Chapter 59

This answer is a bit pretentious, isn't it? A kind of dry humor? In the transit corridor, the people who learned this news instantly became agitated. All talk of rushing to the land of freedom was just an excuse. If they knew that the place they were going would soon be cut off from electricity and water by the GDR, who would want to go to West Berlin? It would be better to stay in the GDR. Some people immediately expressed their unwillingness to leave the GDR, but...

It was too late! Those who wanted to leave were stopped by the internal troops guarding the area. The soldiers, wearing helmet-shaped steel helmets and holding StG44 assault rifles, stopped the crowd with the sound of their bolt actions.

"We don't want to leave here. Forcing us into West Berlin is exile. The people's government would never do this!" Schumann was beaten several times while struggling and was dragged to the registration station to erase his traces in the GDR.

"Everything is mutual. If you don't want to be a citizen of the homeland, the homeland naturally won't treat you as a person!" After the captain said this, he glanced at the long queue and urged, "Hurry up, once we send these traitors away, we'll have peace..."

Similar situations occurred at almost all the transit points. Some were arranged by Markus Wolf, some had genuinely learned about the plan to cut off West Berlin's water supply, and others were the truly intelligent among the intellectuals opposing the GDR.

The last group deeply understood where their value lay. They knew that staying in the GDR would allow them to more easily expand their influence, become the conscience of the nation, and continuously be reported by the media. What was the point of going to West Berlin or the FRG? The journalists in the FRG could criticize the government more easily and more thoroughly, without worrying about being visited by the GDR's internal police.

These public intellectuals, who had a clear understanding of their own value, were the least willing to leave the GDR, because they knew that apart from criticizing the government, they had almost nothing that could make people remember them.

Yuri Andropov had long understood the mentality of these people. This operation was primarily aimed at them. Seeing the agitation suppressed by the GDR's internal troops with real guns, the long queue became shorter. Andropov let out a long laugh, without any preparation for bloodshed. How could they be the conscience of the nation? This reminded him of a party with a high level of education, whose members were either educated in the United States or Japan. Under the governance of this party, the country experienced famine every year, yet it was still called the "Golden Decade." When the world was preparing to counter the Axis powers, only they could claim a great victory in the Henan, Hunan, and Guangxi campaigns. After eight years of resistance and 22 major battles, all of which were lost, the only complete victory, the capture of the enemy commander, was known by another name: the Anhui Incident.

"Let's go. Before leaving Berlin, let me see the capabilities of the Stasi!" Andropov was in a very good mood. Like diligent workers, noble teachers, and diligent scientists, a country can never have too many of these people. But a group of people who can only criticize the government and create no value should be sent abroad as soon as possible.

For example, a certain person in the future who always complained about being persecuted by the homeland, finally resigned from his university professorship, left the country that oppressed his thoughts, and flew to the land of human hope. Breathing the air of freedom, he spent his days delivering pizzas in a free country.

Andropov admired such public intellectuals, who preferred to deliver pizzas in a free country rather than be a university professor in a dictatorship. Even in a free country, delivering pizzas, no matter how hard and tiring, was still sweet...

The purpose of opening the transit points was to allow GDR residents staying in West Berlin to return. Of course, this was a detailed screening process, led by Markus Wolf's Stasi foreign intelligence service. During the screening at the six transit points, the news of the GDR cutting off the Spree and Havel rivers spread through the people of East and West Berlin.

On June 1st, International Children's Day, which was set on June 1st by all socialist countries and those heavily influenced by the left, with Moscow as the venue. The International Democratic Women's Federation, which proposed International Children's Day, was also heavily influenced by socialist ideology. Of course, this was not important. On this Children's Day, the Berlin Wall in the entire Berlin area was filled with a tense atmosphere.

GDR internal troops, wearing helmet-shaped steel helmets and holding StG44 assault rifles, stood on the watchtowers, while their counterparts in West Berlin were an agitated crowd. On the streets near the Berlin Wall in East Berlin, residents stood still, seemingly listening to what the people on the other side of the wall were saying.

In a fourth-floor room of an office building near the Berlin Wall, Markus Wolf, expressionless, held a pair of binoculars and looked towards West Berlin. The fourth floor was neither too high nor too low, allowing him to see tens of thousands of West Berliners standing under the Berlin Wall, shouting slogans. In stark contrast, the internal troops on the watchtowers were hardly affected by the massive protest.

The scenery in the distance was even more blurred, with thick smoke rising from the West Berlin area. Even from a distance, Markus Wolf could still hear the faint sound of sirens. Closer to the wall, he could see West Berliners pouring in from various intersections, slowly converging into a flood under the Berlin Wall.

"Comrade Markus Wolf, I'm late!" Andropov, who had just entered the room, apologized and immediately took the military binoculars handed to him by Isayev, adopting the same posture as Markus Wolf to observe the situation.

Andropov's military binoculars had a longer range. The first scene he saw was a young man setting a car on fire. The second scene was a group of young people holding Molotov cocktails fighting against American and British military police. Such events, usually orchestrated by the "hope of humanity," were also common in the Cold War, with the Soviet Union often being the mastermind. If the number of times were counted, the Soviet Union might have planned such actions even more frequently.

"Great job, we should film this. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring the electronic camera made by the Technical Management Directorate!" Andropov said regretfully, "But will the unrest in West Berlin cause any damage to the Stasi?"

"The main intelligence officers won't be affected. As for the informants? It doesn't matter!" Hearing Markus Wolf's response, Andropov nodded in understanding. Informants were expendable for intelligence organizations, and some of them didn't even know they were informants.

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