• Zero Our Weapons – 1969 Orders to zero our weapons and test our protective masks. Welcome to troubled times in Berlin 1969!
  • Demonstration – 1969 A major anti-Vietnam War demonstration marched through West Berlin streets on 15 November 1969. Previous outbreaks of violence made keeping the peace a priority.
  • Tea for Two – 1969 Veiled threats stressed otherwise normal relations in southwest Berlin.
  • Founding Document – 1970 Annotated English translation of the founding document of the Red Army Faction — Berlin’s home-grown terrorist movement.
  • Four-Power Negotiations – 1969-72 While the world’s attention was elsewhere, the post-World War II era was finally brought to a close in Central Europe. The agreement between Berlin’s occupying nations was part of a series of diplomatic moves that Henry Kissinger called “three-dimensional chess.”
  • Air Corridor Pawns – 1971 Soldiers and civilians in Berlin were not only onlookers of the negotiations — they became pieces in the game.
  • Munich Olympics – 1971-72 Some background on the 1972 Munich Olympics attack and a visit to the unsecured construction site in 1971.
  • Chronos – 1968-1972 Chronology of Berlin events. Also includes some key events before and after these years.

The title of this section in German, Unruhige Zeiten, comes from the inscription on a souvenir beer mug presented to me by co-workers when I departed Berlin Brigade in August 1971.  While (or perhaps, because) the situation was serious in Berlin, the sharp-as-needles humor continued.  I had told a number of people that I would never do anything as tacky as buying a ceramic beer mug as a “war souvenir.”   Of course, my colleagues could not resist doing that for me.  All we could do was laugh.     –rwr—