East Berlin

At the end of the Cold War this potent symbol was eagerly dismantled. Memento seekers chiselled away much of it and entire sections ended up in museums around the world. Most of it, though, was unceremoniously recycled for use in road construction. Today little more than a mile of the Wall is left, but throughout Berlin segments, memorial sites, museums and signs commemorate this horrifying but important chapter in German history. Besides the places mentioned below, the Haus am Checkpoint Charlie also chronicles this period.
The stretch of the Berlin Wall from the Brandenburg Gate north to the Reichstag ran along Ebertstraße. Shortly after midnight of August 13, 1961 construction began on a barrier that would divide Berlin for 28 years when the first wire barrier was erected on the eastern pavement of Ebertstraße a few metres in front of the Gate. Within hours East Berliners cut the wire at several points south of the Gate and crossed into the West; photographs record groups running across the cleared ground of the former Ministergärten while border police stood in incomplete cordons. By the afternoon of the same day the barrier had been reinforced and the Gate itself sealed inside the emerging restricted zone. It was a desperate measure by an East German government on the verge of economic and political collapse to stem the exodus of its own people: 2.6 million of them had left for the West since 1949.

Euphemistically called ‘Anti-Fascist Protection Barrier’, this grim symbol of oppression stretched for 160 kilometres, turning West Berlin into an island of democracy within a sea of socialism. Continually reinforced and refined over time, its cold concrete slabs backed up against a ‘death zone’ of barbed wire, mines, attack dogs and watchtowers staffed by trigger-happy border guards. More than 5000 people attempted an escape, but only about 1600 made it across; most were captured and 191 were killed. The full extent of the system’s cruelty became blatantly clear on August 17, 1962 when 18 year old Peter Fechtner was shot during his attempt to flee and was then left to bleed to death whilst the East German guards looked on. 

 The outer wall that subsequently rose along Ebertstraße placed the entire Brandenburg Gate inside the death strip. Pariser Platz was levelled. From the Gate the fortifications continued north toward the Reichstag, whose eastern façade stood only metres from the outer wall on the West Berlin side. The full depth of the system, its outer wall, patrol road, signal fence, anti-vehicle obstacles and hinterland wall, occupied the ground between the two landmarks. Observation towers provided overlapping fields of fire across this short, highly visible sector.  Specific fatal incidents occurred on this stretch. On February 18, 1968 Elke Weckeiser and her husband Dieter attempted to cross diagonally opposite the Reichstag without equipment. Seventeen shots were fired at the first barbed-wire barrier; both were killed. On October 2, 1971 Dieter Beilig was shot dead near the Brandenburg Gate on the sector border between Tiergarten and Mitte. An earlier attempt on 19 January 1964 near the southern wing of the Gate produced warning shots and a aimed shot when a man reached the ten-metre control strip; the incident was recorded in detail by the border regiment then responsible for the sector.  Successive rebuilds altered the concrete line itself. Early block-and-wire constructions gave way to taller prefabricated panels and finally to the L-shaped Grenzmauer 75 elements topped by a smooth pipe. Each generation was installed sectionally along Ebertstraße for reasons of cost and logistics. Aerial photographs taken from helicopters in 1988 and 1989 record the final configuration: continuous outer wall, regularly spaced towers, and the cleared strip running unbroken from the Gate to the Reichstag.  The sector remained under continuous heavy guard until the opening of the Brandenburg Gate crossing on December 22, 1989. The concrete elements along Ebertstraße were among the first to be dismantled. Double rows of cobblestones set into the present pavement mark the precise former course of the outer wall from the Gate northward past the Reichstag.

My 2022 cohort where the stretch of the Berlin Wall ran from the Brandenburg Gate northward to the Reichstag followed Ebertstraße. The outer wall stood directly in front of the Gate on its western side, placing the entire structure of the Gate inside the restricted zone. Pariser Platz was cleared of buildings and incorporated into the death strip; no civilian access was possible from either side between 1961 and 1989. North of the Gate the border continued along the eastern edge of the Tiergarten and the line of Ebertstraße toward the Reichstag. The Reichstag building itself stood in West Berlin. The outer wall ran close to its eastern façade, while the Spree immediately to the east formed part of the border water obstacle. Between the Gate and the Reichstag the full depth of the fortifications occupied the intervening ground: the outer wall of successive concrete generations, a patrol road, anti-vehicle obstacles, a signal fence, and the hinterland wall further east. Successive modernisations altered this short section in the same piecemeal manner applied elsewhere. Early concrete-block and barbed-wire constructions were replaced by taller prefabricated panels; the final Grenzmauer 75 elements, L-shaped concrete units approximately 3.6 metres high topped by a smooth cylindrical pipe, were installed here as elsewhere. Observation towers stood at intervals along the patrol road, providing overlapping fields of fire across the cleared strip. The high visibility of the location required continuous manning by Grenztruppen units and produced one of the most densely equipped segments of the entire Berlin border.

My 2020 Bavarian International School senior history cohort beside the wall on Bergstraße. The church shown in the period photo was the Church of Reconciliation, completed in 1894 as an imposing brick-built building by the architect Gotthilf Ludwig Möckel, in the Gothic revival style. It received minor damage during the war, and still had a deactivated American bomb found during its reconstruction in 1999, but the church survived the war. With Berlin's division in 1945, the church building found itself within the Soviet sector, with most of the parishioners in the neighbouring French sector resulting in the Berlin Wall, constructed in 1961, running directly in front of the church on its western side and behind it on the eastern side, preventing access to everyone except the border guards, who used its tower as an observation post. The church building was destroyed in 1985 in order ‘to increase the security, order and cleanliness on the state border with West Berlin’ according to the official justification by the East German regime. Four years later in 1989, the Wall fell.  

  My students attempting to scale the wall compared to members of the border guard testing out the latest iteration of the wall in May 1974. On May 3, 1974 the National Defence Council, chaired by Erich Honecker, ordered the continued pioneer-technical expansion of the border installations. The directive required that clear fields of fire be maintained everywhere and that the existing wall in Berlin remain standing while a new barrier was erected behind it; only after the new construction was complete was the older section to be dismantled. Cost constraints meant that modernisation proceeded only in selected sectors rather than along the entire length.By this date the original 1961 structure of concrete blocks and barbed wire had already been replaced in successive stages by taller prefabricated concrete panels. The 1974 tests examined the performance of improved panel joints, smoother outer surfaces intended to hinder climbing, and the integration of the new elements with existing signal fences and observation posts. Grenztruppen units practised movement within the death strip, tested the effectiveness of the updated barriers against simulated breakthroughs, and verified that the revised layout still allowed uninterrupted observation and engagement.The evaluations formed part of the broader transition that culminated in the standardised Grenzmauer 75 system introduced the following year. That system employed L-shaped concrete elements roughly 3.6 metres high, topped by a smooth concrete pipe, and was installed progressively in the same sectional manner for reasons of expense and logistics. The May 1974 trials therefore represented an intermediate stage in the continuous, piecemeal reinforcement of the barrier that characterised its entire twenty-eight-year existence. During its 28-year existence, the wall was modernised several times, but only in sections for cost reasons. In the beginning it consisted mainly of simple stone blocks and barbed wire, later prefabricated concrete parts were lined up. In 1988, twenty of the most modern concrete wall segments, each 1.20 metres wide, cost 19,000 East German marks, about the same as a single Trabi. 

 In Bernauer Strasse, like everywhere else the wall bisected, the complete sealing off of the sector boundary from August 13, 1961 had a particularly violent impact on the everyday life of the residents. From one day to the next, they could no longer go their usual ways. Neighbours, friends and relatives were separated as the house opposite belonged to a different political system.
Even without their involvement and against their will, the residents of Bernauer Strasse became eyewitnesses and actors in post-war German history in Berlin which is why walking down this stretch of road is such a powerful, instructive experience. There were desperate people who jumped out of their apartment windows into West Berlin and paid for it with their lives. But successful escapes also took place on Bernauer Strasse. Between Schwedter and Strelitzer Strasse, the walker along Bernauer Strasse will find four panels of the Berlin Wall History Mile which mark places where escape attempts have taken place: fatal ones, like that of Ida Siekmann on August 22, 1961, spectacular ones, like that of the DDR border post Conrad Schumann mentoned below, or successful escape attempts, like that of 57 people who fell through a 140-metre-long tunnel to West Berlin.  world public was there with cameras and film cameras. Such violent destruction of everyday life caused by the construction of the Berlin Wall has left clear traces on Bernauer Strasse to this day. The former death strip between Brunnenstrasse and Gartenstrasse was not built over and has been preserved in its entire width. The open-air exhibition of the Berlin Wall Memorial is currently being built here. The Berlin Wall memorial is located roughly in the middle of this section of the border, built by the German government in 1998.

Here a remnant of the border fortifications has been preserved as part of the Berlin Wall Memorial. It comprises of a seventy metre-long section of the border fortifications in the last state of development as it existed when the wall fell. Seen from the west, behind the concrete wall made of industrially manufactured L-shaped elements is a sandy area. This is followed by the column path illuminated with lanterns, a signal fence and the hinterland wall . Barbed wire elements are not included. An associated watchtower in its original historical condition was subsequently erected within the complex. The original watchtower was removed during dismantling shortly after the fall of the Wall, before the remains of the Berlin Wall were placed under monument protection by the East Berlin magistrate on October 2, 1990. The complex cannot be entered by visitors and has been rededicated as a monument. Both ends have been closed off with steel walls. The northern wall bears the inscription: "In memory of the division of the city from August 13, 1961 to November 9, 1989 and in memory of the victims of communist tyranny. On the left is the corner of Bernauer Straße and Ackerstraße photographed in 1989 and during my 2020 Bavarian International School class trip. The wall required closing a section of Ackerstraße at the corner with that street, which fell within the "death strip." In commemoration of the Wall and those who died attempting to cross it, a portion of the main and inner walls and the "death strip" are preserved on Bernauer Straße at the corner of Ackerstraße as part of the Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer; 696 feet of the border strip along Bernauer Straße between Ackerstraße and Bergstraße were made a protected landmark on October 2, 1990 and this is now the last genuine remnant of the Wall.

Ackerstraße had earlier served as the setting for George Grosz's grisly 1916 lithograph "Lustmord in der Ackerstrasse" which depicted a woman sprawled on her bed, viciously bludgeoned with a meat hacker whilst a man washes his hands in the background. Indeed, the area was once derogatorily dubbed the "Berlin Sahara" given its pronounced poverty and asociality.

   

Looking at the site from the memorial towards the current chapel of Reconciliation.

In front of the chapel of Reconciliation, built in adobe in 2000 on the foundations of the Church of Reconciliation by 2000. It is part of the Berlin Wall Memorial. Since August 13, 2005, a fifteen minute prayer service has been held in the Chapel of Reconciliation every day from Tuesday to Friday at noon during which time the biography of a person who died at the Berlin Wall is read as part of a collaborative project between the Berlin Wall Association and the Centre for Contemporary History in Potsdam, in which historians research the biographies of Wall victims. The documentation centre itself is housed in the parish hall, which was built in 1965 to replace the inaccessible church. The construction of the Berlin Wall had made the original Church of Reconciliation, built in 1894, no longer accessible to the community in the western part of the city because it stood on the "death strip" between the inner and outer walls. My students on the right show the site then and now. The East German government finally ordered its demolition in 1985 in order to have a clear view of the border strip. After the reunification of Germany, the parish received the property back in 1995 on the condition that it be used for a religious purpose. Starting in June 1996, architects Peter Sassenroth and Rudolf Reitermann designed this unusual church building on behalf of the Evangelical Reconciliation Community. From June 1999, on the foundations of the chancel, an oval church interior was erected in rammed earth by tclay artist Martin Rauch, making the structure the first public earth building in Germany for over a century. As far as possible, materials from the Church of Reconciliation were reused in the building. The wall thickness is up to sixty centimetres with a height of seven metres and a length of 43 metres from which a total of 390 tonnes of rammed earth were processed. The rescued bells, manufactured in 1894, are hung in a belfry outside the chapel. The largest of them weighs 1300 kilogrammes and has a diameter of 150 centimetres. Two smaller bells weigh 850 and 500 kilogrammes and 130 and 110 centimetres in diametre. A walkway with seating connects the interior of the church with its surroundings. The floor plan of the Church of Reconciliation is marked around the chapel and serves as the church square. Altogether the construction costs amounted to 971,454  euros.

A number of groups were tasked with digging escape tunnels in the area, numbered for the sake of clarity. Tunnel 57, co-financed by Stern editor-in-chief Henri Nannen through the advance purchase of the exclusive rights to tunnel construction, ended in the backyard of this house at Strelitzer Strasse 55 in East Berlin. Eventually 57 refugees were able to escape from this site within two nights. After employees of the Ministry of State Security (MfS) discovered the tunnel on October 5, 1964, the East German border guard Egon Schultz was accidentally shot by a comrade whilst trying to arrest the escape helpers. The escape helpers had been armed with pistols from police stocks. When Schultz entered the courtyard at Strelitzer Straße 55 with two MfS members and machine guns at the ready, there was an exchange of gunfire, during which Schultz was shot by escape helper Christian Zobel. He fell to the ground and was accidentally shot by another East German border guard with his Kalashnikov whilst trying to get up again.

Until the fall of the Wall, the MfS described the incident as a murder by escape helper Christian Zobel, who died in the 1980s believing he had shot someone. A memorial plaque was erected in honour of Schultze on the first anniversary of his death; the photo on the right shows the site on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the erection of the wall on August 13th, 1971. In addition, the parents, soldiers and officers of the border troops as well as the population of Berlin commemorated the anniversary of Schultz's death and the southern section of the street was renamed Egon-Schultz-Straße on August 12, 1966. After the fall of the Wall the street received its old name back on December 1, 1991. The earlier memorial plaque for Schultz disappeared in the 1990s. A new plaque was installed in its place in 2004 seen in the photograph. In addition, commemorative plaques for anti-Nazi resistance fighters Kurt Klinke at number 18 and Gustav Elfert at number 10 are located on residential buildings on this street.

Line U8's Bernauer Straße U-Bahn station, sited immediately south of the junction with Brunnenstraße. It had become a ghost station on August 13, 1961 at the start of the the building of the Wall as the platforms lay inside East Berlin whilst the northern street-level entrance opened directly onto Bernauer Straße, which formed the sector boundary. That entrance was sealed and incorporated into the border fortifications. Western trains on the line continued to run beneath East Berlin without stopping; the station remained closed to all passengers for nearly 29 years. Armed border guards and later Ministry for State Security personnel occupied the darkened platforms. Lighting was reduced, station name signs were removed or covered, and the entrances were bricked or barred. West Berlin passengers travelling between Wedding and Kreuzberg passed slowly through the empty station and saw the guards standing on the platforms. The announcement “Last stop in West Berlin” was made before the trains entered the eastern sector. Above ground the Wall ran along Bernauer Straße itself. Apartment buildings on the eastern side of the street had their windows and doors facing the West bricked up. Residents jumped from upper floors into West Berlin; several died in the attempt. The northern entrance of the U-Bahn station formed part of this surface barrier system. Escape tunnels were also driven under the Wall in the immediate vicinity of the street and the station. The station remained sealed until after the opening of the border. On April 12, 1990 the northern entrance onto Bernauer Straße was reopened, giving direct access from West Berlin without a checkpoint.  Thus initially only the northern entrance from the direction of West Berlin was reopened, because unlike the subway stations Jannowitzbrücke and Rosenthaler Platz, no border crossing point could be found in the station's premises to be set up. The southern entrances that led into East Berlin stayed closed until July 1, 1990, the day of monetary and economic union, when all remaining border controls inside the city were abolished. Full regular service on the U8 through Bernauer Straße resumed on that date. The platform architecture of 1930, with its black stone columns and yellow tiling designed under Alfred Grenander, survived the decades of closure largely intact because the station was never rebuilt or heavily used during the division. After reopening the station was restored and placed under monument protection. It now functions as a normal U8 stop. The Berlin Wall Memorial occupies the ground immediately above and beside the northern entrance, so that the former ghost station and the preserved death-strip section stand in direct spatial relation to each other.  

My students at the site of Conrad Schumann's famous "leap into freedom" over a roll of barbed wire on August 15, 1961 when he was guarding the construction of the Berlin Wall at the intersection between Ruppiner and Bernauer Strasse, which had begun two days earlier. Under the pretence of checking the spirals on the sidewalk, Schumann pressed down a spot with his foot, often walked back and forth between his actual watch station and the wire, taking a sense of proportion, and in an unobserved moment took the opportunity to jump over the barbed wire. Whilst he was still jumping, he grazed the shoulder strap of his submachine gun (PPSch-41) to drop it and ran on to a West Berlin police vehicle ten metres away, the crew of which had left the door open for protection because of his obvious intention to flee, which also encouraged him to take the risk. The photographer Peter Leibing took the famous photo at the moment of the jump when, sensing that something unusual was about to happen, he focused his Exakta camera with its 200mm lens on the barbed wire fence and pressed the shutter button at just the right moment when Schumann was over the fence. This image became one of the most recognisable images of the Cold War. The entire scene, with Schumann's escape preparations, was recorded from the same perspective on 16mm film by cameraman Dieter Hoffmann. Some time after the escape, Schumann moved to Edenhausen near Krumbach in the Günzburg district of Bavaria, where he met his future wife, Kunigunde. After the fall of the Wall, Schumann admitted that it was "[o]nly since November 9, 1989 did I really feel free" as throughout his life he feared revenge from the Stasi. Schumann last lived in Oberemmendorf in Upper Bavaria and worked in Ingolstadt at Audi AG as a machine setter. In a bitter irony, on June 20, 1998, he committed suicide.

The site before and after the fall of the wall from the British zone

  Tourists posing in front of the Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg gate in the British sector on June 6, 1989 and my students in 2013.

My students at the site where the wall followed along Niederkirchnerstrasse, named after Käthe Niederkirchner, an anti-Nazi communist resistance fighter. Before 1951 this street was called Prinz-Albrecht-Straße under which name, from 1933 to 1945, it became a synonym for the terror apparatus of the dictatorship during the Nazi era. The Gestapo headquarters, the Reich Security Main Office and the SS had their headquarters here. The Berlin Wall ran along the street from 1961 to 1989. After 1933, Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse became the control centre of the Nazi state, which was characterised by its close proximity to the government district on Wilhelmstrasse. Whilst most of the buildings on the northern side of the street remained largely undestroyed during the Second World War, they were severely damaged on the southern side, which belongs to the district of Kreuzberg. During the years of Berlin's division, the border between East and West Berlin ran along the street from 1948. All of the street land, including the pavements, belonged to East Berlin's Mitte district which is why the Berlin Wall ran here. As is common practice, this was set back about one and a half metres so that the East German border troops could carry out construction and renovation work on their own territory. Here on the left is the Berlin House of Representatives, the seat of the Berlin state parliament. On the right with restored portico is today's Martin-Gropius-Bau, built in 1881 as the Kunstgewerbemuseum. When the burnt-out ruin was transferred to the state of Berlin by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in 1977, it was reassigned in the land register from "Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 7" to "Stresemannstrasse 110", the neighbouring property of the destroyed Ethnological Museum. Today it's registered as "Niederkirchnerstraße 7" and is the only surviving building on this side of the street.

Students at the corner of Zimmerstraße and Charlottenstraße near Checkpoint Charlie in front of the former site of the wall. This would be a place of particular infamy in the early afternoon of August 17, 1962 when journeyman bricklayer Peter Fechter and concrete worker Helmut Kulbeik, both just of legal age, were shot whilst attempting to flee a year after the erection of the wall. At 14.10 Fechter and Kulbeik ran out of the hiding place of a carpenter’s workshop in the direction of the border system. Witnesses heard someone call out "Come on, jump" and saw a young man collapse right in front of the wall. Whilst Kulbeik made it to the West, Fechter paused in the hail of bullets, "apparently he was shocked that live shots were actually fired," according to Thomas Schmid's book "Mord an der Mauer"published in 1992 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Fechter's death. Only after fifty minutes of Fechter shouting "help me, help me"did border guards carry the now-silent man away from the wall, throwing him onto a covered wagon. Fechter had bled to death between the fronts of the Cold War with one of the 34 7.62 calibre steel bullets piercing through his right pelvic wing, tearing the colon and small intestine. Two witnesses on the east side were taken away and interrogated until 2 am, subjected to a body check "in all body orifices."

East Side Gallery

The East Side Gallery describes itself as "an international memorial for freedom." It is a 1316 metre-long section of the Berlin Wall located near the centre of Berlin on Mühlenstraße in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg. The actual border at this point was the river Spree. The gallery is located on the so-called "hinterland mauer", which closed the border to West Berlin. This is the longest, best-preserved and most interesting stretch of Wall and the one to see if you’re pressed for time. It was turned into an open-air gallery by international artists in 1990. The better works are located near the Ostbahnhof end. The Gallery consists of 105 paintings by artists from all over the world, painted in 1990 on the east side of the Berlin Wall. It is possibly the largest and longest-lasting open air gallery in the world. Paintings from Jürgen Grosse alias INDIANO, Dimitri Vrubel, Siegfrid Santoni, Bodo Sperling, Kasra Alavi, Kani Alavi, Jim Avignon, Thierry Noir, Ingeborg Blumenthal, Ignasi Blanch i Gisbert, Kim Prisu, Hervé Morlay VR and others have followed. The paintings at the East Side Gallery document a time of change and express the euphoria and great hopes for a better, more free future for all people of the world. In July 2006, to facilitate access to the River Spree from O2 World, a forty metre-long section was moved somewhat west, parallel to the original position.

Painting 25 is one of the best known of the Berlin wall graffiti paintings, a depiction of Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker kissing as painted by Dmitri Vrubel. On the left is the condition of the painting in 2005 and at the right is me standing beside it after its restoration. The Russian words at the top read "God! help me stay alive" and continue at the bottom "Among this deadly love" ("Господи! Помоги мне выжить среди этой смертной любви"). Vrubel created the painting in 1990. Along with other murals in the section, the painting continued in display after the wall was taken down, but vandalism and atmospheric conditions gradually led to its deterioration. In March 2009, the painting, along with others, was erased from the wall to allow the original artists to repaint them with more durable paints. Vrubel was commissioned to repaint the piece, donating the €3000 fee he was paid to a social art project in Marzahn. My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love (sometimes referred to as the Fraternal Kiss or Bruderkuss) is, according to Anthony Read and David Fisher, "particularly striking, with a sharp, satirical edge." However, it was also widely criticized on creation as a straightforward reproduction of the photograph that inspired it taken on October 7, 1979 when Brezhnev was visiting East Germany at the time to celebrate the anniversary of its founding as a Communist nation.

  A 23-metre section was scheduled to be removed on March 1, 2013, to make way for luxury apartments. None of the artists whose work will be destroyed were informed of these plans. The demolition work actually started on March 1, 2013. According to German news FOCUS, authorities were not aware of the start of the demolition. Due to the involvement of protesters, demolition was postponed until at least March 18, 2013. Nevertheless, two-thirds of the paintings are badly damaged by erosion, graffiti, and vandalism. One-third has been restored by a non-profit organisation which started work in 2000 with the stated objective being the eventual restoration and preservation of all the paintings. However, the restoration process has been marked by major conflict. Eight of the artists of 1990 refused to paint their own images again after they were completely destroyed by the renovation. In order to defend the copyright, they founded "Founder Initiative East Side" with other artists whose images were simply copied without permission. Bodo Sperling launched a test case in the Berlin State Court in May 2011, represented by the Munich art lawyer Hannes Hartung and with the support of the German VG Bild-Kunst. The outcome of the trial would be a landmark declaration for European art law.

The memorial to the June 17 uprising, with the DDR-era mural in the background within Göring's former air ministry HQ. The central Monument in memory of the 1953 Uprising in the East German Democratic Republic is represented by a groundfloor relief, surrounded by a low barrier, created by Wolfgang Rüppel. Remarkably, Max Lingner's 18-metre long mural "Aufbau der Republik" (Building the Republic) is allowed to remain in situ.

 Photos from my 2014 and 2016 school trips on the anniversary of the uprising.

Checkpoint Charlie

James Bond at the best-known Berlin Wall crossing point between East Berlin and West Berlin during the Cold War in Octopussy and me in 2020. As the most visible Berlin Wall checkpoint, Checkpoint Charlie was featured in movies and books. The site of the former Checkpoint Charlie is one of the most famous sights in Berlin today . On August 13, 2000, a faithful replica of the first control barracks was unveiled. The stacked sandbags are filled with concrete instead of sand. On Zimmerstrasse, as in other parts of Berlin-Mitte, a double row of cobblestones reminds of the course of the Berlin Wall. Checkpoint Charlie was one of the Berlin border crossings through the Berlin Wall between 1961 and 1990, connecting the Soviet sector with the American sector on Friedrichstraße between Zimmerstraße and Kochstraße (near the U-Bahn station of the same name) and thus the East Berlin district of Mitte with the West Berlin district of Kreuzberg. The checkpoint was established by the Western Allies in late August/ early September 1961 as a result of the building of the Wall to continue allowing members of their military personnel to cross the sector boundary whilst being registered and briefed. As everywhere on the western side, there were no controls on all other visitors to East Berlin, including at Checkpoint Charlie. 

Drake Winston at the site in 2021. A famous cafe and viewing place for Allied officials, armed forces and visitors alike, Cafe Adler, was situated right on the checkpoint.The development of the infrastructure around the checkpoint was largely asymmetrical, reflecting the contrary priorities of East German and Western border authorities. During its 28-year active life, the infrastructure on the Eastern side was expanded to include not only the wall, watchtower and zig-zag barriers, but a multi-lane shed where cars and their occupants were checked. However, the Allied authority never erected any permanent buildings. A wooden shed was replaced during the 1980s by a larger metal structure, now displayed at the Allied Museum in western Berlin. Their reasoning was that they did not consider the inner Berlin sector boundary an international border and did not treat it as such. On the East Berlin side, the East German border troops allowed foreigners and East German officials to pass through, in addition to the Allied military personnel and diplomats who enjoyed freedom of movement in Berlin including employees of the Permanent Representation of the Federal Republic of Germany to the DDR.
The director of the Komische Oper Walter Felsenstein, whilst living in West Berlin, also used this border crossing as an Austrian citizen. It was one of three Allied checkpoints used by the Americans, who named it "Charlie" after the third letter in the alphabet, "C", according to the international spelling alphabet. "Checkpoint Alpha" was the name of the checkpoint at the Helmstedt-Marienborn border crossing on today's Bundesautobahn 2, which was in the British zone, but because of the shortest autobahn connection to West Berlin used almost exclusively by the three Western Allies and also jointly was managed. Checkpoint Bravo was the American side of the Dreilinden checkpoint, which was moved to Drewitz in 1969 and later relocated to today's A 115. The nomenclature checkpoint for control point results from the fact that the western side did not recognise the legitimacy under international law as a state border, in contrast to the eastern term Grenzüberführungsstelle (GÜSt). In this regard, after the constitutional recognition of the DDR from 1972, there was a change for the inner-German border, but not for the Berlin sector border. 

Taking my students to the real checkpoint at the Allied Museum at Clayallee 135 having the opportunity to actually go inside. This was the last wooden checkpoint booth used by the Western Allies at the Friedrichstraße crossing. In 1990, during the final phase of the Two-plus-Four negotiations, the hut was formally dismantled at its original location in Kreuzberg. On September 29, 1990 it was ceremonially handed over to the German Historical Museum on the Platz der Luftbrücke in Tempelhof in the presence of the The same day it was ceremonially handed over to representatives of the German Historical Museum on the Platz der Luftbrücke in Tempelhof. Present at the transfer were the three Western city commanders including Major General Robert Corbett of Britain and Major General Raymond E. Haddock of the United States, together with German officials including Kultursenatorin Anke Martiny and Christoph Stölzl, then director of the German Historical Museum. The hut was later transferred here to the AlliiertenMuseum, where it's been displayed outdoors since the museum’s establishment. It forms one of the core large-scale exhibits of the collection, standing alongside the British Handley Page Hastings transport aircraft used in the Berlin Airlift and original segments of the Berlin Wall. The structure is the authentic final Allied control booth from Checkpoint Charlie and retains its original form and appearance.  

Walter Ulbricht had agitated and manœuvred to get the Soviet Union's permission to construct the Berlin Wall in 1961 to stop Eastern Bloc emigration westward through the Soviet border system, preventing escape across the city sector border from communist East Berlin into free West Berlin. Checkpoint Charlie became a symbol of the Cold War, representing the separation of East and West. Soviet and American tanks briefly faced each other at the location during the Berlin Crisis of 1961.  After the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc and the reunification of Germany, the building at Checkpoint Charlie became a tourist attraction. It is now located in the Allied Museum in the Dahlem neighbourhood of Berlin. Behind me is the Haus am Checkpoint Charlie, a private museum opened in 1963 by Rainer Hildebrandt, which was augmented with a new building during the 1990s. The two soldiers (one American and one Russian) represented at the Checkpoint Memorial were both stationed in Berlin during the early 1990s. The site during the Berlin crisis and me today. As a result of the SED leadership's attempt to restrict the Allied rights of the western powers in Berlin, Soviet and American tanks faced each other, ready for battle, on October 27, 1961 as seen here and me at the site today. Soon after the construction of the Berlin Wall in August 1961, a stand-off occurred between American and Soviet tanks on either side of Checkpoint Charlie. It began on October 22 as a dispute over whether East German border guards were authorised to examine the travel documents of an American diplomat based in West Berlin named Allan Lightner heading to East Berlin to watch an opera show there, since according to the agreement between all four Allied powers occupying Germany, there was to be free movement for Allied forces in Berlin and that no German military forces from either West Germany or East Germany were to be based in the city, and moreover the Western Allies did not (initially) recognise the East German state and its right to remain in its self-declared capital of East Berlin. Instead, Allied forces only recognised the authority of the Soviets over East Berlin rather than their East German allies. This standoff arose from a dispute over access rights, initiated when Lieutenant Colonel Edward J. LaFavor, chief of the U.S. Military Liaison Mission, dispatched Major Arthur L. Harrison and his wife Lucille in a grey Chevrolet staff car through the checkpoint at 10.00 on October 25, 1961, only for East German border guards to demand their identification papers, contravening the Four Power Agreement's stipulation that Soviet forces alone controlled such inspections. Harrison refused compliance, prompting the vehicle to reverse under escort back to the American sector, an incident repeated on October 26, 1961, with diplomat William W. Jordan facing similar demands from Major Rudolf Penndorf of the East German transport police. By dawn on October 27, 1961, Kennedy, informed via secure teletype from the White House Situation Room, authorised General Lucius D. Clay, his special envoy in Berlin, to escalate with armoured reinforcements, whilst simultaneously dispatching a back-channel message through diplomat Charles E. Bohlen to Soviet Ambassador Anatoly F. Dobrynin in Washington, emphasising mutual restraint to avert escalation.
The confrontation intensified at 10:00 a.m. on October 27, 1961, when U.S. tanks, crewed by soldiers from the 6th Infantry Regiment including Sergeant Walter E. G. Richter, inched forward to within 10 metres of the line, their .50 calibre machine guns manned and ready, as crowds of 2,500 West Berliners gathered along the barricades, shouting encouragements in English and German. Soviet Colonel Pyotr P. Danilevich, positioned in a command post 200 metres east, relayed orders from Marshal Ivan S. Konev, Supreme Commander of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, to maintain formation without firing unless provoked, with infantry units of the 207th Motorised Rifle Division deploying 300 metres behind the tanks under cover of prefabricated concrete barriers erected on August 20, 1961. Radio communications crackled with warnings broadcast from American loudspeakers, declaring in German: "Wir werden unsere Rechte verteidigen," countered by Soviet amplifiers retorting: "Rückzug oder Konsequenzen," a verbal barrage that echoed through the Friedrichstraße until 2:00 p.m. Willy Brandt, Governing Mayor of West Berlin, arrived at the scene by 11:30 a.m., conferring with Clay in a forward observation post and urging de-escalation via a telephone link to Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in Bonn, who responded at 12:15 p.m. with approval for diplomatic overtures but insistence on upholding the 1945 Potsdam accords. East German leader Walter Ulbricht, monitoring from a bunker in the Ministry for State Security on October 27, 1961, pressed Moscow for authorisation to block the crossing entirely, citing Order No. 70 issued on October 23, 1961, by Interior Minister Karl Maron, which mandated passport checks for all non-diplomatic Allied personnel entering the Soviet sector.
Diplomatic manoeuvres unfolded concurrently in multiple capitals on October 27, 1961, as Kennedy's National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy convened an emergency meeting in the Cabinet Room at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, reviewing intelligence from the Central Intelligence Agency's Berlin station that estimated Soviet troop mobilisations at 50,000 in the surrounding garrisons, including the 8th Guards Army near Wünsdorf. In Moscow, Nikita S. Khrushchev, convening the Presidium of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union at 5:00 p.m. local time, debated with Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko the risks of nuclear reprisal, ultimately instructing Ambassador Dobrynin at 7:00 p.m. Washington time to convey to Bohlen: "The Soviet government proposes that both sides withdraw their forces simultaneously to reduce tension." This proposal reached Clay in Berlin via secure cable at 11:00 p.m., prompting him to signal General Bruce C. Clarke of the U.S. Seventh Army to prepare withdrawal sequences, with the first American tank, commanded by Captain Charles D. Lemmon, reversing at 11:30 p.m. under floodlights that illuminated the street until dawn on October 28, 1961. Soviet tanks, led by Major General Gribkov's unit, executed a parallel retreat, their treads grinding backwards in unison, clearing the Friedrichstraße by 11:45 p.m., as documented in the duty logs of the Soviet 20th Guards Army. Brandt addressed a press conference at the Rathaus Schöneberg at midnight, stating: "Berlin remains a free city today because the Western powers stood firm," whilst Ulbricht, in a closed session of the Socialist Unity Party's Politburo on October 28, 1961, claimed the incident vindicated the border closure, ordering reinforcements of 5,000 Volkspolizei to the sector boundary by November 1, 1961.
Military protocols during the sixteen-hour impasse on October 27, 1961, included strict rules of engagement issued by Walker to his tank crews, prohibiting discharge of weapons without direct presidential order, with each M48 loaded with high-explosive anti-tank rounds but safety catches engaged, as verified in after-action reports from the U.S. European Command. Soviet T-55s, recently upgraded with stabilised fire-control systems, carried 18 high-explosive shells apiece, manned by crews from the 19th Tank Division who rotated shifts every four hours to prevent fatigue, under Gribkov's directive to maintain 360-degree perimeters against potential flanking from side streets like Zimmerstraße. Observers from the British Military Liaison Mission, including Major David S. C. Gollnick, positioned on rooftops 150 metres north, noted through binoculars the subtle turret adjustments at 3:00 p.m., when a Soviet tank rotated 5 degrees left, prompting an immediate American counter-movement. French liaison officer Colonel Jean de Marguerie reported to General Jacques Massu in Paris at 4:00 p.m. via encrypted radio that no artillery spotters were visible on the eastern side, though anti-aircraft batteries of the Soviet 34th Air Defence Division were audible revving 800 metres away. Clay, from his command vehicle—a modified M-151 jeep—coordinated with Major General Albert Watson II of the U.S. Berlin Brigade, dispatching reconnaissance patrols along Kochstraße to monitor for reinforcements, which detected 22 Soviet BTR-152 armoured personnel carriers arriving at 5:30 p.m. from Karlshorst. Khrushchev's son, Sergei N. Khrushchev, later recounted in a 1999 interview archived in the Hoover Institution that his father paced the Kremlin corridors on October 27, 1961, muttering: "One shot, and it all ends in fire," before opting for the reciprocal withdrawal to preserve the status quo ante.
The resolution on the night of October 27, 1961, into October 28, 1961, involved choreographed retreats observed by 3,000 spectators, with American tanks withdrawing in echelon formation to a staging area at Hallesches Tor by 12:15 a.m., their taillights fading under the glare of arc lamps provided by the Berlin Fire Department. Soviet vehicles receded eastward in reverse gear, adhering to a 50-metre buffer, as confirmed by seismic detectors emplaced by the U.S. 66th Military Intelligence Group, registering the vibrations until 12:30 a.m. Ulbricht followed with a decree on October 28, 1961, reinforcing passport requirements under Article 3 of Order No. 70, leading to the denial of entry to 147 U.S. military dependents attempting crossings on October 29, 1961. Kennedy, in a memorandum to Secretary of State Dean Rusk dated October 28, 1961, noted: "The Berlin crisis has entered a new phase of controlled confrontation," allocating an additional 12,000 troops to the European theatre by December 1, 1961. Brandt's administration in West Berlin responded by fortifying the sector boundary with 2,500 additional police from the Landespolizei on October 30, 1961, whilst Adenauer's cabinet approved a 150 million Deutsche Mark emergency fund for civil defence measures on November 2, 1961. Gribkov's post-incident debrief to Konev on October 29, 1961, detailed 1,200 man-hours of standby duty with no casualties, emphasising the efficacy of the graduated response in deterring Western incursions. This episode solidified the de facto division of Berlin, with subsequent protocols under the Napoleon Street Agreement of December 20, 1961, standardising identification procedures whilst preserving Allied access rights.

The checkpoint was the scene of spectacular escapes from what was then East Berlin. East Berlin refugee Peter Fechter died in the immediate vicinity . He was hit by several shots from an East Berlin border guard and bled to death on August 17, 1962 in front of western observers. The People's Policeman Burkhard Niering took a passport inspector hostage in 1974 and was shot while attempting to escape. On August 29, 1986, three DDR citizens successfully broke through the border barriers with a 7.5-tonne gravel truck. Hans-Peter Spitzner from Karl-Marx-Stadt was the last escapee from Checkpoint Charlie. On August 18, 1989, he crossed the border with his daughter in the trunk of an Allied vehicle. 

A viewing platform was set up directly at the border wall on the West Berlin side, from which the death strip and the border crossing point on the East Berlin side could be seen. Even before German reunification, the checkpoint was dismantled on June 22, 1990 as part of a commemoration ceremony. Today it can be seen in the Allied Museum in Berlin.

 Checkpoint Charlie as it appeared in 1961 and during my 2016 Bavarian International School class trip. The crossing has been partly reconstructed with a US Army guardhouse and a copy of the famous sign warning ‘You are now leaving the American sector’. The original is now next door at the private Haus am Checkpoint Charlie shown behind, a popular if cluttered museum reporting mostly on the history and horror of the Berlin Wall. The exhibit is particularly powerful whilst documenting the courage and ingenuity displayed by some East German subjects in escaping to the West using hot-air balloons, tunnels, concealed compartments in cars and even a one-man submarine.

The main gate to the Stasi headquarters on Ruschestrasse was built in the late 1970s. Previously there had only been an access barrier. The heavily guarded gate belonged to a four-storey building and was enclosed by House 17. This building also served as a visual barrier to the outside. The gate on Ruschestrasse was the site where the occupation of the Stasi headquarters began on January 15, 1990. Thousands of demonstrators besieged the heavily fortified gate. Around 17.00, amidst the chaos of events, the metal gate doors opened and the demonstrators streamed onto the grounds, which had once been hermetically sealed off from the East German population. The new gate complex replaced the earlier simple barrier with a controlled vehicle and pedestrian entrance integrated into the four-storey structure of House 17, whose solid façade was deliberately designed to screen the interior courtyards and operational buildings from view along Ruschestrasse. Armed members of the Wachregiment “Feliks Dzierzynski” maintained permanent posts at the gate, checking identity documents and vehicle permits under strict entry regulations that kept ordinary DDR citizens outside the 22-hectare restricted zone. On the afternoon of January 15, 1990 a large crowd, estimated in the several thousands and including members of the newly formed Bürgerkomitees, gathered in front of the gate demanding an end to the destruction of files. After prolonged pressure and negotiations the metal doors were opened shortly after 5 p.m.; the first groups of demonstrators entered the compound and moved toward the central buildings, marking the moment when the previously sealed headquarters complex was breached by the public. The gate structure itself remains standing today as part of the preserved perimeter of the former Ministry site.  

With my students from the Bavarian International School at the entrance of the research and memorial site at Building 1 of the former headquarters of the Ministry for State Security (MfS, Stasi) on Ruschestraße 103, near Frankfurter Allee at U-Bahn Station Magdalenenstrasse Line U5, and as it appeared on February 8, 1980, when Minister Erich Mielke received the DDR head of state and party leader Erich Honecker there on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Stasi’s founding. The courtyard of the Stasi headquarters served, among other things, as a venue for receptions and ceremonies of the Ministry for State Security (MfS).  When no event was taking place in the courtyard, it served as a parking lot. In the background stood Building 1, the office of the Minister for State Security.The open space, enclosed by the principal operational buildings of the complex, was deliberately retained as a ceremonial forecourt capable of accommodating formal guards of honour, flag parties and large-scale gatherings of senior officers. Contemporary photographs of the 1980 anniversary show ranks of uniformed personnel drawn up on the tarmac while Mielke and Honecker inspected the formation in front of Building 1. Similar receptions for foreign delegations, internal award ceremonies and the annual marking of the Ministry’s foundation day regularly took place on the same ground. In ordinary daily use the courtyard functioned as the principal parking area for official vehicles attached to the ministerial suite and the adjacent main departments. After the dissolution of the Ministry the area was incorporated into the public Campus for Democracy. It now contains the Robert-Havemann-Gesellschaft’s permanent open-air exhibition “Revolution and the Fall of the Wall” and continues to host the annual campus open-air cinema during the summer months. 

The building, House 1, was erected in 1960-61 as the offices of Erich Mielke, who served as Minister for State Security from 1957 until the end of the DDR. The entire block is a series of grey labyrinthine buildings, all hunched catastrophically together. A city within a city, the Stasi offices came complete with a movie theatre, canteen, a supermarket, and were surrounded by apartment buildings housing the people the Stasi liked to keep a close and paranoid eye on. It's home to Mielke's recently opened office and looks exactly how you'd expect it to look: carved busts of Marx and Lenin lining the hallways and the foyer, brown marble columns, off-white almost yellow walls, tacky gold-coloured railings. Whereas the first and third floors host a series of exhibitions about survivors of the East German regime, methods of surveillance, propaganda and general history, the second floor was entirely Mielke's. The abundance of space the man must have enjoyed on this luxury floor is nauseating to some considering how much the citizens of East Germany suffered under his watchful eye. According to Funder (57) in Stasiland, "[i]n Hitler’s Third Reich it is estimated that there was one Gestapo agent for every 2000 citizens, and in Stalin’s USSR there was one KGB agent for every 5830 people. In the GDR, there was one Stasi officer or informant for every sixty-three people. If part-time informers are included, some estimates have the ratio as high as one informer for every 6.5 citizens”.

The facility is located in a large part of the building complex built between 1930 and 1932 for the Lichtenberg tax office. After the war, German communists began to establish a dictatorial system of rule in the Soviet occupation zone (SBZ) of Germany. In 1946, partly through Soviet pressure, the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) united in the Soviet Zone to form the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), whose leadership level formed the centre of power in the DDR until its collapse in 1989. The rulers created a system of violence and threats, rewards and preference. Individuals were educated to conform, submit and, where possible, to cooperate within the SED dictatorship. The SED had unrestricted access to almost all areas of life - exceptions were the churches, for example - in order to comprehensively control each individual and, if necessary, to reward or discipline them. The core of this ruling apparatus was the Ministry for State Security (MfS), which, as the so-called "shield and sword of the party" under the leadership of the SED, had to protect the "workers and peasants' power" and secure the monopoly of the SED dictatorship.  

At the end of the 1970s, the Ministry of State Security had extensive extensions built, for which, among other things, Max Taut's residential buildings in Normannenstrasse were demolished and the New Apostolic Church relocated. Inside the site, a canteen was built (a monument since 2015) and further high service buildings facing Ruschestrasse. After the reunification and peaceful revolution in the DDR, there were numerous protests by angry DDR citizens in front of the Stasi headquarters. In the building, employees of the ministry were busy destroying extensive files. After the head office was stormed on January 15, 1990, many documents were saved. The ASTAK opened the “Normannenstrasse Research and Memorial Site” on November 7, 1990 with the exhibition “Against the Sleep of Reason”. House 1 has been open to the public as a museum since then. The exhibition includes the office and work rooms of the former Minister for State Security Erich Mielke and other rooms. Since January 2015, the permanent exhibition “State Security in the SED Dictatorship”, which was developed by ASTAK and the Stasi Records Authority , has been on display. The listed building 1 with the offices of the minister and his closest employees was energetically renovated by Arnold and Gladisch Architects and opened to the public again in 2012. The service buildings 7 and 8, which are shown to interested people during guided tours, are used to store the archive materials and have been renovated since 2015- it's shown directly behind me and my 2021 cohort and as it appeared in The Lives of Others:

The permanent exhibition "State Security in the SED Dictatorship" explains the structure, development and functioning of the MfS. It informs visitors about the people who worked for this institution and shows the methods they used to control and persecute the East German population. The heart of the museum is the historical office rooms of Erich Mielke, the last minister for state security in the GDR, which have been largely preserved in their original condition and can be viewed since 1990. The new permanent exhibition was developed by the sponsoring association of the Stasi Museum ASTAK e.V. in cooperation with the authority of the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records (BStU), which has taken on the content-related development of the 1st floor.

Beside the bronze statue of (Iron) Felix Dzerzhinsky in the lobby, serving as the central ideological emblem of the Ministry for State Security. Dzerzhinsky is best known for establishing and developing the Soviet secret police forces, serving as their director from 1917 to 1926. Later he was a member of the Soviet government heading several commissariats, whilst being the chief of the Soviet secret police. The Cheka soon became notorious for mass summary executions, performed especially during the Red Terror and the Russian Civil War. Known as “Iron Felix,” Dzerzhinsky had founded the Cheka in December 1917 and was regarded by the MfS leadership as the originator of the socialist security apparatus. This statue occupied a prominent position visible to every officer entering the building, reinforcing the claimed historical continuity between the Soviet Cheka, the OGPU, the NKVD and the East German service. The sculpture showed Dzerzhinsky in formal pose, often with the characteristic peaked cap bearing a Soviet star. It formed part of a deliberate display of revolutionary lineage that also included portraits of Lenin and selected Soviet security chiefs. Officers of the Wachregiment “Feliks Dzierzynski,” the Ministry’s elite guard unit named after the same figure, passed the bust daily on their way to duty posts. The presence of the image served both as a constant reminder of the Ministry’s self-assigned role as “shield and sword of the Party” and as a visual assertion of loyalty to the Soviet model of state security. 

In the corridor to the office and working quarters of Mielke. The main hall is dominated by three portraits: a bronze relief of Lenin; a portrait of Dzerzhinsky, and a painting of what looks to be Richard Sorge, a much-lauded Soviet spy executed by the Japanese during the war. The rooms on this level were designed to meet the needs of Erich Mielke. Their function and interiors remained largely unchanged from the time the building was completed in 1961. This area remained largely intact, even when the building complex was taken over by demonstrators on January 15, 1990. The many objects on display throughout the rooms were, however, later removed and archived. This level is therefore preserved in its original form and visitors can see it today in the condition that it existed when it served as Mielke’s offices. 
On January 15, 1990 demonstrators took over the Stasi headquarters; the GIF on the right shows the result and with me instead today, exactly as it was before it was. The resulting state allows direct observation of the spatial hierarchy and the symbolic display that framed daily access to the Minister. The corridor and the adjoining rooms therefore constitute one of the most complete surviving interiors of the central apparatus of the Ministry for State Security. 

A week later, the Central Round Table, a committee made up of representatives of the SED dictatorship and civil rights groups, decided that a “memorial and research centre on DDR Stalinism” should be established in House 1. When nothing came of this declaration of intent, members of the Berlin citizens’ committee and other civil rights activists took action and began securing the historic site. In August they founded the association “Antistalinistische Aktion e.V.” (ASTAK). On November 7, 1990, it opened the Research Centre and Memorial at Normannenstrasse with an exhibition titled “Against the Sleep of Reason”. House 1, later named the Stasi Museum, has been open to the public ever since. The offices of Mielke are preserved in their original condition and form the centrepiece of the historic site. The museum today serves as a "centre for the collection, preservation, documentation, rehabilitation and exhibition of evidence and research materials relating to East Germany".

Mielke's personal study then and me inside today, almost perfectly preserved as it was.  Directly adjoining his official working rooms, the private area contained a sitting room equipped with a couch that served as a bed, a small kitchenette and a bathroom. The presence of these facilities demonstrates that Mielke spent the greater part of his time inside the headquarters complex and only infrequently returned to the family villa in Wandlitz that he shared with his wife and son. The rooms were modest in size and decorated in the restrained functional style of the early 1960s. Furniture produced by the Hellerau workshops stood on parquet flooring partially covered by red carpet; heavy blackout curtains, concealed behind ordinary plush drapes, allowed the space to be darkened at short notice. A television set occupied one corner of the sitting room; on it Mielke kept a collection of small plasticine figures presented by visiting kindergarten groups, objects he retained throughout his tenure. The adjacent kitchenette was used to prepare his meals. Each morning at precisely 07:45 his long-serving chief secretary, Major Ursula Drasdo, brought breakfast together with the daily edition of Neues Deutschland. Detailed instructions for the arrangement of the breakfast table and the precise boiling time of his eggs (four and a half minutes, pierced beforehand) were found in Drasdo’s desk after the Ministry’s dissolution. The suite formed an integral extension of the ministerial command post. From the private rooms Mielke could move immediately into his large working office, the adjoining conference rooms and the secure communications facilities that linked him to the Central Evaluation and Information Group, the main departments and the SED leadership. Overnight stays were routine rather than exceptional, enabling continuous availability for urgent operational decisions, late-night briefings and the receipt of situation reports. The arrangement reflected both the concentration of authority in the person of the Minister and the round-the-clock character of the office he held from 1957 until November 1989. After the occupation of the complex in January 1990 the ministerial floor was secured largely intact. The private suite, together with the working rooms, has been preserved in near-original condition within the present Stasi Museum and remains accessible to visitors as evidence of the working habits and personal environment of the last Minister for State Security.  

 

Mielke served his post until the wall fell. On November 9, when the wall was accidentally declared "open" at that famous press conference which changed history, the Stasi freaked out and started destroying files as everyday citizens rushed the Stasi offices and demanded to see what had been written about them. Mielke was kicked out of the party on December 3, almost certainly an attempt by the communists to wash their hands of those who committed unspeakable crimes. No longer shielded by his fancy role in the corrupt government, Mielke was arrested for the murder of the two policemen back in 1931. In 1992 he was sentence to six years in prison, and served four of those six years at the Moabit prison before being released for medical reasons. Mielke, his lawyers argued, was senile and had forgotten what he had done.

The index card detailing Erich Mielke’s breakfast requirements was found in the desk of his chief secretary, Ursula Drasdo, after the dissolution of the Ministry. The card carries the typed instruction “Breakfast 2 Eggs, cooked 4 ½ minutes, pricked beforehand” and a hand-drawn diagram showing the exact placement of every item on the tray and table.  The sketch marks a rectangular tray on the left holding a coffee carafe and a separate milk jug. In the central area an egg cup sits above a circle labelled “egg,” followed by a larger circle for bread, a white napkin, a spoon and jam. Below these a triangular napkin, a plate with a second egg, a spoon and a knife are indicated; a small circle marked “salt” completes the arrangement. The card belongs to the working notes of the Secretariat of the Minister (SdM) and is preserved under the archival signature BArch, MfS, SdM, Nr. 871, Blatt 15.  Drasdo had served as Mielke’s chief secretary since 1961. The card was kept as a standing instruction so that the daily breakfast, prepared in the small kitchenette attached to the private suite and served at 07.45 together with the newspaper Neues Deutschland, could be reproduced without deviation. The document illustrates the degree of personal routine maintained inside the ministerial floor and the administrative precision applied even to the Minister’s morning meal. 

 

Standing where the scenes with Ulrich Tukur as Lieutenant Colonel Anton Grubitz were shot. His office was directly next to that of Stasi boss Mielke. 

Inside the preserved office and meeting room of Major General Hans Carlsohn show the working environment of a senior figure in its leadership. Carlsohn headed the Minister’s Office, which supported Erich Mielke and co-ordinated administrative work and communications for him. The office served for individual work and administration; the adjoining meeting room provided space for consultations. Its desk, storage furniture and office equipment present a functional rather than ceremonial setting. Together, the rooms illustrate how leadership depended on organised staff work, internal communication and scheduled discussion, as well as on the ministry’s coercive operations. Their position within House 1 placed this administrative activity at the centre of the headquarters complex. Displayed within the Stasi Museum, they connect the ministry’s command structure to a workplace. The meeting room makes visible the distinction between a senior officer’s private desk work and collective deliberation, while the office reflects the administrative support provided to Mielke. 

 

The patina of the GDR had even been preserved. With their typical wood paneling, these offices have a unique "charm" and can be clearly assigned to a particular time and particular style – a situation that is both exciting and oppressive.In order to ensure the greatest authenticity, the producers wanted to shoot on original locations as much as possible. Yet even though the film relates events that took place only fifteen years ago, much has changed since then. "Ultimately, there is not much difference, as far as costs are concerned, whether you're shooting Berlin in 1930 or Berlin in 1984," says producer Max Wiedemann. In order to recreate the backdrop of the DDR, a great deal of effort went into the sets and décors. Particularly arduous was the painting over of graffiti, which is nowadays found everywhere. No sooner had the "works of art" been painted over than they reappeared the following morning! The production was also the first and is, to this day, the only feature film that was allowed to shoot in the original file-card archives of the former Stasi headquarters in the Normannenstrasse with the express authorisation of Marianne Birthler, the "Head of the Federal Authority for Documents of the State Security Service of the Former GDR." Scenes bearing a unique eyewitness character arose amidst this gigantic mechanical filing system. The archive was restructured and digitalized after the shooting was completed. The data are preserved, but the location of the files and documents no longer exists in the form shown in the film.

DAS LEBEN DER ANDEREN - UNITEL

 It was from this office here that Mielke commanded a staff that grew from 2,700 at the time of the organisation’s formation in the 1950s to around 91,000 in 1989. As a consequence of the economic problems of the DDR, Mielke initiated a hiring freeze in 1983, otherwise the ranks would surely have swelled further. Here is his desk, which features his phone, a chair, wood-panelled cupboards (everything is wood-panelled), and a shredder, an ominous nod to the frantic efforts of the Stasi to shred secret documents of the citizens they spied on for an entire generation.

On the third floor Erich Mielke's office is preserved as he left it, his calendar turned to December 1989. Mielke's office has blue chairs, red rugs, wood panelings, and white polyester lace curtains. The furniture is the cheap fifties style found all over the East Bloc. On his desk are plastic ashtrays on doilies, a plaster bust of Lenin, a document shredder, and four telephones. But, as Rosenberg acknowledges, appearances are deceptive for this was the centre of 'the most extensive spy organisation in world history'.  

Dennis, ‎Laporte (51) The Stasi: Myth and Reality

Erich Mielke's conference room where he used to meet the sixteen Bezirk-leaders from Stasi-departments all over East Germany and my 2020 cohort visiting the site. Throughout the complex there are a series of meeting rooms throughout with fancy worn maps hanging on the walls, long tables, comfortable bright blue chairs, and a secretary's desk complete with a telephone switchboard with oversized comical buttons like the kind one would see in an old James Bond film. These Dienstbesprechungen were the principal instrument through which central directives were issued and regional operational reports were received. One of the best-documented sessions took place on 31 August 1989. The full complement of Bezirk chiefs assembled to report on the local political situation, the activities of opposition groups, and preparations for the fiftieth anniversary of the outbreak of WWII. Selected leaders briefed Mielke on the transmission of an earlier central “Information” concerning opposition circles to the local SED leaderships and on the prevailing mood in their territories. During the discussion Mielke asked one of the generals whether “tomorrow the 17 June is going to break out,” a direct reference to the 1953 uprising and an indication of the leadership’s assessment of the escalating crisis. Throughout the 1980s the same room was the venue for decisions on the nationwide coordination of measures against the independent peace and environmental movements, church-linked opposition and emerging citizens’ initiatives. Directives concerning the intensification of operational control, the deployment of unofficial collaborators inside targeted groups, and the preparation of preventive arrests were transmitted here to the regional chiefs. Cadre questions, including the confirmation or removal of senior officers in the Bezirksverwaltungen, were also settled in these sessions. The meetings followed a fixed pattern: regional Lageberichte, evaluation of current threats, issuance of binding instructions, and allocation of resources. Minutes and supporting papers produced by the Central Evaluation and Information Group were distributed in advance and discussed under Mielke’s chairmanship. The room’s proximity to the ministerial communications facilities allowed immediate conversion of decisions into encrypted orders to the districts. By the final months of 1989 the sessions increasingly focused on contingency planning for mass unrest, the protection of key installations and the maintenance of operational readiness across all fifteen Bezirke and East Berlin. The 31 August 1989 meeting stands as the last major gathering of this type before the rapid collapse of the Ministry’s authority.    

I'm standing beside the 1961 oil painting by Wolfgang Frankenstein- Mielke's favourite artist- described by Jörg Drieselmann who has headed the memorial since 1992, as "colour samples of a depressed monkey." Indeed, after attempting suicide, Frankenstein had been admitted to the Berlin-Nikolassee mental hospital until the end of the war. This came after his Jewish father had been sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1943 followed the next year by himself receiving a summons to the Todt Organisation labour camp. After the Frankenstein worked as a freelance painter and contributed to various cultural magazines and co-founded the artists' cabaret The Bathtub (Die Badewanne). In 1951 openly denounced the remilitarisation of West Germany, after which he was expelled from various associations and so in 1953 he moved to the DDR. From 1968 to 1983 he was professor and head of the art education department at Humboldt University. One can still see his twenty murals on Meißner tiles in the Magdalenenstraße subway station with the theme of the history of the German labour movement dating 1986.

Inside the former office of Stasi Col. Heinz Volpert, head of the special department for foreign currency procurement/prisoner ransom in the Ministry for State Security of the DDR. In 1951 and 1952, Volpert completed a course at the MfS school in Potsdam-Eiche and then moved to the then district administration of Rudolstadt. He then became deputy head of Department V in the Gera district administration, responsible for combating "underground movements".  In 1954, he became deputy head of department and in 1956 head of department V at the MfS headquarters in Berlin, which was responsible for countering centers of "political underground activity". From 1960 to 1965, Volpert completed a distance learning course at the MfS Academy in Potsdam-Eiche, graduating with a degree in law. In 1964, he became deputy head of his main department, which was renamed from Main Department V to Main Department XX in March 1964. In 1969, Volpert was transferred to the "Office of the Management" (which became the "Minister's Secretariat" in 1971) "to carry out special tasks,"that came directly from Mielke, such as the release of prisoners to the West for payment. In 1970, he received his doctorate in law together with Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski (the title of his dissertation: "Combating Imperialist Disruptive Activity in the Field of Foreign Trade "). In 1972, Volpert was promoted to colonel, and in 1975, he received the Gold Order of Merit of the Fatherland.  In 1986, Volpert was found dead in the sauna of his house, the circumstances of his death remaining unclear.

My students being given a tour of the Stasi's history and means of controlling the population. The Stasi's ability to control the population was greatly facilitated by its sophisticated surveillance methods. The agency employed an extensive network of informants and used advanced technology to monitor the activities of individuals. According to Jens Gieseke, a prominent historian of the Stasi, the agency had an estimated 91,000 full-time employees and over 200,000 informants by the 1980s. These informants were recruited from various segments of society, including workplaces, universities, and even within families. Their task was to report any signs of dissent or potential opposition to the Stasi. The Stasi also utilised a range of surveillance techniques to gather information on citizens. They intercepted mail, tapped telephones, and conducted extensive physical and electronic surveillance. One particularly infamous example of Stasi surveillance was the use of hidden microphones and cameras in private residences, workplaces, and public spaces. This invasive surveillance created a climate of fear and suspicion, as individuals were never sure if they were being watched or listened to. The mere perception of constant surveillance served as a powerful deterrent to dissent, effectively stifling any potential opposition. 

Furthermore, the Stasi's surveillance methods were bolstered by the comprehensive use of personal files. Anna Funder, an author and female historian who extensively researched the Stasi, highlights the existence of extensive dossiers on individuals that contained personal and private information. These files were meticulously compiled and included details such as political affiliations, relationships, and even sexual preferences. The possession of such intimate knowledge provided the Stasi with significant leverage over individuals, enabling them to manipulate and control those who posed a threat to the regime. Despite the effectiveness of the Stasi's surveillance apparatus, it is important to acknowledge that not all East Germans actively supported or collaborated with the regime. Many individuals, although aware of the Stasi's methods, sought subtle ways to resist or subvert their control. The popular sentiment of "Lügen haben kurze Beine" (lies have short legs) emerged, reflecting the skepticism of East Germans towards the credibility of the Stasi's propaganda and surveillance. This highlights the inherent limitations of the Stasi's control and the persistence of individual agency, even in the face of extensive surveillance. 

However, the Stasi's control over the population extended beyond surveillance and informants. Another crucial aspect of their strategy was the manipulation of ideological indoctrination. The ruling SED implemented a comprehensive propaganda system that aimed to shape the beliefs, values, and attitudes of the East German population. The Stasi played a pivotal role in enforcing this ideological conformity and suppressing dissenting voices. One key method employed by the Stasi was the dissemination of state-controlled media. The regime tightly controlled newspapers, radio, television, and other forms of mass communication, ensuring that only approved information and narratives were presented to the public. Any content that deviated from the official party line was swiftly censored or suppressed. This control over the media allowed the Stasi to shape public opinion and maintain a consistent ideological narrative that glorified the socialist regime whilst demonising its enemies. Moreover, the Stasi actively targeted cultural institutions, educational systems, and youth organizations to ensure the indoctrination of the younger generations. The education system was heavily influenced by the state, with curriculum content and textbooks carefully curated to promote socialist ideals and the regime's version of history. Children were taught from an early age to revere the achievements of the German Democratic Republic and to view the West as a corrupt and decadent society. The Stasi closely monitored teachers and professors, ensuring that they adhered to the approved curriculum and propagated the desired ideological messages. To reinforce ideological conformity and discourage dissent, the Stasi utilized a vast network of informants within various social spheres. They encouraged citizens to spy on each other, fostering an environment of mutual suspicion and mistrust. The fear of being reported by a friend, neighbor, or family member stifled open dialogue and created a climate of self-censorship. This pervasive sense of surveillance, coupled with the constant ideological messaging, effectively suppressed any alternative viewpoints and fostered conformity to the state's ideals. However, it is important to note that the effectiveness of ideological indoctrination varied among individuals. Historian Jens Gieseke argues that while the Stasi's control over information and education was substantial, there were East Germans who remained skeptical and critical of the regime. Some individuals managed to maintain their own beliefs and engage in small acts of resistance, even within the confines of an oppressive regime. This demonstrates the resilience of human agency and the limits of the Stasi's control over individual thought and conscience. 
In addition to surveillance and ideological indoctrination, the Stasi employed various tactics to instill fear and control within the population. One such tactic was the widespread use of psychological and physical intimidation. The Stasi employed a range of methods, including harassment, threats, blackmail, and even physical violence, to quell any opposition and maintain control. The Stasi's psychological tactics aimed to create a climate of fear and uncertainty. They often targeted individuals who showed signs of dissent or opposition, subjecting them to constant surveillance, interrogations, and psychological manipulation. These methods were intended to break down the individual's will and force them into submission. The Stasi also utilised psychological pressure on the families and friends of targeted individuals, using their loved ones as leverage to ensure cooperation and silence. Physical violence was another tool employed by the Stasi to assert control. Dissidents, activists, and those perceived as threats to the regime were subjected to physical abuse, imprisonment, and torture. The notorious Hohenschönhausen prison, operated by the Stasi, became a symbol of the regime's brutality and repression. The Stasi's use of physical violence served as a stark warning to others, reinforcing the notion that resistance would be met with severe consequences. It is worth noting that the Stasi's tactics of intimidation and violence were not without resistance. While many individuals succumbed to the pressure and complied with the regime's demands, there were courageous individuals who defied the Stasi's control. Dissident movements, such as the Peaceful Revolution and the subversive activities of groups like the Bürgerkomitees (Citizens' Committees), showcased the resilience and determination of those who dared to challenge the Stasi's authority. These acts of resistance played a significant role in undermining the Stasi's control and ultimately contributed to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany. 

In conclusion, the Stasi's control over the population was achieved through a combination of surveillance, ideological indoctrination, and tactics of fear and intimidation. Their extensive network of informants and sophisticated surveillance techniques created an atmosphere of constant scrutiny and suspicion, stifling dissent and promoting self-censorship. The manipulation of ideological indoctrination through state-controlled media, education, and cultural institutions ensured the propagation of the regime's ideals and limited alternative perspectives. Additionally, the Stasi's use of psychological and physical intimidation aimed to instill fear and maintain control. However, it is crucial to recognize that not all individuals succumbed to the Stasi's control, and acts of resistance played a vital role in challenging the regime's authority. The Stasi's methods of control left a lasting impact on East German society, but ultimately, they were unable to suppress the yearning for freedom and the desire for change.

My 2022 cohort in front of Haus 2 from where the history of the Stasi began. The building itself was first erected between 1930 and 1932 as a tax office. In 1950, the Stasi moved into its headquarters here at the corner of Normannenstrasse and Magdalenenstrasse. The building had been constructed in 1930/31 and was subsequently remodelled several times. Before the Stasi, the building housed a special department of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD) tasked with intelligence operations from April 1947. Additionally, the Lichtenberg police station had been located in the former tax office from the summer of 1945—its head at the time being Erich Mielke. Mielke became Minister for State Security in 1957. From 1953 onwards, Building 2 housed, among other things, Main Department II, the counterintelligence division of the Ministry for State Security (MfS). Main Department II monitored, secured, and controlled, among other things, DDR embassies abroad, diplomatic missions in the DDR, foreigners living in the DDR, and the safeguarding of the SED's contacts with the West. Today, the tax office of Berlin-Lichtenberg is located in building 2.
The structure, designed by architects Karl Reichle and Wilhelm Weygandt and formally addressed as Normannenstrasse 20–22, served first under Minister Wilhelm Zaisser from February 8, 1950 until his dismissal in 1953, after which Ernst Wollweber held the post until Mielke’s appointment. Mielke himself continued to maintain offices inside Haus 2 well into the early 1960s before the ministerial suite transferred to the newly completed Haus 1. Beyond Main Department II the building also accommodated Abteilung X responsible for international liaison work, the MfS photographic section, the leadership’s internal security and courier offices, and the legal department. A connecting bridge linked it to neighbouring Haus 18. Repeated internal reconstructions and upward extensions during the 1950s enlarged floor space to meet the ministry’s rapid growth; temporary auxiliary structures appeared south of the main block before later demolition. After the complex was stormed on January 15, 1990 the building reverted to its original function as the Finanzamt Lichtenberg and was placed under monument protection. 

Building 7, completed in 1957 as one of the first purpose-built extensions to the expanding Stasi headquarters complex in Berlin-Lichtenberg and consisted of a north wing and a west wing of solid masonry construction fitted with paternoster lifts. It stands immediately adjacent to Building 1, the later ministerial seat that housed Erich Mielke’s offices from the mid-1960s onward. Until the completion of the large panel-construction complex known as Building 15 in 1978, the foreign intelligence service of the Ministry for State Security, Hauptverwaltung A under the long-term leadership of Markus Wolf, occupied substantial parts of Building 7. Other operational units also used rooms in the structure throughout the remaining years of the DDR.  From 1979 Main Department XX transferred its headquarters into Building 7. This department was responsible for the systematic surveillance and disruption of mass organisations, the arts, culture, the churches, the political opposition, the independent peace and environmental movements, youth groups and sport. Its officers coordinated the recruitment of unofficial collaborators inside these spheres, prepared operational plans for the isolation and neutralisation of critical individuals and institutions, and maintained extensive card indexes and evaluation groups that fed information directly into the central decision-making apparatus of the Ministry. The physical proximity of Building 7 to Mielke’s offices in Building 1 allowed rapid coordination between the domestic repression apparatus and the ministerial leadership.  In the turbulent months after the opening of the Berlin Wall the building became a focal point of civic action. On January 15, 1990 large numbers of demonstrators entered the Normannenstrasse complex; civil-rights activists subsequently secured parts of Building 7. Later in 1990, during a renewed occupation and a hunger strike conducted by members of the Bürgerkomitees, pressure was maintained that contributed to the legal securing of public access to the Stasi files. The structure, together with other surviving buildings of the former headquarters, was later placed under monument protection and now forms part of the preserved ensemble used for documentation and research. 

Building 8, erected in the early 1980s, housed the archive and electronic data processing storage of the Central Evaluation and Information Group (ZAIG) of the Stasi. This unit prepared, among other things, situation assessments and reports for the party and state leadership as well as for the management of the Ministry for State Security (MfS). These reports, compiled since the 1953 uprising, are a historically significant source. Before Building 8, the site was occupied by residential buildings dating from the Imperial era. Today, Building 8 houses a large portion of the MfS files. The structure was completed around 1984 together with the neighbouring Building 9 as a purpose-built WBS 70 panel-construction archive block on the former residential plots along Magdalenenstrasse. ZAIG, the central analytical staff of the Ministry, used the new facilities to process and store both conventional card indexes and early electronic data sets that underpinned the daily and weekly Lageberichte supplied to the SED Politbüro, the Council of Ministers and Erich Mielke’s office. The reports drawn up after the June 17, 1953 uprising in particular form a continuous internal record of the regime’s perception of domestic stability and external threat. The multi-storey building was equipped with specialised shelving, climate control and secure data rooms designed for long-term retention of operational files. Following the dissolution of the Ministry in 1990 the premises were incorporated into the Stasi Records Archive and continue to hold a major share of the surviving paper and digital holdings of the former DDR state security service.

To provide meals for its employees, the Stasi had the New Dining Hall (Haus 22) built in 1960. Internally, it became known as "Generals' Hill," as only high-ranking Stasi employees were allowed to eat there. The dining hall, with approximately 200 seats, was located on the ground floor. Upstairs, there was a conference hall for celebratory events and for the minister's official meetings. House 22 was built on the earthen embankment of the former Köhler gristmill, once one of the few remaining tipping mills in Prussia. Here Mielke is shown being received with military honours on February 8, 1985, on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the founding of the Ministry for State Security, in the parking lot in front of House 22. he structure, officially designated the Neues Speisehaus, was reserved exclusively for officers of the rank of colonel and above; ordinary staff were directed to other canteens within the complex. The upper-floor conference hall regularly hosted the minister’s Dienstkonferenzen, receptions for foreign intelligence partners and internal SED basic-organisation meetings of key main departments. In 1983 the entire building underwent a comprehensive renovation costing 900 000 Marks of the DDR, during which the interior fittings of both the dining room and the ballroom were renewed and technical security sweeps were conducted to ensure the premises could not be bugged. After 1990 the ground-floor dining area was converted into the main reception and orientation space for visitors to the preserved headquarters complex, while the former ballroom continues to accommodate lectures, film screenings and temporary exhibitions organised by the Campus for Democracy.

Magdalenenstraße, located on the eastern edge of the Stasi headquarters, is synonymous with political persecution in the DDR. The Stasi’s remand prison was located here. On the western side of the street (between Stasi Building 2 and Frankfurter Allee) there were initially typical Berlin apartment buildings, shops and pubs. From the mid-1950s onward employees of the Ministry for State Security (MfS) working there had their official residences (in addition to the tenants already living there). From the 1970s onward the Ministry for State Security began demolishing some of the older buildings and replacing them with new prefabricated apartment blocks. Existing tenants were assigned alternative accommodation elsewhere in East Berlin. The new buildings housed, among other things, the MfS archive (Building 8) and the Central Operational Staff (ZOS) of the Stasi (Building 3). Whilst some of the buildings are now residential again, a large portion of the Stasi files is stored in Building 8. The remand prison on Magdalenenstraße formed one of the most notorious sites of pre-trial detention in the DDR, holding political prisoners under the control of the Ministry’s investigation departments before transfer to longer-term facilities. The progressive absorption of the western side of the street began in the 1950s when the expanding headquarters required both additional office space and controlled housing for its own personnel. By the 1970s and early 1980s systematic clearance of the remaining late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century tenements allowed the construction of purpose-built panel blocks. Building 3, occupying part of the cleared frontage, accommodated the Central Operational Staff, the body responsible for coordinating major internal security operations and crisis responses across the Ministry. Building 8, completed in the early 1980s, was designed from the outset as a high-security archive and data-storage facility for the Central Evaluation and Information Group and related departments. The physical transformation of Magdalenenstraße therefore mirrored the growing institutional power of the MfS, converting an ordinary urban street into an integral, secured extension of the headquarters complex itself.   

 

 

 

 

Wilhelm Pieck — leader of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD)


 

Before the war the area now occupied by Marx-Engels-Forum was a densely populated Old Town quarter between the river and Alexanderplatz, named after Heiligegeiststraße which ran across it between Kaiser-Wilhelm-Straße (now Karl-Liebknecht-Straße) and Rathausstraße. The area including the main post office was heavily bombed during Allied air attacks and most of its buildings reduced to ruins. After the war the ruins were cleared but nothing replaced them.  While the adjacent Nikolaiviertel was to be rebuilt, the DDR authorities in 1977 set up plans for a green space between the Palast der Republik and the Fernsehturm. The sculptor Ludwig Engelhardt was appointed as director of the project to redevelop the site as a tribute to Marx and Engels, the founders of the communist movement to whose ideology the East German state was dedicated. It consists of a rectangular wooded park with a large, circular paved area in the centre with a sculpture by Engelhardt, consisting of larger-than-life bronze figures of Marx (sitting) and Engels (standing). Behind the statues is a relief wall showing scenes from the history of the German socialist movement. The inauguration took place in 1986.  After German reunification in 1990, the future of the Marx-Engels Forum became the subject of public controversy. Some Berliners saw the Forum as an unwanted relic of a defunct regime which they opposed, and argued for the removal of the statues and renaming of the park. Others argued that the site had both artistic and historical significance, and should be preserved. The latter view eventually prevailed. The statues are now a tourist attraction, and a steady stream of people sit on Marx's knee to have their photos taken. With regard to the planned extension of the U5 line of the Berlin U-Bahn turning the park into a construction site for several years, the Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit has recently launched a discussion whether to rebuild the mediæval quarter afterwards.

The DDR Museum is located in the former governmental district of East Germany, right on the river Spree, opposite the Berlin Cathedral. The museum is the 11th most visited museum in Berlin and its exhibition shows the daily life in East Germany in a direct "hands-on"way. For example, a covert listening device ("bug") gives visitors the sense of being "under surveillance".  The museum was opened on July 15, 2006, as a private museum. The private funding is unusual in Germany, because German museums are normally funded by the state. The museum met some opposition from state-owned museums, who considered possibly "suspect" a private museum and concerned that the museum could be used as an argument to question public funding to museums in general.  Nevertheless, in 2008 and 2012 the DDR Museum was nominated for the European Museum of the Year Award. According to the statistics of the Institute for Museum Research and the Berlin Senate Chancellery, it is one of the most visited museums and memorials in Berlin with 504,564 visitors. It has also been ranked 44th in the survey of the German National Tourist Board (GNTB) in 2015 by international guests and in 2016 ranked 36th among the top 100 destinations.

The museum covers the areas of "State Border of the GDR", Berlin, Transport, Wall, Stasi, Consumption, DDR Products, Diet, Building, Living, Partnership, Family, Equality, Private Niche, Media, Literature, Education, Childhood, Youth, Labour, fashion, culture, leisure, music, holiday, health, army, opposition, party, state, Ministry of State Security, ideology, fraternities, DDR opposition, penitentiary, economy, environment and authority. In contrast to other museums, a large part of the exhibits can be touched at this exhibition: one can sit down in a wardrobe, rummage through the cabinets in the cabinets, or try out clothing pieces from the wardrobe with a digital mirror. In general, the exhibition does not focus on the individual exhibits, but rather on the scenic composition of the exhibits. Each panel construction contains a different thematic area, in each individual are numerous drawer doors, doors, windows or media. Behind these elements are the exhibits and information. In addition to the prefabricated buildings, there is also a trabant to be used with driving simulation, a cinema and a WBS 70-Plattenbauwohnung. The whole exhibition is interactive. From October 2010 the exhibition was also an experience restaurant, in which the visitors could also experience the typical DDR cooking. This was closed as of March 31, 2015, since the rooms were rebuilt for an expansion of the exhibition, which was opened in August 2016.

Student getting the treatment in the DDR Verhörzelle and inside a replica of a Stasi cell

Among the donations from foreign visitors can be seen Canadian Tyre money.

The site of the wall on Zimmerstraße near the corner of Wilhelmstraße with the Markthalle III behind me and as it appeared in 1976. The hall closed in 1910 due to unprofitability and was subsequently home to the Berlin Konzerthaus Clou, where Hitler first appeared as a speaker in Berlin on May 1, 1927 from 11.00 to 14.00. The closed assembly took place on the occasion of the May Day celebrations of the Berlin-Brandenburg Gau which, according to the Völkischer Beobachter, was attended by around 5,000 people and was led by Kurt Daluege, SA leader and deputy Gauleiter. Goebbels spoke before Hitler about the latter's ban from speaking in Prussia. This was also the site where Hitler made his first public appearance in Berlin in July that year. At the end of the 1930s the city of Berlin divided the property and sold the former market hall and the front building on Mauerstraße to the previous tenant Hoffmann & Retschlag. The front building on Zimmerstraße came into the possession of the Nazis' central publishing house, Franz Eher Folger GmbH whcih set up its Berlin branch here and in the neighbouring buildings at Zimmerstraße 87–8 where the printing machines for the Berlin edition of the Völkischer Beobachter along with other party propaganda journals such as Das Schwarze Korps and Der Angriff were housed. After the war, the SED party organ Neues Deutschland was printed on them. The concert hall, which had already been closed due to the war, served in 1943 as one of the assembly camps for the last Jews who had been spared deportation until February 27, 1943 and who were still being forced to work in Berlin armaments factories. Towards the end of the Second World War aerial bombs destroyed the facilities of this former market hall that had been built between 1884 and 1886, except for the front building and its western side wing on Zimmerstrasse shown here. After the Berlin Wall was built in 1961 right in front of the building, it stood in the inaccessible border area until 1989. On the right is the dismantling of the concrete slab wall and erection of border wall 75 on Wilhelmstrasse. In 1976 here, between Niederkirchner Strasse and Friedrichstrasse, work began on removing the remains of the old border wall made of concrete slabs and building the new border wall 75 from precast concrete parts. In place of the old wall, a 400 metre long mobile safety fence will be erected temporarily, reducing the distance to the residential buildings to a width of 1.50 to 2 metres. Seen in the orginal photo, a border soldier guards the area between the fence and the border wall. The wall itself on Zimmerstraße passed through the same successive technical generations applied elsewhere in the city. The initial 1961 barrier of concrete blocks and barbed wire was replaced by taller prefabricated panels. By the mid-1970s the Grenzmauer 75 system—L-shaped concrete elements roughly 3.6 metres high topped by a smooth cylindrical pipe—had been installed along the street. Observation towers, signal fencing and the full depth of the death strip occupied the ground between the outer wall and the hinterland barrier. Because of the proximity of Checkpoint Charlie the sector remained under permanent intensified guard. Further incidents occurred on the same street. In the winter of 1971–72 three men, Manfred Höer, Peter Höer and Peter Schöpf, dug a tunnel from a building on the eastern side of Zimmerstraße under the death strip. On 9 January 1972 they broke through the pavement on the western side of the outer wall and reached Kreuzberg. 

Standing beside the large bronze statue of Lenin created by the Russian sculptor Matvey G. Manizer in 1925. It was erected about 20 miles south of Leningrad in Tsarskoye Selo, now renamed Pushkin, which had once served as the Tsar’s summer residence. During the Second World War the Germans Wehrmacht took Pushkin, dismantling the statue in 1943 and transporting it to Eisleben. There, in the “Krughütte” smelting works, the statue was to be melted down and used as urgently needed metal for war production. The statue survived the war for reasons that remain uncertain, probably because it was simply too large for the smelting furnace. Later in the German Democratic Republic, the statue’s survival became the stuff of legend, spun for political ends: It was said that Soviet forced labourers and ‘class-conscious’ workers at Mansfeld AG had “spontaneously come together” and saved the statue by hiding it under a scrap heap. When the Red Army entered Eisleben in 1945, the townspeople were then said to have raised the statue of Lenin “as a sign of gratitude for liberation from Hitler’s yoke by the glorious Red Army”, as was written in an official GDR brochure. Greeted by their revolutionary hero and a cheering populace, the soldiers of the Red Army were said to have marched triumphantly into Eisleben while inhabitants greeted them with flowers.The reality was surely otherwise when the occupying troops in Eisleben, initially the Yanks, ceded the territory to the Red Army, around two months after the end of the war. The city did in fact raise the statue on the market square to greet the Soviet soldiers on July 2, 1945 although it seems the soldiers greeted Comrade Lenin with complete indifference, and the triumphant march, the cheering townspeople of Eisleben and the colourful flowers are also figments of the socialist imagination. In spite of all this, the Soviet Union was sufficiently moved by the raising of the statue that it made a gift of the statue to Lutherstadt Eisleben in an official ceremony on May Day 1948, with Walter Ulbricht in attendance, who went on to become First Secretary of the ruling Communist Party. The sculpture thus became the first monumental statue of Lenin in Germany.

The three-metre high Lenin relief on the Behrenstrasse side of the embassy was recently removed in February 2011 when the complex's swimming pool was completely renovated. The swimming hall itself belongs to the extended embassy compound that runs from the main chancery building on Unter den Linden back to Behrenstraße and Glinkastraße and includes residential blocks, a school and sports facilities constructed or expanded in the 1960s and 1970s for the use of Soviet, later Russian, diplomatic staff and their families. Its removal came after Berlin journalist Gunnar Schupelius complained in 2008 that “Lenin went down in history as one of the greatest criminals of mankind. And the Russian embassy is not taking its picture off? This is scary to me. I would rather avoid Behrenstrasse in the future.” Here I am nine years later to see the facade of the building entirely cleaned up. This was the last of the giant likenesses of Lenin to be removed in Berlin having earlier been removed from the entrance to the Russian House on Friedrichstrasse, Leninallee and as a colossal statue made of red granite on Leninplatz, now renamed United Nations Square, although his relief can still be seen at the Soviet memorial at Treptower. A separate white marble bust of Lenin had already been moved in 1997 from the open forecourt of the main embassy building on Unter den Linden to an inner courtyard adjacent to the swimming hall, where it is no longer visible from the street. The swimming hall and the surrounding residential and service buildings continue to form a closed compound within the embassy grounds although access is restricted; the facilities serve embassy personnel and are not open to the public. The removal of the large relief in 2011 therefore eliminated the last overt Soviet-era sculptural element that had remained visible on the Behrenstraße façade of the complex.  Incidentally, it was near this site on the afternoon of May 7, 1866 that Ferdinand Cohen-Blind shot Bismarck twice from behind after the latter had just reported to King Wilhelm and was walking home. Bismarck spun around and grabbed his attacker, who was able to fire three more shots before soldiers from the 1st Battalion of the 2nd Guards rushed up and took him into custody. Bismarck continued on his way home. Later that night, he allowed the King's physician, Gustav von Lauer, to examine him. Lauer noted that the first three bullets had only grazed Bismarck's body and the last two had ricocheted off the ribs and had caused no major injuries. Some sources claim that Bismarck was saved because he had worn a bulletproof vest.

 

At the Outpost Theatre on Clayallee 135, built in 1953 to designs by the American architect Arnold Blauvelt acting on the commission of the United States Army Engineer Division on the edge of the principal American residential settlement that had been developed along Hüttenweg in the early 1950s. Its street façade is characterised by rounded corners, continuous horizontal window bands, glazed stair towers and a broad projecting canopy that shelters the entrance. The lateral rounded projections flanking the dark central entrance bay were intentionally shaped to evoke a film reel, whilst the recessed doorway itself was intended to suggest a strip of film. The architectural language combines elements of inter-war modernism with the formal vocabulary of contemporary American cinema design of the early 1950s.  The auditorium originally provided seating for between 750 and more than 900 spectators. In addition to the projection screen the hall was equipped with a full stage and an orchestra pit, allowing it to function as a multi-purpose performance space. Access was strictly limited to American military personnel, their dependants and authorised guests. German civilians could enter only when accompanied by an American entitled to admission. Before every film screening the American national anthem was played in full. Latecomers were required to remain outside until the anthem had finished; a neon sign reading “National Anthem is playing now. Please wait” still hangs above the original entrance doors. Film programmes consisted largely of current Hollywood releases, but the building also hosted live theatre productions, musicals staged by the American forces entertainment units and the annual graduation ceremonies of the American high school serving the Berlin garrison.  The name “Outpost” was chosen by means of a competition open to members of the American community then resident in Berlin. The designation reflected the official and popular perception of the city as a forward political and military position of the Western Allies during the Cold War. The cinema formed one element of a larger American service complex that included residential blocks, a chapel, shopping facilities and the nearby garrison library. Throughout the four decades of its military use the building remained exclusively under American control and was never integrated into the civilian cinema network of West Berlin.  
Following German reunification and the final withdrawal of the Western Allied garrisons in the summer of 1994 the Outpost Theater lost its original function. In September 1994, in the weeks immediately preceding the formal departure of the Allied forces, an initial temporary exhibition entitled “More than a Suitcase Remains: The Western Powers and Berlin 1944–1994” was installed inside the former cinema. The building was formally placed under monument protection by the Berlin heritage authorities in 1995 on account of its architectural quality and its historical significance as a purpose-built American military facility of the early Cold War period. In 1998 the newly established AlliiertenMuseum opened the first section of its permanent exhibition in the Outpost Theatre under the title “How Enemies Became Friends.” That section concentrates on the years 1945 to 1950 and displays original sector maps, occupation uniforms, early post-war newspapers, denazification documentation, CARE packages and material relating to the Berlin Airlift of 1948–49.  The neighbouring former garrison library, renamed the Major Arthur D. Nicholson Jr. Memorial Library in honour of the American major killed by a Soviet sentry during a routine patrol in East Germany in 1985, was incorporated into the museum complex and used for additional exhibition and research space. Large outdoor exhibits were placed on the surrounding grounds: a British Handley Page Hastings transport aircraft that had flown in the Airlift, a French military railway carriage formerly used on the Berlin military trains, the last wooden checkpoint hut from Checkpoint Charlie, and several original segments of the Berlin Wall. These objects remain in situ and form an integral part of the museum’s presentation.  Since 1998 the Outpost Theater has continued to serve as the principal indoor exhibition space of the AlliiertenMuseum. Lectures, public readings, film screenings and educational programmes are regularly held in the former auditorium. The original neon sign, the stage structure and substantial elements of the 1953 interior fittings have been retained. In recent years structural defects in the roof and building fabric necessitated temporary closure of the auditorium for urgent maintenance and renovation. Selected highlight objects from the permanent exhibition were transferred to the Nicholson Memorial Library for the duration of the works so that public access to core holdings could be maintained. The cinema building itself remains the architectural and institutional core of the museum dedicated to the presence of the Western Allies in Berlin between 1945 and 1994. Its continued use as an exhibition hall preserves both the physical structure and the historical function of the site as a place of American community life during the decades of division.