Word: steinstuckeners
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Symbolic Gesture. The most embattled exclave has been Steinstucken, a village with 190 permanent residents living comfortably if nervously on 31 acres 1,200 yards southwest of West Berlin. Although it legally belongs to West Berlin's Zehlendorf district, part...
...sector, the village is completely surrounded by East Germany. But for that, it might be just another pleasant suburb. Big pines and oaks line the cobblestoned streets. The tile-roofed, many-gabled single-family houses have roughcast beige exteriors, carefully tended gardens and little fences around every yard. But Steinstucken is surrounded by armament-bristling concrete towers that allow East German "Vopos" to peer into bedroom windows...
After the war. the Communists sporadically attempted to incorporate Steinstucken into their territory. In October 1951, Vopos swept into the town, cut telephone communications to West Berlin, and posted proclamations stating that Steinstucken was part of East Germany. They left four days later after the Allies vigorously protested the action. When the Berlin Wall went up in 1961, General Lucius D. Clay made a symbolic gesture designed to calm frightened West Berliners. He took a helicopter across the "death strip" to Steinstucken and evacuated 32 political refugees; a day later, he created what may be the U.S. Army...
Many problems have now been worked out. The Zehlendorf fire department, for example, can go to Steinstucken, and an electrician can enter to fix the refrigerator in the town's only grocery. Previously, both were barred. Steinstuckeners refused to apply for special G.D.R. travel permits to go to their jobs and classrooms in West Berlin and they now have West Berlin identity cards with "unhindered access" stamped on them...
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