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Sport 40: 2012
A Treasure in China
A Treasure in China
I was never allowed to talk about how, at the end of March 1945, before the arrival of the advance guard of the Red Army, my father buried parts of the fortune of the extended family (porcelain, silver, two large bags, travel documents) under the apple trees in the garden and laid down a compost heap on the spot, which did very well in the rainy weather. I never said a word about it, although I received a Communist training and was required to reveal all personal secrets. There is a private human being inside every Chekist. I can, however, confirm that this private human being is not the well-source, where behaviour and character have their engine (seat of reliability), it is to be found rather in a side gallery, where society does not reach. Thus I remain an absolutely reliable Party cadre, who has merely not betrayed a family hiding-place (and also does not dig it up). There must be forgetting, otherwise there are no escape routes in an emergency. The modern patriot is a complex product.
A thinking, active product. We wanted to get intelligence material, also parts of the Party assets, to safety in the People’s Republic of China. Chests and accounts were already en route to our embassy in Beijing, when we learned that the People’s Republic of China would respond to a possible confederation of the GDR with the Federal Republic of Germany by merging its two embassies. The People’s Republic recognises no separate property, not even that of a friendly brother state or a brother Party, once these lose their official status. In the short time until March, and after that until incorporation into the Federal Republic, we did not find any definitive solution. In June, when we lost our offices and telecommunications equipment, the containers, which we had sent off at the beginning of the year, were in a transport loop on the territory of the People’s Republic of page 298 China. They were transferred from State haulier to State haulier, re- registered, put on trucks again etc. Until 1992 the valuable objects moved from address to address, constituted a ‘buried treasure’; finally the consignments came to the attention of the Chinese authorities and were seized. Today, lacking an owner, they are stored in warehouses near Beijing. It is impossible for the Chinese administration to dispose of the treasure without information from us. It will never get this information.