, aided by GDR postal technicians, came upon the tunnel while making repairs. It had been built on the western side under a U.S. Army radar station and covered a distance of 450 metres in order to tap Soviet telephone lines along Schönefelder Chaussee in southern Berlin. The tunnel was only two metres under the ground. In operation for 11 months and 11 days, it had permitted the West to gain a detailed impression of the military and political actions of the Soviet Union for the first time.
The exhibition presents the results of ten years of research by Museum staff. One segment of the tunnel was already salvaged and restored in 1997 for the permanent exhibition. In the summer of 2005, a further piece came to light, which would prove to be the last existing section. Even 50 years after the events, parts of the story are still classified. The Allied Museum has nevertheless succeeded in recounting the events and facts of the story. An examination of the archives of the Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the former GDR, in particular, yielded much new information about how people in the GDR perceived the discovery of the tunnel. In the ensuing propaganda campaign, more than thirty thousand GDR citizens were taken through the opened tunnel. In a one-time action, the deputy Soviet military commander invited western journalists to an on-site press conference. The campaign was not successful, however – quite the contrary. Many in the West were impressed by the competent and ingenious actions of the western intelligence services.
The speakers at the exhibition opening brought to life once again the moment when the tunnel was opened. The journalist Lothar Löwe related being invited by telephone to the press conference by the Soviets, and driving to the location in Schönefelder Chaussee in his own automobile. Dagmar Feick, daughter of the farmer Paul Noack, under whose orchard the tunnel ran on the eastern side, remembered how she and her family first heard of the discovery of the tunnel. They had been intending to build a house on the property, and the bricks were already there, ready for construction. The GDR regime used the bricks to build an entrance for guided tours of the tunnel, and paid the family no compensation. The farmer was even pressured to bring a lawsuit against the state of (West-)Berlin. The lawsuit came to nothing because no one in the West was willing to claim jurisdiction in the matter. The American Hugh Montgomery, who had participated in the planning and construction of the tunnel as a young CIA officer, recalled that the operation had only been so successful at the peak of the Cold War because many men and women on the German side had supported the undertaking, knowing all too well the risks they ran.
A richly illustrated catalogue in German, English and French has been published to accompany the exhibition. It can be purchased from the Museum for a price of 10 Euros.
| 
AlliiertenMuseum/Chodan
AlliiertenMuseum/Chodan
|
|
