The Eagle Has Landed

The true story of a train ride in Cold War West Germany. The identities of the riders have been changed to protect the kids. The route has been changed because we figured we could change it. The culprits are enjoying their retirement. This is the story as told by the male rider, one of the kids. We only made minor edits for flow and consistency.*

It was in October of 1982, I was traveling with my German girlfriend from Hannover to Frankfurt in what was then West Germany. We took an Intercity fast train via Cologne instead of the shorter direct route because we wanted to go along the Rhine river, through the gorge with the steep hills and castles.

That Sunday afternoon, the train from Hamburg, Germany, to Basel, Switzerland, was well booked, so we trecked through several cars towards the front. Our backpacks were pretty big, and we wanted a bit of space. Eventually, we arrived at one compartment that had only two seat reservation slips for the window seats, with only one person in the compartment at the time.
Perfect. We opened the door, said hi, got a very brief "Tag" instead of a full "Guten Tag" back and made ourselves at home.
The only occupant at the window was reading a copy of the German weekly Der Spiegel, and we chatted, held hands and enjoyed the passing countryside and towns. At first, there were lots of  Dutch lookalike brick houses, and meadows with black and white cows, then came the darker Ruhr industrial area.
We caught a glimpse of the cathedral in Cologne, a magnificent structure right next to the main train station, then came Bonn, the quaint German capital at the time, and soon we were in the narrow river valley heading south.

The next stop was Koblenz, and the thing that struck us was how many soldiers were at the station, at least every other person was in uniform and many in civilian clothes were schlepping military duffle bags. Koblenz was a major German military town then, some 100 000 residents and 60 000 military in and around town. 

When we had been deciding on the compartment, I had checked the reservation slips. One said Hamburg to Basel, that was presumably the middle aged, heavy set man at the window. The other said Koblenz to Basel, so I began to wonder who'd show up, kind of hoping for someone, let's say, easy on the eyes.

The person who took that seat was a male in his early to mid thirties, slender, blue jeans, shirt, a jeans jacket, military haircut and military composure. He had a plain dark blue canvas gym bag and an older imitation leather suitcase. He put the suitcase in the overhead baggage rack across from me, next to my big backpack. Then he sat down in the seat reserved Koblenz to Basel and took a book out of the canvas bag.

It was a German edition of the 1975 book "The Eagle Has Landed", the publishing house in big letters on the spine told me it was a German edition. The river was now just a two lane road away from the train, and it was pretty, even on this overcast day.

The compartment door opened and a conductor appeared, "tickets please". Since we were closest to the door, we handed him ours first. "ID please", the conductor said.
That's when I noticed the Koblenz arrival flinch. It was over in the blink of an eye, but I was on it. 
As we handed our IDs to the conductor so he could check, because we were traveling on this special discount pass requiring ID if requested, the officer relaxed and got his regular style ticket out, as did the older man in the other window seat.

The conductor closed the compartment door and removed the paper reservation slips from the braces near the top of the door. Removing the two slips meant he was satisfied the people who had reserved the seats were now occupying them. As I turned back toward my girlfriend, I noticed a short shoe lace wrapped carefully and tied in a knot around the handle of the imitation leather suitcase in the baggage rack.

We had about an hour to Frankfurt, and I was getting busy checking out the two men, now that my curiosity was in overdrive. The older one was wearing a suit, not too formal, not too casual, well used, just a little behind the times. Since it was a rather cool October, he had a coat too. And once I scrutinized the coat, it looked East German, the pattern, the cut, nothing big, but the whole thing said made in East Germany to me.

I did my scrutinizing under the guise of checking out the scenery and made sure to keep a conversation about castles and hills going with my girlfriend.

A few minutes later, the military male got up, put his book into the canvas bag, put on his jacket, slung the bag over his shoulder, and left the compartment. The suitcase stayed in the overhead rack. At that moment, I was sure he would not be back. There was no reason to take the gym bag if he needed a bathroom break, and the restaurant car was in the opposite direction in which he headed.

Almost an hour later, as we pulled into Frankfurt main station, his seat was still empty, it was just use three, two kids and the Der Spiegel reader with the East German air about him.

On the light rail leading away from the train station, I was all excited and bubbly. I was so sure I had witnessed a drop, that exchange of stuff between spies.

My girlfriend, of course, told be that my imagination was running wild. So, I was a good boy, and shut up.

Three years later, my girlfriend had moved on, and I had, too. On a sunny day in the Spring of 1985, I was at a conference. It was a NATO military event that took place on a German military installation. At the meet and greet, a German colonel took as around to introduce us to the German attendants. At some point, the colonel pointed at a German captain and said: "And this is Captain Mueller**, our S2, who joined us from Koblenz a few months ago." You know, the S2 is the intelligence guy.

I shook hands with the man I had seen on the Intercity train a few years earlier. I was so tempted to slip a reference to The Eagle Has Landed into our brief exchange of greetings, but decided against it.

Are you sure of this?

Yes, I learned a lot about myself that moment, and I could give you numerous later events, all different, yet confirming this very odd side of me.

Did he recognize you?

Not really. It was much harder for him because I looked quite different. Though, in the military, good face recognition is more widespread than in civilian lives, because we look so similar in uniform. I do believe to this day, I saw a little flicker in his eyes, a reflection of the feeling you may have met someone before but you have no idea where or when.

I never read The Eagle Has Landed, by the way.


* The style of this introduction is courtesy of the Cohen brothers.
** Not his real name.