This is where Anthony Burgess and (it is speculated) a German girlfriend or pick-up entered the capital of the German Democratic Republic. Not the least of the indignities suffered by the (it is speculated) lovers is the prohibition on smoking on the station platform. This evidently rankled Burgess considerably. The freedom to smoke 80 a day was, to him, inalienable. He writes: 'I crossed over on a summer Saturday. I was with a girl from Hamburg....I took the S-Bahn with her to Friedrichstraße where foreigners had to wait long and unsmoking, prodded by beardless boys in uniform....Under the roof of the Friedrichstraße S-Bahn platform two boys with submachine-guns paced, their eyes on potential refugees from communist prosperity.' (from 'You've Had Your Time')

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