 This was the city 30 years ago, a city then one of the greatest in the world in size and stature ranking with London, Paris, Rome, New York. Alive and a unity, this was Berlin in the 1930s. No barriers at the Brandenburger Tor, no guards at the Potsdamerplatz, but this was Berlin before Hitler came to power. 1945 and this was Berlin, a city in name only, a geographical location. Mid the rubble of destruction, the flags of the victors, men who taken up arms and self-defense were the common aim to destroy that which menaced them all. Around them, had a defeated nation, for their armies had met in the very middle of Germany. Until such time as Germany could reshape her own destiny, she would be divided into separate zones of occupation, each controlled by an allied power, American, British, French, Russian. Economically, she would be treated as a whole. This the victors had agreed when they had met to decide the future of Germany. Even then, some had reservations about mutual trust, but a world war just over, they had to trust one another, or else begin another war. For Berlin, it was to be each power with its sector that a city open to all the powers until Berlin would again assume her role as the capital of a new German state. Berlin lay a hundred miles deep in the Soviet occupation zone, but was not part of it. Access to the city for the other powers was agreed over certain roads, railways, and three air corridors. Make shift perhaps, but then it was never meant to be permanent.