Читать книгу Where in the World is the Berlin Wall?. 170 Sites around the World онлайн

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Getting a truck loaded with two tonnes of undeclared paint supplies through was to prove problematic. At first, the GDR officials denied entry to Boulogne and his driver:

“I went back to the hotel with Jean Pichard. You could still feel the same electric atmosphere in the lobby. We took two CNN cameramen with us. We really wanted to get at the border guards. Leo Wolf told us which crossings we could pass on foot without any trouble, and so we took a detour to the east of Checkpoint Charlie. The tricky part was getting the truck over. The CNN cameramen were really hyped-up. They put the cameras right behind the heads of the border guards and began to film. I tried to go in the direction of the wagon, but was approached immediately by one of the guards. It didn’t look good, but it turned out luck was on our side. Whilst I was talking to the guard, a 38-tonne truck drove up in front of Joël’s truck which was parked on no-man’s land. The guards ran over to the larger truck to check it out. I wasted no time in getting to Joël, he put the truck in gear and his foot on the gas pedal. The cameras were focused on the truck, which was slowly beginning to move. A guard came towards us. He pointed his rifle at me. I pointed towards the cameras that were still filming us. He shouted something at me in German. I tried to answer him in French. The expressions on our faces did the talking for us. I saw the fear in his face when he saw the cameras. He had understood – if the cameras caught him shooting the rifle, they would not be filming a soldier carrying out orders, but a murder, an execution, a crime. He took a step back and lowered his weapon. We had won.”