We soldiers spent a lot of our time thinking of, talking about,
or filling out forms for military passes. However, fewer of us used
the Berlin transit system enough to justify purchasing the city transit
system's monthly pass. In my last year in Berlin, I lived off post.
The three-line Zeitkarte pass with a monthly renewal sticker, was
just the ticket.
I
went down to the bus garage in Zehlendorf and filled out the paperwork.
It was not like the typical U.S. or Canadian pass sold quickly and anonymously
for the use of whoever showed it to the transit driver or fare collector.
A pass for the Berliner Verkehrs-Betriebe (BVG) was exclusive to
the purchaser, with one's photo sealed into it. This required lots
of stamping, signatures, etc., from a (fortunately) friendly BVG beamter.
I felt like I was going on a world cruise with this paperwork.
The signature on the pass says that I understand the tariff, which ran to a dozen pages or so in the system timetable book. American customers would just sign this wthout doing that. I am not sure how many Germans ever read it, but on a quiet night, I did work my way through it. An additional adult fare would be collected for large packages that took a seat, or for dogs. Some of the rules are visible in the enlarged reproduction of the reverse side of the pass on this page.
There
were system passes available, but my daily travel revolved around a smaller
area, and so I chose the Three-Line pass. In my case, I chose two
bus lines and an U-Bahn route segment. The route segment was identified
by a sticker for the endpoint stations. Rubber-stamping was used
to delete nine alternative "via" stations, leaving my pass good from Krumme
Lanke to Ruhleben (out in the British Sector past the Olympic Stadium)
via Hohenzollernplatz. This covered a lot of things, including the
Zoo and Ku'damm, as well as the NAAFI where I liked to shop, and the British
army's movie theater near Theodor-Heuss Platz.
My transit riding experiences on the lines covered by these passes were typical of most GI's, riding at odd hours, taking ice cream home in the winter in my briefcase and finding that in the cold bus, it had not melted at all, carrying my laundry on the bus, bringing a box of Heinz of Great Britain tinned dinners for the office hot plate home from the NAAFI, trying to chat with Germans with my terrible strassendeutsche, and trying to avoid talking with drunks (German or American).
When I brought a tv table floor model home from a big furniture sale (only 40 DM), I carefully followed the rules and paid an extra fare for it. When I got home to Andrews Barracks I discovered that it was cleverly designed to be knocked down. I did not feel bad about that, though, because the look on the early afternoon U-Bahn passengers' faces when I wheeled the tv table onto the train was worth the effort.
Carrying classified documents or film on the bus only happened a few times. I was careful to keep the briefcase from ending up in the Lost and Found, but was also aware that Americans "never" did that, so figured it was safer than driving around with them in a Taunus 20M that advertised its status as a "one owner used car" -- Uncle Sam. Other GI's responded to alerts on the buses, piling off at the barracks street corners with their gear from home or a girlfriend's place.
Bus Rtes 11 and 53 will be remembered by many Americans, as well as by Berliners who lived or traveled in Zehlendorf and Lichterfelde. [On the bus pass, these routes still showed an "A" prefix to indicate that they are Autobus lines, as distinct from the strassenbahn lines discontinued in West Berlin in 1967.]
These lines took care of my local needs, even the snail-like earliest morning trip with the transit system putzfrau on board to pick up litter at each stop. To anyplace else, I could afford the occasional cash fares. In U.S. equivalents of the time, a single trip (einfahrt) on the U-Bahn network was 11 or 12 cents. It was 12.5 to 14 cents equivalent on the bus. A transfer (umsteiger) cost 18 to 20 cents, good on either additional buses or trains. Eventually, I rode to representative parts of every district of Berlin. Then, exhausted from seeing too many things -- there is always something interesting around the next corner in Berlin -- I would take the long ride home and then collapse onto my bed, head spinning in Berlinerstrassendeutsche.
-- R.. W. Rynerson
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