Forum menu
I know that I learnt that Berlin was in East Germany at some point after I'd learnt that Berlin was split into East and West Berlin, but I don't remember how long it took me to pick up that second piece of information.
I remember being pretty surprised to learn this too - the Berlin wall came down when I was 10 so I didn't really understand it. It was in my 20's that I found out what the actual situation was.
It's also responsible for the unique culture that developed. IIRC, if you lived in West Berlin you were exempt from National Service. So all the punks, anarchists, hippies and artists moved in, squatted the old deserted buildings, and formed bands like Tangerine Dream and Einsturzende Neubaten. Which is presumably the scene that attracted the likes of Bowie and Iggy Pop in the 70s, etc, and were the same people who all opened up techno clubs in the early 90s once the wall came down and they found old bank vaults in the East to host them.
Yes, from Interrailing in the 80s you could get the train there. Also went to Berlin in the early 90s and most of it was a building site - took a bus tour to kill time and they just drove around looking at derelict frontages in the east that were being rebuilt with artists impressions of what it was going to look like. There was still a few hawkers at the Brandenburg gate flogging fake Ushanka hats and red army stuff - weird. Keep meaning to go back.
Have also done the green zone tour in Cyprus where there are still abandoned shops and houses from 1975 and armed guards either side as well as the abandoned airport.
There was a marvellous German TV series – Deutschland 89 – that covered this from the perspective of a fictional East German secret agent
It is a really good series, start with Deutschland 83 and 86 first though as they are also provide some great historical soundbites
Great thread this.
I have to say, I knew that the Berlin wall separated west from east Berlin, but I also thought this was the name given to the border that separated east from west Germany too. I've just looked it up & it was called the Inner German Border.
We visited Moedlareuth that @alpin mentioned when I worked in Helmbrechts for 6 months as part of my uni placement. This area was right near the border between the old east & west. Our tutor came over to see how we were getting on (there were two of us working there) and he asked if it would be possible to visit, as it was somewhere he had always wanted to go. It was fascinating.
Helmbrechts is quite near the old east border, and we had some friends from work who lived near Plauen which is in the old east.
Visiting them was quite the eye opener - this was in 1999 and there were lots of signs of the old east still about. The people had a very different attitude too - a lot of them liked to make the most of their 'freedom' and were very flashy. We used to to to a nightclub in Plauen but I can't remember what it was called.
I've got an old poster that I keep meaning to put up again, which I bought when visiting Berlin for a weekend. It is the iconic shot of the soldier jumping over the barb-wire to defect to the west.
This guy - Konrad Schumann
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Schumann
I did not realise that he committed suicide in 1998 suffering from depression. His relatives rejected him & saw him as a traitor.
There's a lot of fascinating and brutal history in that part of the world. I absolutely loved my short time there.
Edited to add:
Regarding Berlin being a building site - it still was very much so when we visited with the school in around '94 and again in '99. We had a competition to see who could get the most cranes in one photograph. I think I managed 17.
Also, the MD of the company I worked for was quite bitter about the amount of money he had to pay in tax, to fund the re-building of the old east. Quite a lot of the 'west' germans seemed to have a dislike of the ossi's.
I’m astonished people didn’t know this, but then I’m old enough to remember the wall coming down.
WOW! You must be ancient.
Nope, didn't know this either, and my geography is pretty good!
The history syllabus when I was at school (1997-2002) was Britain 1066-1945 in ks3, with a detour for the American Civil War and Russian Revolution. Then GCSE was the Great Depression, "Women between the wars", Soviet Russia, Chinese revolution and Communist China under Mao, I think we did pre-war Nazi Germany at some point.
We didn't touch on events like the Spanish civil war, post WW2 Europe, or even much of the wars beyond the western front, the eastern front was touched upon but only that it was a bloodbath.
I'm genuinely quite surprised at how many aren't aware. Shouldn't be as I had to spend ten minutes giving a rudimentary explanation of the history of Israel and Palestine to my wife and her friend recently, and they're both successful and intelligent women. I guess me working in a factory with little to occupy my brain allows time to ponder such things!
I did know, but it is the sort of thing that unless you’ve specifically learned it, you’re unlikely to pick up.
My grandfather used to live in West Berlin and worked in the embassy there (actually in E Berlin I think?).
The British Embassy in Berlin in those days would have been a diplomatic mission to East Germany - East Berlin being the capital of East Germany so I guess it would have been in the East. (Embassies to West Germany were in Bonn)
I was 5 months old when the Berlin Wall was built and 28 years old when it came down. You didn't learn about it in history, it was contemporary politics and geography. I can't believe there is anyone of my age with any curiosity about the world that didn't know where West Germany/East Germany/West Berlin/East Berlin lay on a map and who ran them.
I can’t believe there is anyone of my age with any curiosity about the world that didn’t know where West Germany/East Germany/West Berlin/East Berlin lay on a map and who ran them.
We all have different interests.
I've got to admit not knowing this until today! I've always conflated the Berlin wall with the border between E and W Germany. Quite why I'm not sure, given that I know exactly where Berlin is geographically and so should have been perfectly able to work it out 🤦
Nothing to do with the wall but pulling up google maps to check I actually did know where the major cities in Germany were, I see they have StreetMap _ when did that happen? Germany never used to allow it and so it was mainly blank which looked pretty weird.
Another story from the past. I was on a cadet trip to West Germany and they took us to the east west border. I can remember standing in a field next to all the fencing looking at a group of east German soldiers filming and watching us through binoculars while we did the same.
Regarding Cyprus, there have been some good programmes on the border including Simon reeve Mediterranean with Simon Reeve, www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bp2kk1 via @bbciplayer
I was born in Cyprus, army dad, left in 1966, aged 3, but never been back. I really must. Here is a photo of my dad doing what army bods do.
https://imgur.com/gallery/md4kuIA
I’m genuinely quite surprised at how many aren’t aware. Shouldn’t be as I had to spend ten minutes giving a rudimentary explanation of the history of Israel and Palestine to my wife and her friend recently
Perhaps, but inspite of probably being able to give a similar potted history of the Middle East, I don't think I could for example, draw a map of Jerusalem showing the Palestinian and Israeli controlled areas, or draw out what was West Bank and what is now occupied West Bank.
Google Streetview appeared about a year ago. With imagery maybe the year before that. For some streets around my way I could work out it was summer holidays 2022 (or might have been 2021), when they do all the maintenance on the tram lines.
I think someone eventually realised that it wasn't real time and not spying. Still quite a lot of blurred images though.
I was aware of this, having visited West Berlin as a child in the early 80's (82 I think). My Uncle was stationed out there with the British Army, and we took holiday to visit him and his family. I still remember looking out the windows of their flat across the wall into the east. It looked so depressing. I also remember being very nervous when we took a trip into the east, through Checkpoint Charlie. My Uncle had to wear full military uniform to go with us, I was told at the time, if he didn't he would be considered a spy! The sternness of the East German guards and all the guns at the checkpoint made me anxious. The thing that stood out to me as a child was the absence of colour in the east. In the west the shops had bright signs but in the east it was all very muted.
I've been back since reunification, in 2006, and it was good to see how the city had been re-united, walk through the Brandenburg Gate, and visit the Checkpoint Charlie, now as tourist attraction.
The sternness of the East German guards and all the guns at the checkpoint made me anxious.
I think they would have been Russian. Army personnel used a separate channel that was manned by Russians rather than East Germans who manned the main channel - this was also the case at Helmstedt where you entered the road corridor.
The British Embassy in Berlin in those days would have been a diplomatic mission to East Germany
Really? Being in East Berlin, the capital of East Germany (the DDR), why would it not simply be the British Embassy to the DDR?
Fascinating Fact: I once had to push a Ford Corsair through Checkpoint Charlie under the unsympathetic gaze of half a dozen unsmiling heavily armed border gurads.
I think they would have been Russian. Army personnel used a separate channel that was manned by Russians rather than East Germans who manned the main channel – this was also the case at Helmstedt where you entered the road corridor.
I was about 7 years old, I just remember finding them, and the whole experience passing through the checkpoint, very intimidating.
The thing that stood out to me as a child was the absence of colour in the east
Yes, my wife and I went on holiday (!) to several soviet block countries before re-unification and that was my strongest impression from all of them.
We went to Prague in summer 1989 when relations were thawing and a few western shops had been allowed to set up. We saw a solitary shop for Nike or Adidas lit up like a beacon amongst the gloom, literally and metaphorically.
Being in East Berlin, the capital of East Germany (the DDR), why would it not simply be the British Embassy to the DDR?
I think the point was that the only British embassy in Berlin at that point would have been the one in East Berlin. The embassy to West Germany was in Bonn. So, if working in/for an embassy in Berlin... it was in the east, as that was the only one in the city.
WOW! You must be ancient.
No need for that, especially from a mod. A large chunk of the population is under 35 so won't even have been born when the wall came down.
My dad first saw me at Checkpoint Charlie.
The Berlin Wall has been part of my life for basically all of it. But it doesn’t surprise me that people aren’t clear about the geography. It was pretty weird. And it only kind of crept up slowly - the borders were porous to start with. I remember talking to an old German lady on a train just after the wall went down. She told me how she basically would go off for little holidays out of East Germany in the early days after the war. Wriggle under some wire, or slip the border guard a bottle of booze. Then it got harder and harder as the Russians tightened their grip / the economic situation slipped behind the west. Readings of history put different emphases on these factors but basically by the time my dad realised that he needed to get out the Iron Curtain was pretty solid. It was brutal.
I spent many summer holidays crossing into the East. It was like stepping back in time. Everything was smaller, more cobbled together and more likely to fall apart. The landscape and the cities were polluted. Acid rain was affecting forests. Urban landscapes were wreathed in the sputtering outputs of two stroke engines. At one and the same time I felt the ache of the divided country, the families split apart like my own, but completely believed reunification was impossible.
I vaguely knew about it but definitely wasn't taught about it at school in the '80s. I only properly learnt about the details of the geography when working close to the old border near Wolfsburg. These old forces info videos about using the transit corridor are quite interesting:
I had no idea. I suppose it should be obvious, if it was just a line then you could walk round the end of it.
I can't say as I ever gave it a great deal of thought, History and/or Geography are not my forté. I'm wildly ignorant of a lot of things that "everyone" supposedly knows.
Only tenuously related but I 100% recommend The Spy and The Traitor by Ben MacIntyre, the Oleg Gordievsky story. Even if you have zero interest in cold war history. It's one of those true stories that if made into a film you'd think it's not credible. Nail biting page turner and all true.
Yep, I’ll admit I learnt something this morning. Thought the “Iron Curtain” and the “Berlin Wall” were one and the same
The "Zonengrenze" (East/West border) was just a couple of miles down the road from my Mum's home town of Lübeck. That's about 150 miles from Berlin. As a kid visiting I used to swim at Travemünde where the border ran across the beach and into the sea. Used to chat with the (West German) border guards. Many years later just after the border was dismantled I was able to walk along that beach into what had been East Germany.
Here's what the crossing point at Schlutup just outside Lübeck was like -
and a memorial stone there now -
Getrennt translates as separated.
it makes sense that people are confused about it. 'The Berlin Wall' wasn't just a wall splitting a city, it was a symbol of the division between West and East, capitalism and communism, democracy and totalitarianism, freedom of speech and political repression, the Cold War.
For anyone that hadn't actually been there, you can see how it would be more of an idea, than a particular item. Like the 'Iron Curtain'. Which, it turns out, wasn't actually a curtain at all! But I still kind of imagine it as one, because that's what my 7-year old brain imagined when I heard them talk about it on the news.
Like the ‘Iron Curtain’. Which, it turns out, wasn’t actually a curtain at all!
I always thought that the Iron Curtain was a euphemism rather than an actual thing. Like, "behind the iron curtain" meant an insight into communism, or something. To this day I have no clue what it actually is.
I always thought that the Iron Curtain was a euphemism rather than an actual thing.
Yep. It was coined by Churchill.
The wall came down just before I was born.
the wall (Berlin Airlift as mentioned) was taught, but not the end of it/wall coming down. Cuban missile crisis, Vietnam, all covered in History lessons at my comprehensive school. (AQA from memory)
GCSE History though, so an optional subject. Can't say its ever really come up in my life to date, although the general East/West, Iron curtain etc comes up frequently.
Picking different exams I could easily have been oblivious.
I am surprised how many folk did not know this - but then i am 62yr old and lived right thru this and read some history and geography
Lots of other weirdness in the post WW2 settlements as well. Did you know Poland moved several hundred miles west? What is now the western part of Poland was Germany prewar and what was the eastern part of Poland is now Ukraine and Belarus.
Austria was supposed to be split as well like Germany with Vienna under control of the allies and Russia ( gross oversimplification)
Various other borders got moved around as well and lets not start on the Schleswig–Holstein question ( much earlier and resolved between the wars)
because the UK is an island this moving around of European borders has really not effected us and barely made it into our consciousness but all over Europe are disputed or movable borders.
I always thought that the Iron Curtain was a euphemism rather than an actual thing.
"Churchill’s famous words “From Stettin in the Baltic, to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent,”"
I had no idea. I suppose it should be obvious, if it was just a line then you could walk round the end of it.
I can’t say as I ever gave it a great deal of thought, History and/or Geography are not my forté. I’m wildly ignorant of a lot of things that “everyone” supposedly knows.
Cougar has pretty much explained my thoughts on it too. I will have been 12 or 13 when it came down. I have more interest in ancient history as opposed to recent and my geography is shocking. People have vastly different interests so I’m not surprised that there are a fair few who didn’t know.
I honestly thought the Iron Curtain was a description of the border with the USSR.
Yeah was always under the impression the iron curtain just meant the Soviet’s being secretive and protective of their country.
Yeah was always under the impression the iron curtain just meant the Soviet’s being secretive and protective of their country.
It wasn't "their country" (i.e. Russia), it was across Eastern Europe so basically dividing the Warsaw Pact from NATO. Hungary tried to leave in 1956 but Russia sent in tanks to crush the revolution. The east was controlled by Moscow, the west was free to choose its own path.
I didn't take history as a GCSE opinion, and prior to that it was all much older stuff like Greeks, Romans, Middle Ages etc.
I did take Geography to GCSE and we covered nearby stuff like BeNeLux, Ruhr heavy industries , coal mining, agriculture etc but never much on East / West borders.
I think this was probably something that could sometimes fall in a hole between history and geography and never get covered. Not everyone is a history buff - I was busy making things on my dad's lathe at age 13 🙂