When I was a soldier and civilian in Germany (nee West Germany) in the 1970’s, I was under a travel restriction. Because of my clearance and access, I could not travel to Warsaw Pact countries. I could travel to Berlin only on a special train from Frankfurt to Berlin or on a U.S. flagged airline. That took Berlin off the list of places to which I could travel easily.
In 1986, I finally got to Berlin. I was traveling with two friends and we went to Checkpoint Charlie. We saw the Berlin Wall and the kill zone of freshly raked ground on the west side of the wall. The Berlin Wall was built to the east of the border and the space between the Wall and the border was maintained as fire zone of soft sand that was hard to run in and was an good indicator of any incursions.
In that sandy area were placed crosses with names and dates. These were the names of people who had fled East Germany but were killed in the fire zone. The crosses were placed where the people died. But the thing that was really sad were the number of crosses that were labeled “Unbekannt”.
“Unknown”.
We really don’t know how many people died there or what their names were.
But the East Germany regime fell. Freedom won out.