TODAY IN BERLIN: THE CONNECTION IS MADE
First direct phone calls between East and West Berlin since 1952
On this day in 1971 the world was a better place: after 19 years of dead lines and numbers “no longer in service”, the telephone lines between East Berlin and West Berlin - capped by the DDR in 1952 - were reactivated again.
For technical reasons (and to keep everything under control), initially only 5 lines per each side (East and West) were available for what by 1971 was a very old-school of making telephone calls: through a manually operated switchboard. Operated by “Fräuleins vom Amt” (“Young Ladies from the Office” was how Berliners traditionally referred to to switchboard operators), the lines opened at 6 AM and continued connecting East and West Berlin callers until midnight that day. But due to the immense interest, already before 9 AM booking any new telephone calls had to be cancelled. The lines were full.
Out of the 856 ordered and booked connections, 218 could not be realised: the numbers were dead or no-one was there to answer. 114 planned calls had to be cancelled at midnight. Still, slightly over 1,000 people (callers and called) could speak to each other over a direct telephone line, without having to book a notoriously poor-quality phone call via one of the long-distance switchboards in Hamburg or Cologne.
The West Berlin Telefonzentrale (Main Telephone Office) or Fernmeldeamt 1 Berlin in Winterfeldtstraße Berlin-Schöneberg could soon increase the number of available lines to 135. And by mid-April 1975 direct phone calls between West Berlin and East Berlin without the switchboard as an intermediary became possible.
Mind you, all of these connections were under close surveillance - from both the East and the West. As they say in Germany: Vertrauen ist gut, Kontrolle ist besser.