13. August 1961 construction of the Berlin wall began. On friedrichstraße one of eight inner-city border was transitions. Today, Checkpoint Charlie is a special place of remembrance.
The Boy, he comes from India, is to the right of the reddish-brown Band from the paving stones, his father, on the left side. They shake hands, laughing into the camera, the mother presses on the shutter button. A photo to remember the visit to Berlin and to a road junction, to the German post-war compressed history in a remarkable way: Here, where Frederick of the room and the road cross each other, was until 1990 the most famous border crossing point within the divided city, the so-called Checkpoint Charlie.
Much of what stood here, has disappeared. Also, the wall, the GDR and East-Berlin from 13. August 1961 until 9. November 1989 hermetically from the West part of the city has been cordoned off. Only the Band is made of reddish-brown paving stones, on which the Indian Boy and his father so, of course, the Hand have passed, today marks your history. Also the guard house of the Western allies in the middle of the Friedrichstrasse was removed shortly after the fall of the wall. Today it is located in the allied Museum in Berlin-Dahlem.
View from the American sector at the Checkpoint Charlie in the early ‘ 60s
The authentic site has to be content with a copy, the on 13. In August 2000, a white shed with speakers, lights and a sign “US Army Checkpoint” on the roof and a sand – bag barricade was inaugurated in front of the door. The bags are filled for reasons of durability and stability with concrete, because as soon as a Tourist leaves the Area without placing yourself behind them for a photo.
Story to Take away
Berlin get lost here quite a bit. For tourists from all over the world, but the Checkpoint Charlie is one of the main attractions of the city. You come to the place with the underground, E-scooters and Sightseeing buses and populate the livelong day, this curious Melange of history workshop and Carnival.
Tourist in front of the Open-Air gallery at Checkpoint Charlie
A wind slate fence must serve as a movable wall of an Open-Air gallery. In a few words, and with angegilbten images where it is told how the victorious allied powers in 1945, Germany in zones of occupation divided to change as tensions between the French, the British and Americans on the one hand, and the Russians came, on the other hand, as the FRG and the GDR were founded, and that the leadership of the GDR on 13. August 1961, the border to West Berlin abriegelte.
So it goes up to the Opening of this border on 9. November 1989, and ends with the so-called wall woodpeckers, the cocky beaten pieces from the useless that has become the wall. Such pieces can be provided with a alleged certificate of authenticity, right next door to the Kiosk to buy from 6.99 euros a piece. Also in the offer: wall post card, Berlin-magnet and reprints of Newspapers from the Fate of 1961 and 1989.
Souvenirs: the main thing is, anything with a wall reference
In the neighboring black box Café Sandwiches are on the map, the “American Mousetrap” hot or “4 Sectors”. And opposite a pretty Selfie-subject: an original wall segment, broken from the wall woodpeckers. You simply get in the gap, smiles and someone pull the trigger already. A Chinese tour group amused themselves splendidly. Suddenly, all of the sniff. What smells so weird? Resolution: a column of the original trabants seam on the room road with tourists at the wheel and spreads the stink of the DDR-two-stroke engine.
Toy trabants – also a gift
That is followed by the souvenir shops, it goes to the wall Museum, which tells in small crowded spaces with panels of text, images, Videos, and Original exhibits, “the whole story” – where the escape from the GDR in suitcases, converted cars, through tunnels and across the Baltic sea takes a lot of extra space. This Museum is one of the most visited in the city, it costs 14.50 Euro entry and of course has a large Museum shop, where there are Caps, T-Shirts, mugs, bags, and umbrellas all on anything with the wall of the reference print.
A view over the wall
The street in front of the output means after Rudi Dutschke, the legendary leader of the West Berlin student movement that suffered in an assassination attempt in April 1968, a severe brain injury. Berlin was walled in. Particularly, a part of Kreuzberg with the wall affected, at the same three pages. In the shadow of Punks, musicians, artists, and students in cars castles and occupied houses and lived peak alternatively. The division had become normal, they had arranged with the state.
As we looked at diagonally opposite the wall Museum. The artist Yadegar Asisi has built one of his famous panoramas: In the foreground is the run-down Kreuzberg’s streets, a stone’s throw of several meters wide “death strip” away with the border fortifications. Compressed normality of the divided city.
Watch the Video 04:25 Parts
The wall panorama in Berlin
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The wall panorama in Berlin
One can tell a lot, Michael Hartmann, Ex-Punk photographer, and one of three contemporaries from the East – and West Berlin, with whom you can go now, even in those years. A new attraction for August of this unusual journey into the past.
Bus tour to East Berlin
Under a Virtual-Reality goggles, guests of the TimeRide can immerse yourself-take a Look in the room street in the East Berlin of the 80s – after you get with the help of short Videos, and the memories of the time witnesses a glimpse of life in the divided city. Then you have to decide: Who commented on the final virtual time travel? The Pankow tiler Harry Liedeke, the East Berlin-based designer Elke Makowski or the cross-Berger, Michael Hartmann? The reconstructed 80s-Bus, one with VR goggles and headphones, place, not, of course, really. But the delusion is almost perfect: the engine starts, the vehicle los rumbles, and you can hear Harry’s, Elkes, or Michael’s comments.
In the virtual Bus: a journey through East Berlin
Via the border crossing at Checkpoint Charlie to East Berlin, to sächselnden border guards and young pioneers passing over the Gendarmenmarkt to the Parking lot next to the Palace of the Republic. And here you are again, them, where, today, tourists go on Safari through Berlin. Glasses, and immediately you are back in the present. For the first time for a drink. On the former death strip. In the no-man’s land of the Cold war, Charlie’s Beach Bar to enjoy Food, Drinks, and Chill Out. Under the palm trees, with loungers and sandy beach.