I didn’t view Begrüßungsgeld (welcome money) as a handout, as I didn’t see myself as a “poor brother from the East”. In the autumn of 89, I was on the streets almost every night demonstrating… and I thought I was very cool anyway with my backcombed hair and white make-up on my face.
I quickly got the feeling that people sold out. Especially the ones who picked up their money three times and felt very clever because of it. This was one of the tricks they used: Whenever you went abroad they stuck a kind of leporello in your ID. When you picked up the money, you got a stamp in your passport and people would just stick the leporello a bit further and hide the stamp.
I saw this as greed, on the one hand, and also a huge kowtow to the other system. With all that dosh and the glittering West, taking your own path was ultimately impossible. But that was the point of it all – so in December I was already attending anti-reunification marches.
East Berlin had a large – what you would call today – Gothic scene and there were areas in West Berlin we only knew from hearsay. Such as the “Linientreu” on Budapester Straße. Word quickly went round that a meet-up was planned there on the evening of the 10th of November 1989.
I spent the night the wall fell in Wedding with friends, got to work on time the next morning, slept it off in the boiler room, woke up at noon and drove back to the Sonnenallee crossing and then to the “Linientreu”. I had picked up my 100 mark beforehand.
The money lasted me a very long time. At first East Germans could pay with East German marks in clubs, at least to get in.
And you’ve been invited for the first few rounds anyway. On the 16th of March 1990, I spent the final remainder on the album Carved in Sand by the British band The Mission on Hermannplatz. For 15, 17 mark – something like that. And I used the money to eat a proper burger for the first time, in a snack bar on the Sonnenallee. With a nice Coke.