Berlin is home to one of the great garden walls of the world. I spoke to Mr. Erich Honecker, its owner.
“Of course, I’ve only owned the garden since 1971” he says to me, smiling as he welcomes me into the remarkable urban-horticultural space that he affectionately calls “the death strip”. “It was really Herr Ulbricht, the previous owner of the house, who did most of the work in the early Sixties, turning a mere barbed wire fence into a concrete masterpiece complete with watchtowers and searchlights”.
I realise as we wonder around the hard landscaping, taking note of the plantless, meticulously raked earth, that Mr. Honecker is a very modest man who cares deeply for the “workers’ paradise” that he has created. Indeed, his fastidious nature is revealed when I ask about the graffiti on the other side of the wall.
“Ah yes, some bourgeois types think it’s amusing to paint all kinds of nasty things on the wall, but Herr Mielke - the head of the local Neighbourhood Watch - soon sees to them.” There is suddenly fire in his eyes. “Some people even try to jump over it from time to time, like that little shit from Goodbye Lenin, but we make sure they never do it again.”
I ask Erich about the numerous awards he has won for the garden and which is his favourite. “Well of course it was wonderful to get an honourary gold medal from the Royal Horticultural Society - meeting Camilla Parker-Bowles was a great treat - but I must say that the one I treasure most is the Green-fingered Stalinist Prize. Comrade Brezhnev came all the way from Moscow to give it to me!”
And yet, the local council now seeks to pull down Erich’s wall. “The change really came after the council went Lib Dem in 1989,” he grimaces, adding “but I’ve been on to the National Trust, they reckon it’s at least a Grade II red-star listed structure; so once that goes through, there’s fuck all the council can do.”
Erich’s tenacity is remarkable for a man his age. I get up to leave, and suddenly his hand is on my forearm, crushing it in a vice-like grip. “Why do you want to leave, Herr Titchmarsh?” he asks forcefully. At this point Mr. Mielke falls out of a bush clutching a tape-recorder.
I use the distraction to break free of Erich’s grip, and make a run for the relative safety of a house on the corner of the street owned by an American ex-pat, Charlie Checkpoint...