I begin with a short interview from the man who shouted "Open the barrier!” and changed Berlin's reality literally overnight. "It's not me who opened the Wall. It's the East German citizens who gathered that evening. The only thing I can be credited with is that it happened without any blood being spilled... I had never seen such euphoria, and I've never seen it since," Jäger said, smiling.
Slow travel's look at 25 relevant Berlin locations is really fascinating. Their first stop, the Bornholmer Strasse Border Crossing where Jäger was stationed on the 9th of November, 1989.
I follow with the Berlin.de chronology of the Fall of the Wall and a view of the Alexanderplatz demonstrations.
Foto: Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1989-1104-437, Berlin, Demonstration am 4. November - CC-BY-SA-3.0-de
Construction of the“Berlin Wall Trail” (Berliner Mauerweg) was completed in 2006, turning the location of a wall of separation into a pathway for both recreational use and historical documentation.
To get an idea of just how drastically the cityscape has changed since 1989, buzzfeed put together a few images from the book “Berlin Wonderland - Wild Years Revisited”.
I end with another interview, this time with Heiko age 52, who was a East Berlin resident in 1989. She notes many small surprises she found herself faced with upon passing through the Bornholmer Strasse Border, and the relevance of those events today.
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