TIme for a bit of History!

[lsemmens]

The site should be heritage listed give what it represented!

[LeroyPatrol]

I still find pics like this incredible. It really wasn't that long ago.

[gordon_s1942]

How incredible that story is and I am all for this being kept for as long as possible before it eventually falls to bits.
For me here in OZ, I have no real concept of just what the building of the Berlin Wall meant to those who lived on either side of it.
Of course I knew about the Air lift when the Russians closed the land access to Berlin but as a kid, it was just on a film I saw at the Newsreels.
I remember the Hungarian Uprising and one Saturday afternoon, seeing pictures in a shop window at Katoomba calling for support for the victims as the Tanks rolled in and 'Order' restored.

I saw the reports when the Russians began building the Wall and wondered was this to be the trigger for the much expected confrontation between EAST and WEST, ie WW3 ?

Like many I was utterly astounded when news came through that the Berlin Wall was about to be opened but I didnt believe it and possible until I saw the gates open and those on the EAST come pouring through !!!
I fully expected to see Russian Troops being sent to close it up and regain dominance but as the hours passed, the crowds flowed freely through and then began the demolition of the Wall itself......

Yes, this place should be kept and its builder commemorated.
And his descendants today should be proud of him, I know if he was my relative I would be.

[trash]

Berlin used to be an exciting and interesting place. It was alive because it was considered to be the last place to exist before WW3. While East Germany was a strange and dead place. It was like World War 2 hadn't ended.
I always remember it as a sad place. I've spent some time in the USSR and Russia etc after. Even they seemed more alive than East Germany.

During the 90's it was amusing to hear people from both East and West say, "I wish they'd put the wall back up!"
My response was, "If they did, which side do you want to be on?" I last saw Berlin in 1999 and by then almost all of the wall had disappeared. You could still see some sections and sections of no mans land. But I was rather shocked to see Checkpoint Charlie had been basically reduced to a street corner version of Disneyland. My old folks visited Germany last year and the pictures I saw I do not recognise it. It has no soul, it's now just a lifeless street in Berlin. The same street in East Germany had more character than it does now.

The closest thin you can get to this now is North Korea.

So for anybody who is going to Berlin I would say when you get to checkpoint charlie, have a look at tourists who understand nothing about the cold war.
Slap yourself on the head and take a walk down the street and go and find the Checkpoint Charlie museum. It's about the closest you can get to the old East Germany.

[LeroyPatrol]

I was there in 1996 and visited the Checkpoint Charlie museum. I remember all the bullet holes in the walls of buildings (I'd have photo's somewhere) and was recently told most of that ww2 damage is gone. I have chunks of Berlin Wall that I chipped off with a long steel pole. I remember Asian tourists taking pics of me doing it lol.

[Uncle Fester]

I partly grew up there.

1961 My German born Father brought us to Berlin.
I was too young to remember that but he told me that they panicked after a "wall" of barbed wire guarded by the East German Army suddenly appeared overnight.
We were on the west side but still nobody knew what was going to happen, maybe another blockade?
It was East Germany's decision to build the wall, Russia didn't have that much to do with it.
Anyhow my parents decided that we would be on the next ship back to Australia.

Then we came back to Berlin in 1970.
That I can remember. We also ended up in Kreuzberg.
This was a unique spot to experience the Wall. We moved into freshly built modern style appartments, less than 2km from the Turkish 'Getto'. Right wing Germans despised and ridiculed them,
but they were hard working Guest-Workers as they called them back then, who also helped grow the German economy and probably built these moderen, central heated, fairly luxury high rises with fantastic views, also of the wall if you looked hard enough.
I just loved roaming around as a kid with my bike because there were still spots with more or less untouched ruins from bombed buildings.
I would find bullets, old radios and all sorts of junk but unfortunately my parents wouldn't let me collect it but I kept some small stuff secretly and also had a stash hiding spot
so I would trade stuff with other kids.
I could hop on the S-Bahn (an old city train) and ride right through the East any time and come out again. It didn't stop in the East
but it felt magically eerie, because I often wondered what would happen if it did stop and NOT come back out again and I would be stuck there.
As kids we all knew of course what happened to the people who tried to get back from the East to the West.
However we felt all free and unrestricted. My parents were not worried that I walked 20minutes in the dark from the more lower end of the town back along an unlit water channel home every night when I visited my friend.
I would sometimes go to the biggest Disco Eden in Berlin with my friends and head bang to the Faith Healer from the Alex Harvey Band.
We were 13y/o. Nobody asked for proof of age. My ears would still be ringing the next day, the sound system was that powerful.

Later we moved to Cologne so I didn't experience directly the fall of the wall but there were big parties nonetheless.
More interesting was when my work then brought me fairly soon to the East. It was like a country that was frozen all these years, could finally thaw out and come back to life.
There was an exciting pioneer feeling, experiencing at all the ancient industry and technology. The whole place was like a museum to me.
For example you would see an old steam engine standing around. I stopped my car got out and climbed all over it. Nobody cared.
Dresden and the Technology museum, the clock museum and every other museum in that historic place was insane and all so quiet
and nobody to stop me from climbing all over the exhibits.

And up north on the coast the harbour and industrial areas of Rostok was partly like a ghost town. All these cranes, machines and trains just standing around doing almost nothing.
The people were extremely friendly and welcoming. I would stay in nice big homes that were modified to accommodate guests for ridiculously low prices and fantastic food.
However I quickly found out that many people only actively worked 2 hours a day.
In one hospital where I was installing my systems I could not find anybody at all from the tech department.
I finally found my way up to the elevator motor room in the attic and there they all were, smoking and have a few drinks. After a few
hours I managed to get away with the keys I needed for the area I needed to work in.
I had to stay another night


This all changed a few years later when things started to equalise. The super friendliness and easy going attitude disappeared, so the East German assignments were not much fun anymore.

[VroomVroom]

I was there last year , took some photos of the new Checkpoint Charlie , and walked some of the old wall ( now just a row of bricks in the road ). The Trabant museum was awesome. Saw the Ministry of Finance building ( still pockmarked by bullet holes ) and saw what was left of the Jew slums.

Despite these tourist attractions im not in a rush to go back to Berlin , Thanks to Merkel there are so many reffo scum bludgers on the streets that the place is starting to look like Africa.

[admin]

I have chunks of Berlin Wall that I chipped off with a long steel pole. I remember Asian tourists taking pics of me doing it lol.

You could have just bought some on Ebay.

[LeroyPatrol]

You could have just bought some on Ebay.

not the same lol. Mine look like I got them from the concrete pile at the tip so they really don't mean anything to anyone else other than me.

[LeroyPatrol]

There was an exciting pioneer feeling, experiencing at all the ancient industry and technology. The whole place was like a museum to me.
For example you would see an old steam engine standing around. I stopped my car got out and climbed all over it. Nobody cared.
Dresden and the Technology museum, the clock museum and every other museum in that historic place was insane and all so quiet
and nobody to stop me from climbing all over the exhibits.

kinda the feeling I had at the time and enjoyed lots of the old things and ways. I met my Czech partner there in '95. Prague isn't quite the same now.