One of the most iconic things that Berlin is known for, is definitely the Berlin Wall. It was operational between 1961 and 1989, dividing the city into East and West Berlin. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors established in 1945, and it was a political enclave (a territory, or a part of a territory, that is entirely surrounded by the territory of one other state) of the Federal Republic of Germany or Bundesrepublik Deutschland in German. The Eastern part of the city, East Berlin, was the capital of the German Democratic Republic (Deutsche Demokratische Republik in German, or DDR for short), which was controlled by the Soviet Union at the time.
The Berlin Wall itself was over 150km long guarded concrete barrier, with 186 observation towers and 20 bunkers guarding it, to prevent any possible illegal crossings of the Wall or the border, mostly from the Eastern part to the West. Even with all the security measures, around 5000 people successfully defected to West Berlin. But unfortunately, there were also quite a lot of unsuccessful attempts, resulting in people getting killed during the attempts. The official number of people killed was 98, although a research group from Potsdam has later on confirmed at least 140 deaths. Some people also claim that the actual death toll of the Wall is well over 200, but those numbers, as of yet, are not confirmed, and who knows if they ever will be.
For the people that wanted to cross the border legally, there were nine border crossings along the Wall, each of those having restrictions who can cross the border at which crossing. Some crossings were meant for Eastern Germans, some of them for West Germans and West Berliners and so on. One of the most famous crossings is the Checkpoint Charlie vehicle and pedestrian crossing, where only Allied personnel and foreigners were allowed to cross.
These days, you can walk right past the former border crossing, with two impersonators being dressed in the American soldiers’ uniforms, and you can have a few photos taken with them for a symbolic price. The crossing, as you can see above, is in the middle of the street, and if you look at the left side of the photo, people don’t really pay attention to the traffic, even though it’s a fully functional city street. To be honest, when I saw people standing on the road, I also thought it was a closed street, meant only to represent what the crossing looked like back in the day, but a few moments later I was pulled back onto the sidewalk, because of the cars driving past the Checkpoint. Not far from the former crossing, you can also find the Mauermuseum – Museum Haus am Checkpoint Charlie, along with the Mauermuseum Shop, with the Checkpoint and the Wall memorabilia. We only wandered into the Shop to see what they had to offer, and with the limited amount of time that we had, we decided not to go into the museum, and leave another thing to go on the list for the next time. 🙂
At first, while we were still there, the place that intrigued me the most was the section of the Wall at the East Side Gallery. The East Side Gallery was one of the places that people told me it is a must-see spot related to the Wall, so that’s also why I’ve focused on it the most. Of course, after almost 30 years since the fall of the Wall, the surrounding areas changed quite significantly, but you still get that eerie feeling of what it was like when the city was divided, at least I did.
Pretty recently, in 2016, the city of Berlin also opened a museum, called the Wall Museum, in a former warehouse next to the remains, showcasing the history of the Wall, from the beginnings of its construction to all the historic events that led to the fall of the Wall. As I’ve said before, we got to the East Side Gallery pretty early, well, at 9 in the morning it wasn’t that early for us anymore, but still too early for the museum to be open, so we didn’t even have to think whether we were going to visit it or not.
These days, when I’m looking back on everything that we’ve seen on the trip, especially everything related to the Wall because of this post, I’ve realized that even though the East Side Gallery site IS important, and I would still suggest it to everyone as a place to see, you get to see much more at the Berlin Wall Memorial along Bernauer Straße. There, you can actually see the recreation of what the border line between the East and the West looked like, as you can see below.
Just a few minutes away from the Memorial, there’s also a park dedicated to the Wall in that area called Mauerpark, where, these days, you can find a flea market, there are karaoke nights going on as well, or you can just relax in the park during a lovely day. Unfortunately, we didn’t go to the park, so I couldn’t tell you more about it, but that’s another place that’s going on the next visit’s list. 😀
With such a monumental structure, which the Berlin Wall undoubtedly was, you can find the path where the Wall stood, somewhere it even still stands, all around the city. At some places, it is literally just a brick path on the ground, while in some places, they decided to put up buildings over the line, making it look like the border went through those buildings, but they were all built or rebuilt after the Wall came down. You can see the example of that on the photo below, which I took at the Leipziger Platz, right next to the famous Potsdamer Platz.
The last place for this post that I’d like to mention was also one of the most important ones for us to see on the trip, especially for my dad. It’s the Friedrichstraße Bahnhof station, which was the only station where people could get from one part of the city to the other via railway networks. The East German authorities back then set up a checkpoint/border crossing there, which quickly got the name the Palace of Tears (or Tränenpalast), and that’s also where my dad crossed the border several times while he was in the city all those years ago.
As I’ve said before, the Berlin Wall was such a big structure that you can find the remains all over the city, in many different forms. So if I would’ve included each and every single place we’ve visited, or just seen on the streets, this post could’ve been two- or maybe three-times as long, as I left a number of things out. Even so, it is much longer than I first thought it was going to be, especially in the beginning when I almost couldn’t find the right words to get it going. 😀 But for now, let that be all, regarding the Berlin Wall, and I wish you happy reading of my other posts, until the next time I decide to share something with you. 🙂
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