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The Wall and I
Date: 11/11/2009 Album ID: 886609
Photos by Brian Hughes
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News Bulletin writer Brian Hughes has had several visits to Berlin, including before and after The Wall came tumbling down. These photos are from trips he took in July 1985, August 1990 (six weeks before Germany reunified) and May 2003. Read the story here.
July 4, 1985: A fading sign reading Attention! You are leaving West Berlin stands in front of the Berlin Wall, on which graffiti demands, Russia: Get out of Afghanistan. The area in front of the Brandenburg Gate, which technically was the border between east and west, has been usurped by the Wall.
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July 4, 1985: Memorials those who lost their lives trying escape over the Wall stand within sight of an East German watch tower. In the background, left of the drab blocky building, is the famous TV tower
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July 4, 1985: My friends Paul and Jeremy Leonard, from Dallas, prepare to cross Checkpoint Charlie into East Berlin. Paul was detained for having subversive literature, which he was compelled to surrender.
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July 4, 1985: I stand at the intersection of what was once one of Europe's most fashionable cross streets, Unter den Linden and Charlottenstrasse. Note how the disco ball of the TV tower forms a cross of peace over the city when the sun strikes it. East German authorities reportedly were outraged when they discovered the engineer, whose family had escaped to the West, had worked the feature into his design.
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July 4, 1985: On the western side of the Berlin Wall. The Brandenburg Gate is in the background, along with one of the many watchtowers on the eastern side.
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July 4, 1985: The Soviet Battle of Berlin victory monument, made of stonework from Hitler's Chancellory. The Soviets, to gain a foothold into West Berlin, deliberately built it several blocks into the British zone, claiming they were confused in the hectic aftermath of the war. Every day for decades a Royal Army guard unit marched the Soviet honor guard into their zone so they could stand their lonely watch at the memorial. The British blocked off the memorial from visitors by chainlink fence.
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Aug. 25, 1990: I now entered East Berlin unchallenged, and for DM 10 (about $6.35 at the time) I rented a hammer and chisel from the entrepreneurial East German gentleman on the right and was able to take a few whacks at The Wall of my own. (Actually, this was the inner wall. The outer wall fell more than 11 months earlier.)
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Aug. 25, 1990: The inner Berlin Wall was almost entirely destroyed by the time I got to see it. Graffiti had been added only after the outer wall fell, as this wall was well inside the East Berlin zone, forming a no-man's-land between the two walls.
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Aug. 25, 1990: Unthinkable even a few months before, four Volks Polizei (Peoples' Police) officers cheerfully posed with me next to their silly little Soviet-made Lada squad car. (It was made using old Italian Fiat body molds!) The officers joked about Komeradschaft--camaraderie--as they grinned for the camera. In six weeks they would be jobless as the Volks Polizei was disbanded.
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Aug. 25, 1990: Only a scar on the pavement indicates where The Wall wended its way toward the Reichstag in the background. Here it was transformed into a bustling free enterprise zone as East Berliners hawked chunks of The Wall, East German flags, badges and uniform parts, and other souvenirs of a country that in six weeks would cease to exist.
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Aug. 25, 1990: A TV crew videotapes an East Berliner selling hunks of the Berlin Wall in the former no-man's-land between the inner and out walls. His little car is a Trabant, affectionately called a Trabie, the East German answer to the Volkswagen Bug.
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Aug. 25, 1990: In this end-on view of what's left of the inner Berlin Wall, you can easily see the huge amount of real estate that East Berlin devoted to keeping its people imprisoned. On the right is the no-man's-land that was patrolled by armed guards and fierce dogs. The white poles indicate where the outer wall stood. In the background, left, is the Reichstag, which has become the seat of the two houses of government for a reunited Germany.
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Aug. 25, 1990: Contrast this view of the Soviet Battle of Berlin victory monument to the picture from 1985. People can now get closer to the monument; close enough, in fact, for off-duty Soviet guards, in a burst of capitalistic fervor, to be selling bits of their uniforms to passersby through the fence to the right of the plinth holding the tank, yet out of view of their comrades who are standing guard duty.
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Aug. 25, 1990: Memorials to those who lost their lives trying to cross to the West no longer stood next to the now-demolished wall. Contrast this photo with the one I snapped in 1985 from the other side.
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May 2003: Traffic now flows freely through the freshly restored Brandenburg Gate. The square in front of the gate was blocked off for nearly three decades by the wall. (See the photo from 1985.)
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May 2003: People strolling through the Tiergarten park can now walk right up to the Soviet Battle of Berlin victory monument, which no longer has fences or barricades around it, nor an honor guard of Russian troops.
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