32 years ago today!
 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

Have t been there!

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.

2018

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.

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.

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

Incredible. I'll bet you have some awesome stories to tell. Thank you for your service to our great country.