A crocodile goes ashore out of the water of the Spree behind the Berlin German Reichstag. It is creeping slowly further on till it arrives at the visitors’ queue in front of the German Reichstag... It is said that this crocodile has been seen the days before in the catacombs under the airport of Tempelhof. The crocodile then disappears in the water in the direction of the Havel again.

Two Soviet tanks drive up for the German Reichstag a few days later. They are accompanied by a truck obviously got away by them. They succeed in getting hold of the soldier from Brecht’s "Legend of the Dead Soldier". This soldier has been wandering about Berlin since his transportation to the city in 1990.

The tanks go on with the truck with the German soldier, who is obviously not dead, lying on the trailer to the nearby situated Soviet memorial, then further on to the former building of the Allied Control Council, and then out of the town in the direction of Potsdam....

An allied World War bomber appears over Potsdam in the same evening. Air-raid precautions alarm is sounding and the sky anti-aircraft gun headlights are shining. However, the bomber throws off only leaflets which point to the events of the next day.

An allied World War bomber appears over Potsdam in the same evening. Air-raid precautions alarm is sounding and the sky anti-aircraft gun headlights are shining. However, the bomber throws off only leaflets which point to the events of the next day.

The Soviet tanks with the truck and the German soldier are waiting on the Glienicker bridge. The four inspect him, the convoy starts to move in the direction of Potsdam with the jeep of the four on top. Two women, one after the other, will draw the border in the midst of the bridge.

The crocodile is appearing again now from the West Berlin bushes at the bank of the Havel near by the Glienicker bridge. It pauses in front of the border on the bridge until the convoy and the spectators are out of sight. It then crawls over the line ...

The four from the USA, Great Britain, France and the USSR are intending to bury the German soldier near by the no longer existing garrison church in Potsdam. When he is under the earth, the crocodile will be approaching.

How will the four react?

tsb, September 2005

The project will be the continuation of another one: the scenic depiction of Bertolt Brecht's "Legend of the Dead Soldier" on the battlefield of Verdun, the military cemetery in Bitburg, on the Rhine and in the then capital, Bonn. A fallen German soldier is dug up and declared fit for military action, and this is taking place again and again, till he climbs into his own grave in Bonn. He remained there only one year, however, and in the course of German unification he was brought to Berlin where he is wandering around since then.

At the present project at first the "dead soldier" lies on the stairs of the German Reichstag in Berlin. He then shall be brought in and laid out there. Brecht's daughter Hanne Hiob would read out loud the poem of her father. In the meantime black dressed gentlemen would have been driving up in front of the German Reichstag with two Soviet tanks and a truck. They would walk into the German Reichstag, a Russian soldier song would be sung, and the gentlemen would take the "dead soldier" away with them and take him to the Cecilienhof where the Potsdam agreement has been concluded in 1945.

During the night the air-raid precautions sirens would be heard in Potsdam, and anti-aircraft headlights would light the sky. A British bomber would appear over the town, but differently than in the night of April 14th, 1945, it would not drop any bombs but pieces of paper on which the events of the next day will be announced.

The next day the "dead soldier" in the Cecilienhof will be taken in custody by the representatives of the four belligerent powers (France, Great Britain, the USSR and the USA) and brought to the place in Potsdam where the garrison church once stood, and where in today's time an imitation of the carillon of the garrison church can be heard. He would be buried again there. The four then go to the former British airport of Gatow in Berlin and fly away with the British bomber.

Everybody may have one's own thought about these events. The action contains many spectacular highlights: the appearance in the German Reichstag, the convoy with the Soviet tanks, the funeral of a live person, the take-off in Gatow. However, the most spectacular one will be the night in Potsdam which with the British bomber reminds of the destruction of the town at the end of the last World War.

It is intended that the action will take place on the occasion of the 61st anniversary of the defeat of Hitler fascism, May 2006.

Thomas Schmitz-Bender

December 2003