Berlin Wall photos

[crosscountry]

I thought I'd put this in tandem with my other post. (http://bautforum.com/showthread.php?t=48459)
I thought the wall was pretty cool.

click and flip through if you like.

http://photos.crosscountryadventures.us/albums/Germany2/Berlin%20Mine/thumb_DSC09424.jpg (http://photos.crosscountryadventures.us/displayimage.php?album=68&pos=118)

[Laguna]

Nice Pictures.
Lucky you, that you found a part of the wall still standing.
Most of it was removed. And what is left is fading away quickly as the tourists take small chunks of it home as souvenir.

Is that old Checkpoint Charly?
I've never been there but my dad fled the GDR in its early days using it.
Last time I visited Berlin was in 1987. Never seen all those changes since then. :think:

You do like those little men in the traffic lights, do you?

[crosscountry]

that is Checkpoint Charlie. I talk about it a little in the link provided.

Lots of changes. I've heard that even 5 years ago Berlin was still empty as far as buildings go. Since then they have built many new ones and there is very little empty space left.

[Laguna]

Just found your blog and the comments to the pictures. So it is Checkpoint Charly.
You wondered how they were able to guard the wall.
Actually the wall was only a small part of the border. It was the western end of a 50m to 500m wide aisle.
It was guarded by 11500 men, 2300 of them per shift, and over 1000 dogs that roamed around free.
A second wall was build on the eastern side of the aisle. In between they had everything you could think of. Mines, spring guns, 302 towers that were always guarded, flood lights to make the area brighter than any soccer field, trenches, tripwires, opaque fences so you could not see what lies ahead of you, and so on ...
The guards had the strict order to open fire on any trespasser. They would shoot first and ask questions later, if possible.

The area an the eastern side near the wall was a restricted area. If they found someone there who was not allowed to be there, that person was condemned for trieing to flee the republic. 75000 people in total, even one of my relatives thet lived in eastern germany, were condemned for that reason.

[Nicolas]

that is Checkpoint Charlie. I talk about it a little in the link provided.

Lots of changes. I've heard that even 5 years ago Berlin was still empty as far as buildings go. Since then they have built many new ones and there is very little empty space left.

IMO that is not really true. I was there 5 years ago, and things were quite in order. The Sony Center was open, there were disco's, hotels, bowling halls, cinemas, in the east the high rise buildings were renovated and people lived inside. Even at that square next to the Tor they were building a new building, quite controversial at the time. The reichstag had already been renovated.

It's been a long time, I've forgotten a lot. I didn't remember the wall being so "eaten away" by tourists. Though I did remember that little of the wall in itself was left, indeed only at CC you could find the major parts. The wall's trajectory however is marked on many places.

I like the man-with-hat traffic lights, they shouldn't get rid of them! :)

[crosscountry]

well, I was only repeating what I heard. You can still see places where there are no buildings since the 40s.

and Laguna, I did hear about the other wall and the shoot first policy. It must have been terrible times.

[Nicolas]

well, I was only repeating what I heard.

I know :). Well, I could also see old TEE trains rusting away in the eastern part (probably are still there), so it doesn't surprise me that some places haven't been rebuilt/renewed yet.

I did misinterpret your statement a bit. I thought you meant the buildings were empty.

5 years ago Berlin was 1 big construction site, so it is very well possible that say up to 1 year before I was there, it was indeed still quite empty. So it will not be very far from the truth. Things such as the Sony Centre were brand new (have you been there? You should!), surrounding it everything was still being built, renovation projects were new, the reichstag was just finished, they were still working on the Tor, just started with buildings next to it, so yeah what you heard won't be far from the truth. What buildings were there were full though, and that's why I disagreed. Simple misunderstanding :).

[crosscountry]

I've been there

http://photos.crosscountryadventures.us/albums/Germany2/Berlin%20Mine/DSC09558.jpg


it is pretty neat

[farmerjumperdon]

Most of it was removed. And what is left is fading away quickly as the tourists take small chunks of it home as souvenir.


I've got one of those little chunks at home. Wife rented a hammer for a couple dollars and took a piece. I've also got some really neat pictures of grafitti that was on the western side.

[crosscountry]

yea, I bought a few peices too. they won't be here forever.

[Nicolas]

You know buying pieces is being discouraged because when too many are sold, they won't be there forever indeed...

What I liked about the Sony Centre was the spike that got the water from the roof into the fountain, and the surrounding buildings that formed huge gates. Really special place!

When I visited the Reichstag it was more open than usually, so we got to see some nice rooms there. Inside you also have some walls which they left untouched: burned black and filled with grafitti. Does show the history of the building.

[crosscountry]

wow. we didn't spend much time there; had to meet some friends.

[mugaliens]

Your pics are amazing - it makes me want to go!

[Dr Nigel]

I've only been to Berlin once, in 1987.

We had a guided tour, and visited the Checkpoint Charlie museum (which, incidentally, I would strongly recommend!). In the Potsdammerplatz (sp?) there was a scaffolding platform erected on the west side of the wall. You could go up these steps and look across the "no-go" area between the two walls. All of the buildings had been removed, but the streets and tramlines were still there. It was a haven for rabbits (apparently, the dogs did not patrol all of that area). You could also see the guard towers on the other side. They had a completely unobstructed field of fire across the whole of that middle zone.

Our guide told us many many stories of various people trying to cross the wall. For me the most poignant was this one:
All along the river that runs along part of the wall, there were these little red-and-white painted pillars (about 50-60 cm diameter, and about 1.2 m high and perhaps 100 m apart) with telephones on them. We asked out guide what they were for. Apparently, if someone fell into the river, you couldn't just jump in to rescue them. First, you had to use one of these phones to call the nearest guard tower, to tell them that someone had fallen in and you were going to try to save their life. Several years earlier, a mother had been walking along by the river, and her child fell into the water. She immediately jumped in to try and save the youngster, but the guards thought she was trying to cross the wall (not having seen the child fall in) so they shot her. After that incident, the phones were installed.

[Torsten]

Good pictures, CC.

I was in Berlin in the summer of 2005 with my kids, visiting my niece who worked there. She showed us the sights, and eventually we ended up at the East Side Gallery, where a stretch of the wall more than 1000 m long still stands. By the Oberbaumbrücke, between the wall and the Spree, there is a spot where they've made a beach of sorts, and we stopped to sit on the beach chairs and have a beer. I realized that had we been in the same spot 16 years ealier, we'd have been shot.

On that same trip we also visited Point Alpha, "the hottest spot of the Cold War", and seeing the lengths to which the communist regime went to imprison its residents was chilling.

But perhaps the most poignant image I have is of a chain link fence near the Brandenburg Gate onto which crosses have been attached bearing the names of people who died try to cross to the west. The last named was "Chris Geoffroy, 5 February, 1989". How quickly things changed that year. . . .

[crosscountry]

thanks everyone for contributing. It makes my trip more enjoyable to think back on hearing your stories too.

[Nicolas]

What I'll remember most about Berlin was staying in a renovated high rise in the east where it was over 30 degrees because the owner's parrot liked that.

There goes your cliche image of freezing cold communism blocks :).