'Checkpoint Charlie' was the colloquial name for a crossing point between the former East and West Berlin (Russian and American sectors of the divided city).
Although it first came into being in 1...
'Checkpoint Charlie' was the colloquial name for a crossing point between the former East and West Berlin (Russian and American sectors of the divided city).
Although it first came into being in 1945, after the 1961 erection of the wall it became one of the few crossing points between the two sections of the divided city. It was restricted to military officers and non Germans only.
Germans had to use other crossing points.
Its official title was Grenzübergang Friedrichstrasse. It was located at the southern part of Friedrichstrasse - near to Kochstrasse U-Bahn station in West Berlin, with Stadtmitte being the nearest open U-Bahn station in East Berlin.
Nowadays very little remains of this crossing point - the wall, watch towers, wooden shed used by the US military... these were all removed after German reunification in October 1990.
For tourists there is now a replica of the original US military checkpoint shed and large photographs of US and Soviet Russian solders stand guard admitting people to their own sectors. The former wall is now delineated on the ground by a double row of cobblestones. (As seen at the end of this film).
This film shows video footage taken in April 1990 plus still image photographs taken in December 1989 and July 2005. There is footage on both sides of the wall, although for reasons of personal security the footage of the Eastern side of the crossing point is somewhat minimal. Nevertheless it is possible to see the arrangement of frosted glass screens which made it virtually impossible to see the crossing point from the East.
Replacing the 'en' with other language codes will also reveal other language versions of this page, with further photographs and information, if such pages exist. eg - de (German), es (Spanish), nl (Dutch), fr (French) etc.
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See that table full of military look hats/caps? That was what happened after the collapse of the Communist East German sector. The people there, mostly military sold off all the old Soviet and Communist military equipment to tourist. Anyone and I mean anyone could buy it. For some odd reason it was seen as collectibles. I guess it could have been since you didnt see East German or Soviet made military gear hear in the west. But there sure is alot of it now I bet.
people of east-germany felt like in a big cage, but people of west-berlin were in a golden bird cage. they were surrounded by the east and the rest of the "west" was far away.
Too much hypocricy from USA and E.U about the wall...they shout about the berlin wall but they support the wall that the zionist made in Palestine and the turkish wall in the occupied Nicosia Cyprys...HYPOCRICY
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Simon
:-)