Erdmute Greis-Behrendt

During the Cold War, with Berlin divided by the Wall and Germany split by Communist barbed wire fences, land mines, and armed border guards in watch towers, East Germans very rarely had a chance to visit the West. Reuters, the only Western news organisation with a resident correspondent based in East Berlin, managed to extract permission from the GDR authorities for Miss B to travel to London for a short visit to HQ in Fleet Street. Not once, but twice. Erdmute much appreciated the gesture as it reflected the high regard in which she was held by Editorial, borne out by the tributes already paid by former correspondents who worked with her in the cramped, bugged quarters of an office flat in Schoenhauser Allee (see Peter Millar's book on the downfall of the Wall - 1989 The Berlin Wall: My Part in its Downfall). ■