32 years ago today!

[Rainger99]

Does anyone remember 11/9/89? It was the day the Berlin Wall fell. Has anyone been to Berlin - either before or after it fell? I was there in 1981 - the most interesting city I ever visited. I went through Checkpoint Charlie to visit East Berlin. I was so glad that I was able to go back to West Berlin and freedom.

[Koapaka]

Oddly enough happened to be TDY to Berlin (Tempelhof AB) that week. It was surreal and I have a chunk of the wall that I got as a souvenir. It is simple cinderblock type of stuff with graffiti spray-painted on it, as most of it had "artwork" additions added to it over the years. Obviously since I had to pack it to fly back from GE, it is not a large chunk, but a little piece of history to bring back special memories for sure.

[TattedSarge71]

I was there when the Wall fell. Member of the Berlin Brigade, A Co 4/502nd Infantry. Have pics of me hitting the Wall with a hammer. I still have the pieces I broke off. It was incredible to be there.

[TattedSarge71]

Here's a couple pics, one is me breaking off a piece of wall, the other is Checkpoint Charlie the morning after it was opened for traffic from the East.

[HIgolfers]

Visited East Berlin in 1978 when I was a cadet on TDY with the Berlin Brigade (Special Troops Bn). Went with 2 LTs for the day, through Checkpoint Charlie. Very surreal. Best part though was 5 course meal we had for about $4!

[Paul1934]

There in 1965. Going through Checkpoint Charle was like passing through the wall into Toonland in ‘Jessica Rabbit’. West was technicolor and East was black and white, more just flat grey. Glad to get back to West.

[Taltarzac725]

Does anyone remember 11/9/89? It was the day the Berlin Wall fell. Has anyone been to Berlin - either before or after it fell? I was there in 1981 - the most interesting city I ever visited. I went through Checkpoint Charlie to visit East Berlin. I was so glad that I was able to go back to West Berlin and freedom.

I was taking a course in Reading Dutch from a graduate student at the U of MN whose field was the German language at this time. She seemed to often be in tears whenever she talked about the fall of the Berlin Wall.

[Annie66]

I was in Berlin with my family in the late summer of 1990 (about 8-9 months after the fall of the wall). By then, much of the 109 miles of the wall was being systematically torn down. I was on leave from my assignment at the Navy HQ in London where I had been read into a number of special programs. We took an MWR tour of Berlin, which unbeknownst to me, included a trip to the east side of Berlin. The comparison to West Berlin was incredibly stark. West Berlin was a vibrant city, while the East Berlin store fronts had very few items in their windows, bomb craters from WW2 could still be seen down side streets, and the people wore extremely drab clothing. They seemed to slowly shuffle along the sidewalks. We eventually went to the museum where the German surrender was signed in 1945. It happened to be right in the middle of the Russian HQ compound. From a distance of maybe 60 yards, we could see the Russian guards with their binoculars examining everyone as we got off the bus. Glad they did not have facial recognition programs then. For me, I was relieved to get back on the west side.

[mkjelenbaas]

Have t been there!

[La lamy]

I toured around Europe quite a few times with my first career and enjoyed Berlin very much through the 80s. Great bands/nightlife. I was also there after the wall came down and people were so bitter, having to pay for the rebuilding of the east side. But personally I was so happy to see the east get out of their 'prison'. Got a little chunk of the wall from a Berliner friend of mine. Really cool memento.

[BogeyBoy]

2018

[toeser]

Does anyone remember 11/9/89? It was the day the Berlin Wall fell. Has anyone been to Berlin - either before or after it fell? I was there in 1981 - the most interesting city I ever visited. I went through Checkpoint Charlie to visit East Berlin. I was so glad that I was able to go back to West Berlin and freedom.

I was there on Reunification Day October 3, 1990. They symbolically dropped a Trabant over the wall from the East German side to the West German side. It was quite a celebration.

Coming in from West Germany we were in a traffic jam that must have lasted a couple of hours. We thought oh, oh, maybe we should have gotten visas. It turned out the entire problem was having a four-lane freeway drop down to a little winding road going through a border checkpoint, complete with overlook towers, etc. - all unmanned at this point.

The memory that sticks with me was the difficulty of leaving Berlin at night. Berlin was designed to keep people in, not let people out, so there were no road signs pointing to an exit. It took us forever to find a road out.

[M2inOR]

Was in West Berlin on business 2 weeks before the wall fell, and my colleagues and I had a discussion about the wall and whether or not East and West would be reunited. We all doubted it would.

My wife and I visited the new Berlin a few months later, and of course went to the East side to experience the transition. The stores, the hotels, the museums, all rapidly changing.

We returned a few years ago, and the transition was complete. A thriving German city.

We were supposed to return almost 1.5 years ago with a group of friends, but the Pandemic canceled that, as well as the rescheduled trip last year, and we're hoping March of 2022 let's us all in.

[Petersweeney]

Ronald Reagan - Mr Gorbichav tear down this wall -
They thought he was crazy

[temartin]

Here's a couple pics, one is me breaking off a piece of wall, the other is Checkpoint Charlie the morning after it was opened for traffic from the East.
Incredible. I'll bet you have some awesome stories to tell. Thank you for your service to our great country.

[StephenE]

I was in Berlin in 1979 and visited the wall one of the steel East and West Berlin. It was very scary. I went back in I think in 1984 after unification. It was a magnificent site. Cranes everywhere! It was supposedly the largest construction project in the history of the world. I don’t know where the germans got the Money. It even topped The villages construction phenomena.

[jbartle1]

Ronald Reagan - Mr Gorbichav tear down this wall -
They thought he was crazy

And yet....Some nut cases are building walls

[JMintzer]

We were there in July, 2012, for our 30th Anniversary... We did 2.5 weeks, starting in Paris, on to Amsterdam, followed by a Baltic cruise.

We did a day trip to Berlin. Fascinating... We had to get up at 0' dark thirty to board the train to Berlin... That was a bit disconcerting... :shocked:

[meme5x]

Was there in the middle 90’s.. was happy to see wall was down.. very interesting experience.. loved Germany

[Tadpole]

Does anyone remember 11/9/89? It was the day the Berlin Wall fell. Has anyone been to Berlin - either before or after it fell? I was there in 1981 - the most interesting city I ever visited. I went through Checkpoint Charlie to visit East Berlin. I was so glad that I was able to go back to West Berlin and freedom.
Yes... I was there in Sept-Oct 1987 - EAST GERMANY also through Checkpoint Charlie – East Berlin, Meissen, Dresden, Leipzig, Potsdam. Then to Prague, Budapest, Belgrade, Rousse, Bucharest. Also visited many cities/towns in the USSR on 4 separate trips. I wish all Americans could experience that lifestyle.

[Tchrep]

My German friend who was wheelchair-bound participated in the 1989 Berlin Marathon held in Oct. I met him there to see him race and stayed with a friend of his a few days afterwards. Since I worked for the US Gov’t I took my civilian passport with me and rode the train from the West to and from Berlin. I went through Check Point Charlie and like the writer above I too thought I was Alice through the looking glass. I remember going into the East Berlin History Museum and walked the 2nd floor for the history up to and including WWI. When I went downstairs the guard directed me to where the history continued - starting in 1922!!! There was no history shown between 1918 and 1922!!! Incredible.

[Win1894]

Does anyone remember 11/9/89? It was the day the Berlin Wall fell. Has anyone been to Berlin - either before or after it fell? I was there in 1981 - the most interesting city I ever visited. I went through Checkpoint Charlie to visit East Berlin. I was so glad that I was able to go back to West Berlin and freedom.

I remember the day quite well. I visited Berlin just a few months later and for three dollars bought a souvenir piece of the wall which I still have. I keep it as a reminder about the abject evilness of socialistic/communistic totalitarianism, and how the West under the leadership of Reagan and Thatcher fostered its implosion and defeated it.

[richdell]

Does anyone remember 11/9/89? It was the day the Berlin Wall fell. Has anyone been to Berlin - either before or after it fell? I was there in 1981 - the most interesting city I ever visited. I went through Checkpoint Charlie to visit East Berlin. I was so glad that I was able to go back to West Berlin and freedom.

Great city. We were stationed in Berlin 1982-1985. My son was born there. We were also stationed in Zweibruecken when the wall came down. We drove to Berlin a few years later to see all of the changes. Sad to see all the closed American facilities.

[driverbob44@yahoo.com]

Does anyone remember 11/9/89? It was the day the Berlin Wall fell. Has anyone been to Berlin - either before or after it fell? I was there in 1981 - the most interesting city I ever visited. I went through Checkpoint Charlie to visit East Berlin. I was so glad that I was able to go back to West Berlin and freedom.

when my son was in high school, we hosted a exchange student from germany. he was a great young man. then his parents come to visit, they had been in berlin and brought us 4 pieces of the berlin wall. and they did it them selfs.,

[Tbrazie]

Son was there for study abroad in 2018 at Frei Universitaat Berlin and then as an intern at the Embassy in 2019. We loved the visits we made there. The Germans are very open about the cold war years with many awesome museums depicting the times. Great STASSI (E. German Secret Police) museum at their former HQ. Parts of the wall preserved; crosses marking the places where people died trying to cross; tunnel tours. Go back and see it all. Great city and terrific public transportation. Also visit Pottsdam, place of the war treaty meeting and HQ of the Soviet KGB and wonderful city to visit.

[Bilyclub]

And yet....Some nut cases are building walls

There's always one ass who has to interject his Democrat nonsense into a thread.

[worahm]

I was there in 1953 when most of East Berlin was still in ruin. I was stationed at 4th Infantry Division, HQs. G2 Intelligence in Frankfort.

[kwheeler9]

Does anyone remember 11/9/89? It was the day the Berlin Wall fell. Has anyone been to Berlin - either before or after it fell? I was there in 1981 - the most interesting city I ever visited. I went through Checkpoint Charlie to visit East Berlin. I was so glad that I was able to go back to West Berlin and freedom.

I and a fellow from Australia hitchhiked into Berlin on July 23, 1961 with a West German businessman. It took us 2 hours to get through Checkpoint Alpha and an hour to get through Checkpoint Bravo. Berlin was in crisis again after the recent shooting down of Gary Powers and the U-2 spy plane. Plane and train travel between West and East was curtailed, and an incident with an American was highly desired while Russia searched for an excuse to declare East Germany a sovereign country.

With no vacancy at the downtown Berlin youth hostel, the manager booked us into a youth hostel on a lake in the northeast section of the city. To get there we had to ride the U-Bahn. Buying our tokens at the nearest station, I spotted a train about to leave that had a sign in the back window which said it was going to our destination. Thinking the U-Bahn was like the MTA in Boston, we ran down the stairs and jumped in as the door closed. Finding a seat, I looked at the train map on the wall, and to my horror, saw the train we were on started and finished in West Berlin, but had 6 or 7 stops in East Berlin as it crossed the East German salient.

In the West, everyone was shuffling around the car and talking. The minute we hit the East German sector, no one moved and no one talked. It was a great lesson contrasting life in a democracy and life in a totalitarian state. At the fourth stop in the salient, an East German soldier with a submachine gun and a dog got on and herded everyone off. A group of West German tried to hide us with their group, but my Australian friend was flying an Australian flag on his pack and wouldn't stop speaking English. The East German soldier found us and herded us into an office where the officials took our passports and interrogated us. Fortunately, they gave our passports back after an hour and let us board another train to our destination.

We eventually got to see a number of places in East Berlin using a tour that got us safely through Checkpoint Charlie. Stalinallee was lined with modern buildings like in West Berlin. However, directly behind these buildings, there was nothing but rubble from WWII. It was a stark contrast to the rebuilt, fully stocked stores and bubbling atmosphere in West Berlin.

On July 26th, despite all the warnings from the officials at the consulate in Berlin, we got a ride back to the West with two Australians in a VW bug. The Berlin wall went up August 12-15, 1961. The Belin visit was one of the most influential in my life, as was the wall coming down on November 9, 1989.

[LizzieBorden]

We had a tour scheduled before the wall came down, and then just before we left we were able to get in through check point Charlie and tour it all…. We stopped at the wall and was able to rent chisels/hammers to chip out parts of the wall with the graffiti on it, I still have many pieces in my possession from that trip. I remember the guards getting on our bus with their M16’s to check us all out. I admit it was scary, but we got through it. It was one of the most amazing times of my life, and touring there was unbelievable. Buildings with bullets into the outside walls, Make shift traffic lights because they had never had so much traffic and nothing was planned….it was a great trip many years ago. One I will never forget.

[Janet1946]

We hosted an exchange student from Hamburg, Germany in (I think) 1985. The following year we went to visit his family and took a day trip to Berlin. Because we were going to East Berlin with German citizens, we had to go on a German tour, not an American one. We couldn't go through Checkpoint Charlie, but went through another entrance. Almost the entire tour was about WWII and how the horrible Germans killed the good and brave Soviets (which was true). We visited lots of cemeteries and one museum. On the way back to West Berlin, our bus was searched for about an hour by the East Berlin police. It was quite an experience.

[Barborv]

Was in west Belin in 1981with a friend . We were traveling throughout Europe. Was back in 2017 I believe on a Globus tour and then again in 2019 . Still a lot of building going on.

[Rainger99]

This is a long article from Wikipedia but definitely worth reading. It has pictures of Potsdamer Platz at the time the wall was up and as it is now. It was an empty space when the wall ran through it but now it is more modern than Times Square.

Potsdamer Platz - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potsdamer_Platz)

[DAVES]

I worked for several companies. One was west German. Interesting to see their view.
Things like medial care. As far as East Germany, West German workers had major concerns about money spent on East Germany as well as the introduction of a cheap labor pool. We often think only of our issues. Same as us, the management had to decide whether to move manufacturing to less expensive places, like China, like India. I think even the US would be less costly.