BERLIN CALENDAR: BULLETS OVER WANNSEE or WHO SHOT LITTLE CARLA?
Today in Berlin: 5 August 1952
On this day in 1952 a stray bullet fired at the US Arms shooting range in the Grunewald forest, in West Berlin’s district of Zehlendorf, missed the target. What it did not miss, however, was a seven-year-old girl spending a sun-drenched summer day as children should: in Berlin’s best known lake lido, Strandbad Wannsee.
Carla J. (her full surname did not surface in the press), playing with her mum in the shallow waters of the “lake” Wannsee (inverted commas as it’s actually “just” a bight of the river Havel), suddenly screamed, swayed and collapsed. Incredulous parent and several by-standers quickly noticed a wound on the child’s neck. A wound inflicted by a bullet.
It was not the first time that Strandbad Wannsee became an unwilling target of a stray projectile. The American shooting range, built behind the only completed element of the never realised Südkurve - southern curve or hairpin of the AVUS racing track - was a “gift that kept on giving”. Before the Carla incident, another unlucky shot ended up hitting the flat of one of the lido’s staff.
Three years after the seven-year-old had to have her bullet wound carefully cleaned and dressed (luckily, the shot was not deadly), a hapless woman ended up with a projectile hitting her liver…
The problem with the shooting range, named “Keegans Range” in honour of a vanished-in-action general, was that it was a more or less makeshift affair created within an unfinished racing course hairpin. The bram (the barrier supposed to “intercept” the bullets like a safety cushion) was much too low to prevent projectiles from leaving the site and going awol while cutting through the air in what was a popular West-Berlin leisure area. As Sod’s Law has it, if something can go wrong, it most certainly will…
The lesson was as hard as it was painful - especially for the little Carla, one could mutter off the air. East Berlin press were quick to pick up the story, too, giving it a traditional propaganda spin generously applied on both sides of the Berlin Wall.
What came out (apart from the ritual mockery and abuse of the word “murderer” or “mercenary”) was a new version of a popular song that both sides of divided Berlin knew equally well. Until today, when the eight-year-old Cornelia Froboess’s childish voice recommends packing your swimming trunks, taking your small sister with you and “off you go to Wannsee” (Pack die Badehose ein is a Berlin and German classic par excellence), some Berliners - particularly those who grew up in East Berlin - cannot help singing the slightly altered version of the text:
"Schließ die Badehose ein
lass das Baden lieber sein
denn der Ami schießt am Wannsee!"
“Lock up your swimming trunks / forget the bathing / cause the Yank’s shooting in Wannsee.”
Luckily, the Ami has long left the Grunewald forest, the shooting range is history, too, and Strandbad Wannsee is as safe and peaceful as it had been before. Well, in a sense.