5 ms·

Poetically, this universe you've created reminds me of the story of the Berlin metro during the Cold War. Prior to the division of the city, the metro system s

by gen220 6y ago

Poetically, this universe you've created reminds me of the story of the Berlin metro during the Cold War. Prior to the division of the city, the metro system spanned the whole city, and was rebuilt to functioning capacity in the aftermath of WW II. Once it became necessary to construct a controlled border between the NATO and Soviet sectors, they eventually erected barriers on the tracks; creating two disconnected transportation graphs. Except! There were some lines that began and ended in "West Berlin", but needed to pass through a couple of stations in "East Berlin;" these were allowed to continue operating, but the train conductors were not permitted to stop at the "Easte Berlin" stations under any circumstances. The Geisterbahnhöfe (ghost stations) were patrolled by armed guards. This system persisted from the early 1960s until 1989. Both sides made improvements to their respective pieces of the U-bahn, to service the local populations. But they never made any changes that would make a reunion impossible (for example, changing the track widths, or signalling technology). When the wall came down, the system united into a fully-functional whole remarkably quickly. Imagine if the internet partitioned between "east" and "west"; but, in order for the internet backbone to reach India for example, it would first need to pass through Russia or China. I wonder if something similar would happen! Editorializing, it's fascinating to see how these systems, that are designed to (more or less indiscriminately) connect people, behave when they are suddenly coerced to instead keep people apart in unnatural ways. It never seems sustainable, and the separation seems to revert so easily once the coercion is lifted. It's kind of a hopeful story for humanity, I think.

xxpor 6y ago
Were the armed guards there to keep the western trains from stopping or for keeping easterners from escaping via the tunnels?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- gen220 6y ago
  I think this is one of those cases where the most correct answer is simply "yes". Realistically, the guards were put there to halt the transfer of people, goods, and currency: to be the physical manifestation of a hard border. Although, the motivation for this border (who it benefits, is it to keep "others" out vs "us" in) was a dynamic concept that evolved over time. However, if you integrate the motivation function over the entire time of separation, which is one way of reducing the complexity, the primary result is to keep easterners from escaping. In the early days of widening division, there was a mass migration of people fleeing "The East"; each person carried a multitude of reasons for their flight. One effect of the border was to halt this flow. There were easterners who sincerely viewed this differently, and wanted to keep westerners out (especially the "spies"!); however, their perspectives were definitely a minority, and don't survive the integral.
  - jandrese 6y ago
    The thing that really drove this home for me was the way the wall was built literally overnight with no warning to the public to prevent people from fleeing.
    - gen220 6y ago
      This fact, that "the wall was built literally overnight", also reflects how ad-hoc and dramatic the decision to raise the wall actually was. At the time, people had no idea how "real" the newborn borders were going to be, because something like that had literally never happened before, there was no precedent. If you're interested in the topic of the east/west German border's materialization over time, I'd recommend you to Edith Sheffer's excellent book on the subject [0]. It focuses on adjacent villages in Thuringia, and how they took turns coping with, helping create, and profiting from the existence of the border. It's a great illustration of Simpson's paradox [1]: something that looks kind of simple on the surface (of course there would be a border between NATO and Warsaw Pact), becomes more complicated when you glance at the details (the people living on either side were mostly German citizens, with ideas and ambitions and fulfilling lives). Then, you zoom in on the details (individual people, families, towns, neighborhoods), and again you're presented with something comprehensible. For example, a mayor can get special funding from the Marshall Plan, by emphasizing the propaganda opportunity of building attractions near the border; to get this money, it's helpful to sell the idea of a fundamental difference between east and west; once the attractions are built, there is now a real difference between east and west, whereas before it was imaginary. When you zoom out, it's these little independent assertions of autonomy and appeals to authority that motivate the creation of a border. Super fascinating stuff. [0]: https://www.amazon.com/Burned-Bridge-East-Germans-Curtain/dp/0199314616 https://www.amazon.com/Burned-Bridge-East-Germans-Curtain/dp... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson's_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson's_paradox
- toyg 6y ago
  Don’t forget keeping spies at bay. Berlin was a notorious hotbed of espionage, for obvious reasons, and East German authorities had already enough trouble controlling the existing checkpoints without having to add new ones.
  - thrwway34 6y ago
    You really think only East Germans had issues with espionage?
    - toyg 6y ago
      As the parent comment referred to the Geisterbahnhöfe as in East Berlin, it stands to reason that they were patrolled by East German guards, hence discussing the reasons for East Germans to keep them closed. (As an aside, why do you feel the need to be so confrontational...?)

by gen220 6y ago

xxpor 6y ago

Were the armed guards there to keep the western trains from stopping or for keeping easterners from escaping via the tunnels?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
gen220 6y ago
I think this is one of those cases where the most correct answer is simply "yes". Realistically, the guards were put there to halt the transfer of people, goods, and currency: to be the physical manifestation of a hard border. Although, the motivation for this border (who it benefits, is it to keep "others" out vs "us" in) was a dynamic concept that evolved over time. However, if you integrate the motivation function over the entire time of separation, which is one way of reducing the complexity, the primary result is to keep easterners from escaping. In the early days of widening division, there was a mass migration of people fleeing "The East"; each person carried a multitude of reasons for their flight. One effect of the border was to halt this flow. There were easterners who sincerely viewed this differently, and wanted to keep westerners out (especially the "spies"!); however, their perspectives were definitely a minority, and don't survive the integral.
- jandrese 6y ago
  The thing that really drove this home for me was the way the wall was built literally overnight with no warning to the public to prevent people from fleeing.
  - gen220 6y ago
    This fact, that "the wall was built literally overnight", also reflects how ad-hoc and dramatic the decision to raise the wall actually was. At the time, people had no idea how "real" the newborn borders were going to be, because something like that had literally never happened before, there was no precedent. If you're interested in the topic of the east/west German border's materialization over time, I'd recommend you to Edith Sheffer's excellent book on the subject [0]. It focuses on adjacent villages in Thuringia, and how they took turns coping with, helping create, and profiting from the existence of the border. It's a great illustration of Simpson's paradox [1]: something that looks kind of simple on the surface (of course there would be a border between NATO and Warsaw Pact), becomes more complicated when you glance at the details (the people living on either side were mostly German citizens, with ideas and ambitions and fulfilling lives). Then, you zoom in on the details (individual people, families, towns, neighborhoods), and again you're presented with something comprehensible. For example, a mayor can get special funding from the Marshall Plan, by emphasizing the propaganda opportunity of building attractions near the border; to get this money, it's helpful to sell the idea of a fundamental difference between east and west; once the attractions are built, there is now a real difference between east and west, whereas before it was imaginary. When you zoom out, it's these little independent assertions of autonomy and appeals to authority that motivate the creation of a border. Super fascinating stuff. [0]: https://www.amazon.com/Burned-Bridge-East-Germans-Curtain/dp/0199314616 https://www.amazon.com/Burned-Bridge-East-Germans-Curtain/dp... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson's_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson's_paradox
toyg 6y ago
Don’t forget keeping spies at bay. Berlin was a notorious hotbed of espionage, for obvious reasons, and East German authorities had already enough trouble controlling the existing checkpoints without having to add new ones.
- thrwway34 6y ago
  You really think only East Germans had issues with espionage?
  - toyg 6y ago
    As the parent comment referred to the Geisterbahnhöfe as in East Berlin, it stands to reason that they were patrolled by East German guards, hence discussing the reasons for East Germans to keep them closed. (As an aside, why do you feel the need to be so confrontational...?)