Tourist trap and memorial: What is Checkpoint Charlie?

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A visit to Berlin without the Checkpoint Charlie for many tourists is unthinkable. However, the historic site of German division the ghosts. Now a new concept is discussed.

At the Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin in 1961 tanks faced off after the wall was built, he was a world-famous Symbol of the German division. Today, visitors can understand the importance of the former Border checkpoint at Friedrichstrasse. 57 years after the construction of the wall, and 28 years after her case, the place is a magnet for winter tourists. Original remnants of the GDR-border regime on the temporarily acting Area.

All Show Checkpoint Charlie as the instagram backdrop

The story, or commercial?

A downstream control structures barracks of the U.S. Army posing in the wrong soldiers with American Flag, paying three Euro for a photo. A sign warns as before: “you are now leaving the American sector.” A copy, the Original is in the private checkpoint Charlie Museum, a few metres away. In addition, the rotunda of the artist Yadegar Asisi the Panorama that represents a day in divided Berlin. A few more steps to The Shack “curry sausage and French fries feil”. A street vendor tries to gas masks and military caps to get rid of. And “Charlie’s Beach” invites you to “Chill out”.

360° Panorama of the wall of the artist Yadegar Asisi at Checkpoint Charlie

As a “counterpoint to the banalization” of the Berlin Senate, a Black-Box, which informs you about the Cold war. Framed, the Area of display boards with historical photos and explanations. “The place of a clear design concept is missing for 28 years”, complains the Director of the Berlin wall Foundation Axel Klaus Meier. Others speak of a kind of “Disneyland”, 200 meters from the memorial for the executed victims of the Berlin wall Peter Fechter. Dissatisfied with the state of the Berlin Senate. “As the Checkpoint Charlie today and experienced is used, it is a place that attracts masses of visitors, but in its provisional design and mainly tourist use of very ambiguous is evaluated, said city development Senator Katrin Lompscher (Left).

Urgently wanted: a concept

Now the policy and a private Investor wants to build, switch to the Area after a number of Owners have agreed on key points for the design. Accordingly, the extent of the border crossing point is to be in the future, “the urban space with free surfaces”. Shall also be established in a new building to a Museum as an “education and remembrance”. The opposition CDU, speaks of “secret agreements”, the Foundation’s Director, Klaus Meier, however, of a “great collective effort” of the Senate and the Investor. The Chance to explain the historical Dimension of the place are not appropriate, move in closer and closer. The Foundation developed a concept for the Museum. When it was built and opened, is still open.

The Checkpoint Charlie, recorded in the late 1980s

And where was the wall?

A few weeks after the wall was built in August 1961, the world holds its breath. At the Checkpoint driving on 27. In October 1961 American and Soviet tanks. 16 hours, the super face powers with live ammunition frontal only feet away from each other. It was one of the most dangerous moments of the Cold war. From the match would quickly can a new war be. The GDR built the Checkpoint Charlie to the fortress-like bulwark. Only for foreigners, diplomats and allied military personnel were able to the urban seam to pass between East and West.

Today, tourists from all over the world are glued to display boards or can be of travel guides in the time of the division. Many people want to see “The Wall” and are disappointed. The strips of plaster in the ground, traces the course of the wall, is not perceived by many. “Here the wall was? Wow, I hadn’t thought of that,” says the 26-year-old Amira from the U.S. state of North Carolina. Pietro Lensi (54) Italy missing remains of the wall and a memorial to the court: “you should do differently here.” Lucy Gilcrest (32) from England: “An impressive place, but pretty touristy.” Original Berlin wall at the Bernauer Strasse? No, all three of them have not even heard of.

History made visible

In fact, it is difficult to see evidence of the division in Berlin. In the euphoria after the fall of the Berlin wall, large parts of the monstrous concrete walls were demolished office towers and signal installations, shredded or sold. Land – part of which in a Prime city centre location – went to private investors. The Reflection came later.

Overlooked by many – is a double-row strips of plaster marked the former

Except for the Berlin wall memorial at Bernauer Strasse, the East Side Gallery and the wall section at the Martin-Gropius-Bau to the memory locations and the Checkpoint Charlie. The planned Museum of the history of the Cold war, is the last outstanding project of the Berlin-based approach to the wall of remembrance, which focuses on decentralized memorial Orte. The Foundation’s Director, Klaus Meier in front of the Checkpoint in the future as a “networked place”. From here could be referred to other places in the division’s history. Finally, Berlin was “the greatest historical open-air Museum in the world”.
 

Stefan Kruse, Jutta Schütz (dpa)