Up, up, errichteten die Wände

I had a chance to visit Berlin July 2009 ago. The first time I knew Berlin wall, I was wondering whether that wall is really2 the famous and historical one since there were a lot of graffiti :D But for sure, I enjoyed my time when I was there.

These photographs are unbelievable and tell such a tragic story. I have never been to Berlin, but its a definite of my list of places to visit.

Excellent! Love the fade out B & A photos!
Love the way they left the footprint of the wall in the streets...
Welcome to freedom...! Now get to work and pay your taxes!!
HA! Just kidding... But maybe not... ;-)

stunning photographs!

my small contribution >> http://ziolele.net/2009/11/09/the-wall-twenty-years-after-berlin

free!

Comment #51: "Ich bin ein Berliner" is absolutely correct. Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ich_bin_ein_Berliner#Jelly_doughnut_urban_legend) has a nice summary about this urban legend.

I do #38 every day and yet it feels special every time.

Oh yes, when it comes to reunification I'm quite proud to be a (East)Berliner. Thanks so much especially for the before and after pics. Sometimes it's just unbelievable how much changed and they capture exactly that.

#4 Strong image, full of meaning!

Where is Gorby?

I wish for peace and freedom in much future.

The before / after pictures are absolutely staggering!

Good photos

Wow - the before and after pictures are great

Great Photos. Hopefully we bring down more such walls around the world.

Simply Amazing. But its sad to know that in spite the wall coming down 20 years back, the people whom it was meant to divide are still divided.

Unfortunate.

Someone mentioned that young people would not know who is pictured beside Kennedy - I'm guessing Ronald Reagan. You might have at least told us.

Wow. I was too young to feel the impact of this 20 years ago but these pictures drove home the spirit of the times.

I listened to a great interview on CBC with an East Berlin woman who told her story of the the first few weeks after the wall came down. Some people didn't trust that it wouldn't close up again so they were afraid to go anywhere. Then there were others lining up for blocks in West Berlin just to get a cup of Coke!

Fantastic! What a wonderful tribute to the human spirit!! Liberty and freedom will not be denied! Congratulations to our German friends on this truly happy anniversary!

Muy, muy emotivo, revisar en imagenes lo que sucedio hace 20 años, uniendo un pais y falmiliares separados por tanto tiempo.

Congratulations!!!!!!

Muy emocionante ver la caida del muro de Berlin, recordarlo y ver como se pudieron unir familiares y seres queridos separados por tanto tiempo.

Congratulations to our German friends......

@ 84

I'm sorry you feel that way. It's all in the people's heads and unfortunately I guess it will take one more generation to truly overcome the division of Germany. I live in Berlin, was born in West Germany and my family originates from both sides. Here in Berlin I don't feel anything anymore..my friends come from both sides and noone cares. Sadly some old, dumb or just jobless and unsatisfied people will have a harder time to change their minds. Change your mind first! Love from Berlin

"Ich bin ein Berliner"

Kennedy

@ 91

with "I don't feel anything anymore" I meant separation. Of course living in this city makes it very emotional for me. Everybody, break down the walls in your minds and all over the world. Together we can do it. United we stand

Congratulations Germany on the 20th anniversary of the destruction of this horrid wall. We Americans apologize that our president couldn't find the time to attend the ceremonies because he's too tired from going to Copenhagen to beg for the Olympics and still has to have time to plan his trip to Kenya next year. You can take solace in knowing that if Ronald Reagan was still alive he would have been there on his sick bed. Thank you President Reagan, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul II and Lech Welesa for their part in tearing down the wall!

Fantastic

fotos maravilhosas !! Brszil Teresópolis -RJ

I lived in West Berlin in the 1970's and went back two years ago. I finally got what was so impressive about Under den Linden and the whole concept of a city center that had once existed and does again now.
The "then and now" pictures do great job of giving you the sense of jarred memory. We sat in one of the UBahn stops and reminincised about how the cars used to look , and up came some of the old cars from the 70s, all worn out.
The museum island, KuDamm, you name it.....Just a treat to go there.
Thanks for the great pictures.

It is more than time to now say the same thing Ronald Reagan said. But now to the new "Berlin" wall in Palestine.

'Israel, Mr. Netanyahu. Tear down that Wall."

The celebration of the downfall of the Berlin Wall is hollow, if this does not lead to tearing down the new, far more oppressive 'Berlin" Wall.

Freude schöner Götterfunke

And our President could not even make the effort to attend. Tragic.

It can't be said better. "Ich bin ein Berliner"

Continuons à battre ces murs pour la paix dans le monde....

just amayzing

God Bless Germany!

oh....the 91 wa meant for 86 not 84. sorry

While many of the commenters are comparing the Berlin wall to the Israeli wall, there is a profound difference. The Berlin wall was built by the East Germans to keep people in, to prevent them from escaping to freedom in the West. The Israeli wall was built by the Israeli government to keep people out, to prevent them from bringing bombs into Israel.

@ 91 and 100

Obama wasn't meant to come. With him the whole security system would have been much worse and the Fest der Freiheit (Party of Freedom) would have been the opposite of that...so he was told not to come. Instead Hillary came and his speech was transmitted via the Big Screen. It was very moving and the opposite of ignorant, so stop mourning about him. People in Germany are lined up behind him, so should you americans. For the first time since ages Europe is supporting an american president. With somebody like George W. something like the fall of the Berlin Wall would never have happened. Just my 2 cents

At # 3 - YOUR COMMENT IS TELLING STATEMENT OF YOUR DISREGARD OF OUR AMERICAN PRESIDENT

Great photos. but how quickly history moves on and its significance gets lost. We are repeating the same thing now in Palestine, one day our children will look back at this event, just as I do on the Berlin Wall (I was born in 86) and think 'how could they'.

Where is Obama in 32? Shame on him.

@110

please read the 107. thanks

Der vog, der vog, der vogel ist der wort

I have to agree with 106. All walls are not created equal! The Berlin wall was made to keep us East Germans inside our own country. It was called the "Anti-fascist protection wall", but the ones it was built against were actually on the inside.

Israel, however, has achieved a major decline of heinous, barbaric, cowardly suicide attacks on their own population. They'd rather not have that wall either, but it's necessary right now.

Surely photos 16 & 25 are references to the Wim Wenders movie "Wings of Desire" - "Der Himmel über Berlin", literally "Wings over Berlin" - no?

Great photo!
and there is new East Berlin which is china!
The Berlin Wall which you cant see by your eyes ,because it into everyone 's brain!
welcome to china welcome to new Esat Berlin!

I can not believe it has been so long. It seems like yesterday. I was watching it on the news in Amerika and I knew I would be finally able to meet my cousins for the first time. Growing up in West Germany without part of my family always felt like I was missing a part of me. Now we are all free.What a wonderfull feeling.

I lived there in West Berlin just before the fall of the wall and returned there a few years later. I've always loved Berlin. Berlin has been representing a decisive part of my life and as long as I will live, I think I feel I take part to the World History. Berlin is nowadays in perpetual progress and I'm tending to live with that aim too. Berlin is the most popular state in Germany for artists and architects. I can afford saying about me: Ich bin ein Berliner! Mindestens fühle ich mich als einer davon!
LBS.

#34. "Gorbachev was a visionary like Hirohito was a visionary after Nagasaki"
--P. J. O'Rourke.

#107. ...wasn't meant to come.. Odd that Pres. Obama found time to visit Berlin when he was running for the office... that he found time for the Copenhagen Olympics debacle...that Bundeskanzler Merkel invited him to attend the celebrations...tha Messrs Sarkozy and Brown, also heads of state with security details, found time to attend...

But 20 years later we still cant go to Mexico easily. They have to pay about $1000.00 a yr to have visas and papers to travel here to help us with health care, WHY, I think we should all be able to travel to all countries with passports of course. BUT WALLS come on.

Was in London as the wall was coming down. English news commentators were very fearful the wall's demise would mean a reunification of Germany. Almost sounded like today's FOX.
It was a time to celebrate the last phase of communist controls brought about by MANY people AND the over-wrought Soviet military/empire bankruptcy. Some people were in the right place, at the right time, to take credit. Let us not be petty about the finite details of ideologies and partisanship crowding the fringes of an historic event and its 20th anniversary with such a magnificent slide show.

Freedom comes with a price!!

great pics and good game

Amazing pictures. Nevermind the politics, let's just think about the people who lived divided for so many years and finally reunited. I don't think most of us can even imagine what it must have felt like to live in a city with a wall built in. Just the idea of it makes me shudder. Unity is what we need and unity is what the fall of the Berlin wall gave us.
Thank you.

Now how about rip down the illegal one in Israel!

Really impressive set of photo's here.

Not other walls that seperate the people!

Yo!

This is like totally awwsome. That was some party,

In history class we were told that this wall was the only man-made object vizible from outer space. It is messed up that those vandals destroyed it.

In America we'd just shoot them, teach them a lesson. That's because we're free to shoot mo-fos who are destroying out property.

wow
very sad story

Thank You Ronald Reagan!

Danke Ronnie!

Picture #38, despite its simplicity, is perhaps the most awesome picture on this entire page. Thinking about how much a problem it was to attempt to get away from East Germany - death and violence and oppression - and now simply being able to walk across where the wall was is so very powerful.

@ 126

oh my..you should have been more attentive in history class. the only man-made building visible from space is the chinese wall :)
and you calling the people vandals?!...can't you even imagine what relief it must be for the people imprisoned for 40 years to finally tear down that wall?!

Reagan is hardly mentioned. Good job rewriting history.

I was born at the east part of Germany and I am really happy about the "Mauerfall". I was too young to realize what is going on November 9th 1989, but listening to my family`s stories about this happening makes me feel relieve that I grow up in a non-seperated Germany, even if it needed a long time to destroy the wall in people`s mind! Untill NOW!

I can't believe how liberals are trying to erase President Ronald Reagan from the Cold War. Gorbachev didn't make this possible, Ronald Reagan did. If Gorbachev had his way, that wall would still be there to this day. When Reagan refused at the negotiations in 1988 to back down from SDI, he essentially relegated the Soviet Union to the dustbin of history. He won the Cold War that day. The rest was just what you might call paperwork. One year later, the Soviet Union was no more. Reagen is Berlin's hero, not Gorbachev.

@131 You should have paid more attention to astronomy class, the great wall of China is not visible from space, http://www.nasa.gov/vision/space/workinginspace/great_wall.html . Oops.
As far as responsibility for starting the end of communism in Poland (and the rest of Europe for that matter), let us not forget that Pope John Paul II was the inspiration for Lech Walesa, and his Solidarity movement. People can say what they will about religion, especially Catholicism, however, Pope John Paul II, (himself a survivor of Nazi repression in Poland during World War II) played a vital role in gaining support not only from those who were deprived under brutal communist regimes, but from the international community as well. What he accomplished is nothing short of a miracle with how a faith inspired revolution won its battle against communism in the hearts of the people, and not through bloodshed on the fields of Eastern Europe. So there's a brief history class for you @ 131.

Born in 1967 in West Germany and most of my relatives living in East Germany it has been an incredible day to see The Wall coming down I have been standing at so many times on both sides, in East and West Germany! When I told it to my mother (being born in East Germany) in the evening of Nov. 9th she first did not believe me and thought I am kidding.
It was astonishing to see how soon the former grey and dull surroundings became colourful and most peoples minds changed from fatalistic to joyful.
If you never had the chance to see the differences yourself you can only hardly imagine what has been and is still going on.
I am happy to have taken part in this time of German history and hope it will be an example for other conflicting parties to finally settle down in a peaceful cohabitation.

Congratulations Germany for the United freedom

O muro de Berlim caiu, mas no lugar dele continuamos a construir outros muros entre nós. Também em Israel, no Paquistão, na China, no Rio de Janeiro...por quê não usamos o mesmo material para construir pontes?
Que Deus nos ajude.

The Fall was a great event. The celebration was bittersweet though when you know that the three individuals who loom large in this particular milestone could neither attend nor are with us anymore: Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and John Paul II.

I was in Berlin in February 1989 and had a chance to see the contradiction between East and West Berlin. I am also a German teacher in Massachusetts and will use these photos in the classroom. Sehr schön! These bring back some great memories!!

I was so lucky to be in Berlin October 1989, the begining of the end, and went back in 1990, Russian soldiers were still around, abandoned by their superiors and selling their hats, medals and uniforms to curious visitors like me.
What a great end to such a horrible nightmare.

Solange (comment #51): Stop spreading that silly urban legend. A "Berliner" can mean both a donut and a person from Berlin. Further, "Ich bin Berliner", would not have made sense because that implies that the speaker is *from* Berlin. "Ich bin ein Berliner", makes perfect sense, especially when you realise that people from Berlin don't even call donuts "Berliners" anyway.

Educate yourself before diminishing others, okay?

Julie (comment #94): First, Obama was asked NOT to come due to the heavy security his presence would have demanded. Second, why are you thanking Margaret Thatcher, of all people? She never wanted the wall to come down! She (and Mitterrand) pressured Gorbachev to NOT tear it down because they didn't want Germany to reunify and regain its powerful, economic position in Europe.

I'll give you the same advice as the previous poster: try educating yourself before posting, okay? Oh and keep your partisan rubbish out of it. Nobody cares.

Aprendemos a dar importancia a diferencas mas nao percebemos a nossas semelhancas. Vivemos no mesmo planeta e ainda somos estranhos no mesmo ninho, procuramos Ets e Cometas mas nao conhecemos os nossos vizinhos. Que vida essa minha, que vida essa sua, o homem a lua mas a guerra continua...

Germany germany! How you have suffered!
Find your old national pride and prosper!

vent'anni fa cadeva un muro. uno dei tanti, ma era un simbolo. oggi la gente fa festa, ignara. dei muri nuovi che nascono ancora. muri religiosi, razzisti, discriminatori. viviamo in questi vicoli stretti, circondati da mattoni che ci separano da islamici, africani, cinesi, magrebini, omosessuali, comunisti, anarchici, giovani, donne. muri di pensieri ben più alti del cemento. fino a che non cadrà questa babele morale di egoismo, ignoranza, paura indotta, non ci sarà nulla da festeggiare. l'unico confine difficile da attraversare è dentro di noi.

@ 135

I don't know why you react so upset...I just responded to some other guy who mistakenly said the Berlin Wall was the only man-made building on earth, which clearly is wrong. Like most of us he must have meant the "urban myth" of the chinese wall, even if it may be actually untrue. Thanks for mentioning Lech Walesa and John Paul II, even though I know already about our history...I'm from Berlin myself.

impressive pictures, I have seen this great project in Germany, they are developing the largest online mosaic for the BerlinWall www.citymosaic.de
I have seen my pictures there, too.

re comment #51:

You can say, "Ich bin ein Berliner" - and I happen to be one - in the same way you can say, "I am a Londoner". There is grammatically nothing wrong with what Kennedy said. If a woman had said it, she would/could have said, "Ich bin eine Berlinerin", using the female noun.

Can we now, after 20 years, move on please?

A terrific collection of images. And the "fade" feature is *very* neat indeed.

Thank you very much boston.com . Great job. As always.

It started in Poland

Si bien la caída del muro significó para los alemanes del lado comunista un gran acto de libertad, sabemos bien que el capitalismo también está en crísis y que el mundo no es más libre que durante la guerra fría, acaso habrá que pensar porque una minoría selecta del mundo consume mucho de lo que la gran mayoría de la tierra tiene como necesidades primarias. Lamentablemente hay muchos otros muros y no solo de piedra en la tierra.

Wow! Picture 15!

There's a graffiti visible I mate with some classmates. Left of Rotary Tex, we copied the album cover of Lou Reeds Transformer. Cool to see it so well!!

Let me get this straight, if it weren't for the "Good Ole' USA" That wall may very well still be there. We, The United States are solely responsible, without any help from the rest of the world, for knocking that wall down. Our military strenth broke the USSR and hence the wall came down. NOW, the Germans and Europeans in general all hate us and think we are a horrible country and we have to apologize for all our actions????? No thank you's coming from Germany, just alot od hate towards us. I wish we had never done it.

@153 Holy smoke, get over yourself. Read a book for once.

FREEDOM

@153
I hope you are as proud for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Give me a break. The US had a major role in the wall coming down, but no one in this world can take ALL credit just because you say so. Really, get over yourself.

On a happier note, although I was only two when this happened, and I was standing on the 'wrong' side of the wall (in Romania, to be exact) these pictures make me shiver (also considering we had our own Revolution just a month later). It is amazing how people can actually decide to build walls to keep other people in (it is, by the way, the only wall ever built with this purpose). Picture 38 says it all...

Oh, and our president is in pic 32 :)

I was a little soldier in Germany @the time the wall went up in 1961.
I have pictures of the org. check point ch. and the org. berlin wall.
The time was hard and cold. I as Afr. amer stood guard over Ger. while every one else was asleep.
oh do i have a story to tell.

Thanks
Eddie L. Smith Ret E-9

@ 157
ehi Eddie L. Smith Ret E-9 give us your photos.thanx

well that was very good and it show how it was i just hope all of you in Germany are so please that you are all free godd bless you all

Great photos.

But the end of the rich Western Europe. From 1989 until now the eastern europe criminals come with hundreds and hundreds to steal from the west. Also the workers (electricians, truck drivers, ...) come to do our jobs for less money.
Since then West europe becomes more poor and the east more richer.

Close the borders and the 1 big europe.

Coming from Colorado in 1983 to go rock climbing near Dresden, my teenage friend and I, age 19, found the graffiti we both liked the most: For me, MILLIONEN TOTTEN BULLEN (Millions of Dead Cops, or MDC, the US music group), and for Jeff, large scrawled letters half the height of the wall NO FUTURE.

We took photos of each other "buildering" near these messages: Living in relative freedom in the West, we had the privilege of pretending to climb over the wall.

How wrong that No Future artist was.

#8 historical photo, why didn't I see this one before? The soldiers are looking at the hand and you can see them thinking.

Great pictures! Eventhough I was only 11 by then, I remember very clearly every image I saw on TV! Of course I didn't realize how important they were by that time! Humanity should be proud, it does not matter who did it or who impulsed this great change in the world.... In the end it was a triumph for humanity.
However, sadly I have to agree with those who say that the wall has fallen, but new "invisible" ones are being built. We should never forget history to avoid making the same mistakes...

Good work!

beautiful but lots of tears are shed over this...

ABBASSO IL COMUNISMO .......SEMPRE
VIVA LA LIBERTA'

I visited East Germany in 1989 before the Wall came down and I can still remember the acrid smell of high sulfur brown coal and the gray green beans in the store windows and the gaunt, expressionless people methodically moving up and down the streets as if in a dream.
After coming home I rode the El in Chicago and realized that most of Chicago and most of East Germany had not had any serious infrastructure investments made in them since the 1930's and the buildings looked exactly the same with bullet holes, broken windows, abandoned rusted vehicles everywhere and gaunt, expressionless and unhappy people. So don't get too proud of yourselves, Americans. East Germany is horrible only when compared to West Germany, not when compared to South Chicago. That comparison was a wash. Nowadays, South Chicago is the king of dilapidation and ramshackle champion of the world.

Great pics. Just a nitpick - #30 shows 'cellists, not violinists. Not important, but its my instrument, so I like to see it credited.

HPER Discovery come marker.
Welcome to the last one is also pulled down.