After lunch, we were to visit the town hall on Marienplatz. We went out on to the balcony under the famous chimes of the Town Hall. I was asked to say a few words to the city’s residents gathered in the square and waiting for me to appear. I said the first words in German: ‘Liebe Münchner!’ ‘Dear people of Munich!’ This gained me an ovation. My speech could hardly have been more brief. I said only: ‘I am extremely moved by your wonderful reception. This expression of your warm feelings for me and my wife gives us great joy.’ The burgomeister welcomed us in the great hall, where prominent citizens had assembled:
You see the reception you have received. The impulse you gave to democratic changes in Eastern Europe, the taking down of the Iron Curtain, the bringing together of East and West was and is something we in Munich will never forget. Most memorable of all has been the courage with which you supported the longing of us Germans to be reunited, and for that we are especially grateful to you.
On Saturday, we were offered an entirely tourist programme: Neuschwanstein Castle, located in the pre-Alpine region, then the Wieskirche which, we were told, is the most beautiful rococo church in Bavaria, and in the evening a visit to the theatre. We were relieved to be having a day off after all the excitement of the previous day’s receptions in Munich. We thought this would be a respite, but it was not to be.
The helicopter bringing us to the foot of the ‘Cliff of the Swan’, 100 kilometres south of Munich, landed in what appeared to be deserted mountainous terrain, but within a couple of minutes there appeared out of nowhere dozens, then hundreds, of people who surrounded it and began chanting the, from yesterday already familiar, ‘Gorby! Gorby!’
Soon the helicopter took us on to another niche at the foot of the Wieskirche church. We were now no longer taken aback when we saw how many people were waiting, but the surprises were not over yet: a whole class of children from a nearby school welcomed us with a huge banner that read, in Russian, ‘Welcome, Gorby and Raisa!’. The burgomeister of Wildsteig, Josef Taffertshofer, greeted us in Russian.
Accompanied by the priest, we went into the church as the organ began to play. Many people were intrigued to see how the former general secretary of the CPSU would behave in a church. The following day the newspapers reported, ‘In the recently restored church, Gorbachev, whose outlook is atheist, joined in reciting the prayer of the United Nations.’ Father Georg Kirchmeier had learned the prayer in Russian and recited it together with us, although we had to read it from a leaflet. It is only a few lines, and I will quote them here in fulclass="underline"
The following morning we left hospitable Bavaria. Our route was northwards, to North Rhine-Westphalia and although this Land is barely half the size of Bavaria, it has a considerably larger population of 18 million. The Land’s capital is the fine city of Düsseldorf, but our destination was the less well-known city of Gütersloh in eastern Westphalia, home to the publishing concern of Bertelsmann, whose board of directors had a programme for our visit scheduled, as in Bavaria, down to the last minute.
We were not destined to impress the Germans with Russian punctuality. Dense fog diverted our plane from Gütersloh to the nearby airport at Paderborn, where no one was expecting us. We finally arrived rather late at Bertelsmann’s headquarters, but to traverse the 10 metres or so separating us from the entrance took a good 10 minutes: the cars were mobbed and we could barely get out. Cheers and handshakes, requests for autographs, television cameras, photographers. The police had to clear a way through for us.
In Gütersloh, we found a real sense of solidarity with Russia. We met Peter Dangman of the Humanitas association, who sent 22 aircraft laden with charitable aid to Russia. Another civic group, Help Without Frontiers, in two years sent 140 tons of food and medicines to St Petersburg. Mr and Mrs Higson and the British-German Society sent 7.5 tons of relief supplies to Ukraine. It is impossible to list all the acts of kindness. On this, our first unofficial visit, we found immense willingness on the part of the Germans to come to the aid of our compatriots, and they were keen to show us that. In the evening an official reception in our honour was given by the minister-president of North Rhine-Westphalia, Johannes Rau.
Our next, and final, destination was Hamburg. Knowledgeable people warned us that Hamburg was not Bavaria: it was ‘the North’, where people were reticent about showing their feelings. In fact, however, Hamburg defied all the predictions and met us with what I can only describe as Italianesque brio.
Hamburg made a great impression on both of us. I had never realized the city was so beautiful. I had imagined its mighty industry would have left its stamp on everything, but found instead that its natural surroundings had been preserved with extraordinary success, and that its architecture was not in conflict, but very much in harmony with them.
In the evening, tired by our official meetings, we decided just to go for a stroll round the city. This was easier said than done. An unplanned walkabout caused some perplexity among the German security officers charged with protecting these guests, and it was decided we should at first only go for a drive. We went round the Inner Alster lake, past a monument to Bismarck, and suddenly came out onto a broad, brightly lit street with all the colours of the rainbow, where crowds were taking the air at this hour of the evening. We agreed not to get out of the car and drove on to St Michaelis Church, a baroque church and one of the city’s symbols. From there we did get out for a stroll. The weather was drizzly, which it often is in Hamburg. We spotted welcoming light shining from the windows of a pub. ‘Let’s go in’, Raisa suggested.
Everyone agreed, although our German detectives ‘strolling’ behind wondered whether to call for backup, just in case. It was warm and cosy in the pub, but not busy, with only two of the tables occupied. The owner recognized us and was at first taken aback, perhaps surprised that a visit of this kind could just happen, but pulled himself together and served us with professional amiability and without fuss (although he did absent himself for a moment to fetch his camera).
The next day I took part in a discussion at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy, which at the time was headed by Egon Bahr, a well-known social democratic politician who made a great contribution in the early 1970s to developing the New Eastern Policy of Willy Brandt’s government.
That morning we also visited the Ohlsdorf cemetery on the outskirts of Hamburg, where 384 Soviet soldiers who died in German captivity during the Second World War are buried. We laid a wreath at the monument, inscribed to ‘Soviet soldiers, victims of fascism’. The Germans tend their graves carefully, seeing it both as a human duty and a gesture of reconciliation.
8
The words appear to be taken from a speech by Franklin D. Roosevelt at the signing of the UN Charter in 1945 [translator’s note].