In 1987, I had the great fortune to travel to both East Germany (the Deutsche Demokratische Republik or DDR) and the USSR. Both of these countries, at the time, were very restrictive in their travel. The DDR was still under Russian control and supervision with the wall separating the Divided Germanies still intact and the Iron Curtain of the USSR had still not fallen. I've lost count of the number of times where I've been asked questions about my travels into both of these countries as they both were so radically different from my trip to France or England or Sweden due to that extreme isolationism. One of the things that often surprises people is that the one point that I will always make was that, between the two countries, my trip into the DDR was infinitely more terrifying than my trip within the USSR (a little of which you can read about in my blog post here: "From Russia With Love" ).
The key reason why my travels within the DDR was more terrifying than anything that I had experienced in the USSR (and I had some pretty hair raising experiences there) was the amount of exposure that I had with the Deutsche Grenpolizei. The Deutsche Grenpolizei were the DDR's border patrol and the highways within the DDR had routine checkpoints for travelers not only entering into the country but also travelers within the country, itself. At these checkpoints, the Deutsche Grenpolizei would prepare to board our bus and we would have to be ready with our passports open to our photos for inspection.
As we approached the first checkpoint, our tour guide, Dieter, a rather chipper and fun loving guy became very uncharacteristically sober. Dieter informed us that we needed to prepare ourselves. He walked up and down the aisle of the bus to make sure that every single one of us had our passport in hand. After he was certain that we all had them, he let us know that we were approaching the first checkpoint into the DDR and that it was at this time that he had to really make sure that we all understood the amount of danger that we were in once the Deutsche Grenpolizei boarded our bus.
In order to make sure that we did not suffer any incidents, he told us that we all needed to look straight forward at the seat in front of us with our passport held up in our hand next to our faces from the moment they stepped onto the bus until the moment they stepped off. We were not allowed to lower our arms, not even if they grew fatigued in that position. We were not to talk, smile, laugh, or frown but, instead, needed to keep our faces as blank as possible so as not to draw any attention to ourselves. Above all else, we were not to resist showing our passport to the Grenpolizei and we sure as hell shouldn't even look at them, even if they asked us a question (which, of course, we would all have to truthfully answer). A few of the more cheeky passengers within my group made a few jokes about it, perhaps in response to the awkward stress of this unexpected shift, and our normally chipper Dieter shut them down entirely, expressing again that such antics could not take place at all once the Grenpolizei boarded the bus. He practically begged us to be quiet and emotionless until we had safely passed through the checkpoint.
The bus was filled with low murmurs of my tour group talking among themselves. I remember wondering what the hell my grandfather was thinking by sending me to the DDR in the first place. As we made the final approach to the checkpoint, Dieter startled us all by shouting, "Quiet! Hold your passports up!". It seemed like an eternity before it was our turn to be boarded. I was seated along the aisle and I felt like I was staring so hard into the seat in front of me that I could've bored holes into it. Despite that, I couldn't help but see several Deutsche Grenpolizei board the bus and for a moment, my concentration on the seat in front of me broke to steal a quick glance at these men climbing the steps into the bus in their military uniforms with assault rifles slung over their shoulders.
I quickly snapped my sight back onto the seat in front of me. Seeing those assault rifles was enough to know that Dieter really wasn't kidding. I was absolutely frozen as they made their way up the aisle, pausing now and then to stare at someone's face. When it was my turn, I stayed as still as I possibly could. I don't think I even breathed. After what seemed an extraordinarily long moment, the soldier, as I saw him, moved on and I relaxed only slightly. Behind me, I could hear him ask something in German and froze again, wondering if one of those cheeky members had smirked. Whoever it was, they must've spoke German because I heard a soft "nein" in response. After several more minutes of total silence beyond the faint footsteps of the soldiers on the bus, they walked back down the aisle and disembarked. Dieter, who was still at the front of the bus, put his finger to his lips in a "shhhh" gesture to remind us to be quiet and wait.
When Hans, our bus driver, fired up the bus again and we started moving forward, the sigh of relief was audible. The tension had been lifted and now, everyone was talking about how crazy of an experience that was that a simple border crossing could be so scary. What we didn't consider was that this was an experience that we'd have several times over again as we made our way up to Berlin and back then, back into West Germany. By the time we had made it to West Berlin, the excitement over the horror show novelty of it was gone. When some of us decided to go into East Berlin one evening to explore on our own, we remembered Dieter's advice even in passing some of the Deutsche Grenpolizei on the streets just beyond the Wall. Even then, a couple of the guys in my group, perhaps bolstered by beer, made the mistake of ending up on the bad side of the Deutsche Grenpolitzei at Checkpoint Charlie. Both were detained for a long while. One wouldn't even talk about what happened to him while the other had been hit in the face and said that they had stripped searched and performed a cavity search on him before saying no more. They weren't the same after that.
I don't think any of us were the same after that either and it didn't take a strip and cavity search to instill that in us. I guess the idea that even a slight human expression could get us into trouble with this militarized police force scared us to death. These were things that we didn't even experience in the USSR where all of the Russians that we interacted with were generally welcoming, smiling and more. My most scary experience that I had in the USSR was resolved amicably in the end. The DDR, on the other hand, felt dangerously restrictive with its assault rifle wielding polizei that I mistook for soldiers at the time.
Those repeated instances of having to be still and show my documents to the Deutsche Grenpolizei became the frame for what I viewed as the utmost in restrictive states. It was a circumstance that I'd never even imagined having a close parallel here within my own country. Even the changes in airport security post-9/11 weren't even comparable to the Deutsche Grenpolizei as it was simply wait in line, showing your id and ticket, and getting scanned before being allowed access into where you boarded your plane.. No big deal. I never once imagined any setting where travelers within the US would ever be stopped and had their documents checked, especially after this process at TSA, had taken place.
Which, of course, brings us to what transpired on a Delta flight from San Francisco to New York on Wednesday where the passengers aboard the flight were told by a flight attendant, "You'll need to show your papers to agents waiting outside the door." (Rolling Stone) While the Customs and Border Patrol assert that they "requested consensual assistance from passengers aboard the flight" and that it "did not compel any of these domestic passengers to show identification" (Rolling Stone), one could argue that the Deutsche Grenpolizei expected consensual assistance in the review of our documents when they boarded our bus back in 1987. Nor did the Deutsche Grenpolizei compel us to do so either. In fact, other than that single question asked, the Deutsche Grenpolizei did not say a single word to us directly. We were just made ready to provide our documents for viewing as advised by our Austrian tour guide.
Even though there are stark differences between what the Deutsche Grenpolizei and the CBP were like in both instances, the similarities are striking. It certainly doesn't help that we're also in an era where the militarization of our police forces is rampant in our discourse. The CBP, notably, did not wear militarized uniforms nor did they carry assault rifles but instead, looked, thankfully, like your typical police officer. I'm deeply grateful for that. However, the recent detainment of a number of US citizens by the CBP also should be added into the perceptions of what the CBP can and cannot do to people who may chose to not comply with them. Perceptually, non-compliance could, at its most extreme, be equated to being detained by a potentially militarized CBP during which one's life is turned utterly upside down and sifted through with a fine-toothed comb--including one's social media history. Is it any wonder that everyone, even if they were disturbed or troubled by their experience on that Delta flight, complied?
And for the record, the Deutsche Grenpolizei? They were the German Border Police. I can only hope that the CBP realizes that perhaps their actions have deep connotations and similarities with such an ugly thing. In the US, our right to travel unrestricted is one of our inalienable rights. Let's not see that change.
