Erdmute Greis-Behrendt

Erdmute had the unenviable experience of watching, as she aged gracefully, a succession of ever-younger and inexperienced journalists joining the East Berlin bureau, which she accepted with infinite patience and good humour. She looked after us all, a combination of Miss Moneypenny and fairy godmother. Her delightful giggle, which came out frequently, is indelibly etched on the memory of everyone who worked with her, or just met her. Her work was mainly translating, organising and advising, and she had little opportunity to show any journalistic skill in the early years. However with the creation of the German service in 1972, she showed an untapped talent for bright, light features, on uncontroversial topics, which went down well. She loved going to the opera, and when a new production came up she would expect her young charges to escort her to the Staatsoper or Komische Oper, dressed in her finest.

The photo of me with Erdmute was taken to celebrate the establishment in 1970 of the first direct phone connection between the East and West Berlin offices since the Berlin Wall went up in 1961. Until then communications between the two was only possible by telex. The direct line was put in a day after the East Berlin bureau carried an extensive report on an East German exposé of the Nazi past of a senior West German politician. The story was hardly new, but we milked it for all it was worth, mainly to support our demands for a direct phone link. The champagne in the picture was Crimean. ■