East meets West

During the Cold War, Checkpoint Alpha was one of four US observation posts along the highly militarized East-West German border.

Today, instead of being home to a US regiment, Point Alpha is a memorial monument. Its visitors' center hosts a museum and foundation that commemorates the decades of that border's existence, from 1952 to 1990. Its mandate: to keep the memory of divided Germany alive.

This week, Point Alpha celebrated the opening of a sculpture installation that runs along a 1.5 kilometer (1 mile) long section of the old "death strip" along the border. Called "Weg der Hoffnung", or Path of Hope, it uses the 14 Stations of the Cross – the events of Jesus' final hours – as a metaphor for those who struggled for freedom and democracy in East Germany.

Deutsche Welle spoke with sculptor and philosopher Ulrich Barnickel about his artistic choices and what he hopes people will take away from the exhibit.

Deutsche Welle: Dr. Barnickel, you were born in former East Germany. Did that affect your approach to this project?

Ulrich Barnickel: Yes, a lot. I came to the West from the GDR 25 years ago. My father was from Bavaria, and my brother took off for the West in 1957, when you could still easily cross the border. We were a divided family.

In the East, the fact that we had western relatives meant we were not 'politically reliable', so it was bad for us. I couldn't study what I wanted, and didn’t get work as an artist. The situation got worse and worse … I was arrested, and my apartment was ransacked by the authorities.

I was sick of it. I applied to leave the country. The Stasi, the secret police, pressured me not to go. They threatened me and my family. But after about nine months they came to my apartment one night and told me I had to leave the next morning. I packed my suitcase and took a train to the West.

DW: Did Point Alpha itself have particular meaning for you?

UB: If the Americans hadn't been here, the Russians would have taken this country. The two sides of that border were very close to each other. It's a miracle that no war broke out between them. And it is a miracle, and an honor, that I can work on this project. It allows me to process my own history.

DW: Why did you choose to use Christian imagery to get your message across -- specifically the stations of the Cross?

In 1989, during the Velvet Revolution, the Church played an important role in the peace movement. There were meetings, and church services that fed into the peaceful resistance. And of course Jesus was subjected to violence and to the power of someone else's arbitrary decisions, like the people in the GDR were.

But even though the bible story is the basis for the Weg der Hoffnung, the title of the sculptures don't have the same titles as the Stations. For instance, the first biblical Station of the Cross is Condemnation (when Pontius Pilate ordered Jesus’s crucifixion.) But I've called it "arbitrariness". So I'm creating an aphorism, a fable. I am using old bible stories to build a bridge to the viewer.

DW: Why the Stations of the Cross, particularly? How does that relate to the history of a divided Germany?

The historic scenes fit perfectly with telling our history. When Jesus stumbles the first time, I have him stumble over a grenade. When he stumbles a second time, it looks like he is going to make it over the border -- but then he arrives at a trench. He's already weak and can't cross the trench.

Its like the Stasi who locked people up, beat them down, made them weak. It was even harder for them after that. Jesus tried anyway. It’s a depiction of resistance.

DW: Tell me about your artistic vision.

I am not interested in portraits; I want to capture a movement or a motion. The Jesus figure is going along the individual stations on the way to death. I try to show his death in that he always gets smaller, less and less, until he is just a torso at the end.

The scenes aren't historically correct, they are modern stories. Jesus is looking away from Pontius and thinking, 'You can't condemn me, I haven't done anything'. Pontius sits on a rickety chair – an unstable seat of power. He has a dog's face. He holds out his arm to condemn Jesus but doesn’t do it by showing 'thumbs down' like a Roman would. Its more a gesture of brushing Jesus off, like a fly. He’s saying, 'Get out of my sight. You’re too too intellectual for me. Otherwise I’ll have to lock you up or kill you'.

DW: Why did you choose to work in iron?

For many reasons. First because it refers to the 'Iron Curtain' that divided East from West. Second because iron goes well with nature. It is dark brown when it rains, and honey colored in the sunshine. Its surface is changeable, like human skin.

I use folded sheet metal. I don’t work in closed masses, but in open forms – think of a crumpled up tissue that has volume, but not much mass. Also, I used accessories from the old East German era in the sculptures. In the first sculpture, there is an original steel helmet from the GDR era hanging on Pontius’s chair.

DW: Were you trying to make a point about connecting Christianity with freedom and democracy?

This work is not just for Christians. Its for Muslims, Jews … anyone should be able to go there. People should see it, so we can prevent Germany’s history from fading into oblivion.

The young German generation, people who weren’t even born before 1989, must know that this political system existed, and it existed close to home. Point Alpha is itself a sign that we have to work for freedom. Its not just a gift. -- we have to work to maintain it.

Two of Ulrich Barnickel's sculpture groups were unveiled on Wednesday, May 6, 2009. The complete installation of 14 sculpture groups will be finished by October, 2010.

Author: Jennifer Abramsohn

Editor: Andreas Illmer