Berlin Wall

I remember watching the Berlin Wall coming down on TV when I was younger, and not really understanding the significance. I couldn’t get my head around a city being divided and how that worked in practice.

By Checkpoint Charlie, there are hoardings up on the streets with photos and information about the Wall and the successful and failed attempts to breach it. I was amazed at how narrow the actual wall was – I had imagined it to be as thick as a rampart so that people could march upon it.

Only a few minutes walk away, you can see a section of the original Wall on Niederkirchnerstraße, which is now part of the “Topography of Terror” museum. It looks very drab, grey and quite ordinary. But upon closer inspection, you can see all the marks made by tools where Berliners must have chipped away the top layer of graffiti as souvenirs in the days just after the Wall fell.

The berlin wall was pretty cool, definitley go in the Museum am Checkpoint Charlie :]

Bottom line, the wall failed its mission. But what stories of escape, confrontation, separation, reunification over the 28 years of existence. Fascinating.

And how clever that now one can follow the path of the wall through Berlin as it is marked by a line of bricks in the pavement, across sidewalks, etc. with small plaques reading, “Berliner Mauer 1961-1989.”

This is a must see- place you must go to before you die.
The paintings on the wall are so well created. But please, if you go there don’t grafitti the wall- Show some respect.

I was stationed in Berlin in 70-71. At that time it was a party town. Germany has a draft but anyone living in Berlin was not subject to it at the time (the wall was still up) Hence every freak in Germany lived there. I was in awe of the war damage that was still quite apparent. We didn’t have aircraft at the base but every antenna twirled!

My husband received orders for Berlin right after we were married. We spent three years there and I was always told, while I was there, that when you leave, you always take home a souvenir. It was either a cuckoo clock or a baby. I must have taken too long to buy the clock because I brought home a baby boy! LOL

We were there when the country was still divided and were very fortunate to still be there when the wall finally came down! It was an awesome experience and changed my whole outlook on how great our country really is!

Been here before and after Germany´s reunification. It shudders me to think about the Berlin Wall.

It is worth visiting because of the history associated with the wall. However, it’s disappointing that they haven’t taken better care of the wall. In particular the East Side Gallery, the longest open air gallery in the world, is covered with graffiti. It’s horrible to think that there are people out there who think “I wuz ‘ere” is worth scribbling on this important piece of history. Cannot they not cover it with a piece of perspex or something?

Such a blend of history and human emotion. Guards armed in watch towers, crosses remembering those who didn’t make their escape, families and a city split, but now rejoined and reborn. Now the wall is, among other things, the site of a museum, a car dealership and a shopping mall.

Absolutely incredible. A symbol of… well of the failure of communism, the cruelty and futility of totalitarianism, Berlin’s bizarre and extreme past and how it came through it to be such a vibrant and creative city now. Anyone who ever studied Lenin, Trotsky and Marx in high school and thought it sounded like a good idea needs to come here. And everyone else, really.