A random walk more or less by the Berlin Wall (June-July 1989)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 ก.พ. 2022
- A slightly corrected and lengthened version of a video posted previously at: • A random walk more or ...
This is a somewhat tedious assemblage - the original footage is not good enough to edit well as it was a quick stab meant only as an initial exploration. It's still interesting, if you've been there it may bring some memories. If you are into silly optical effects, grab a pair of sunglasses (any slightly darkened piece of glass will do) and hold just ONE of the filters in front of your RIGHT eye. Keep looking through BOTH eyes and fast forward to 18:39 and wait for the mirrors to appear. You should see it now exactly as I saw it back then. More on that effect here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulfric...
It will work very well with any video scene showing a lateral camera movement as long as it's reasonably smooth (trains and river boats are best for that sort of thing).
On another odd note: at 16:28 there is this odd face(?)-like painting. I could never figure out what that was. And I found out only yesterday (22 Feb. 2022) when I was watching part 1 of a German 1986 documentary on the 25th year of the Wall. Watch: • Die Mauer 1986 I - 25 ... and fast-forward to 2:07. Cool, no? So this means the half-life of a graffito there was about 3 years (depending on the location, of course; this one got moderate steady traffic).
![The MORNING Berlin Wall Fall East Berlin 1989 [VHS]](/img/n.gif)
Around 1987 my brother was taking a college course entitled something like "Contemporary Europe: Past, Present & Future." He had to write a paper that made a prediction about some aspect of European politics, economics or social movements. His paper was called "German Reunification: a 25-year Plan" in which he presented a timeline of events that would lead to eventual reunification. He got a C+. The prof wrote a comment at the end to the effect, "An overly optimistic premise. This won't happen in our lifetimes." I told him after the Wall fell that he should send the prof the paper with a big red circle around that quote.
Well did he??
@@dimas5826 my guy asking the real questions here
@@dimas5826 No, but he should've.
@@bigredracingdog466 why are you trying to take credit for what your brother did?
@@jhonviel7381 I did?
I was here in May 1989, the audio really brings it back.
One of the younger members of my student exchange group said
"How long do you think the wall will be there for ?"
to which I answered
"Perhaps 70 years",
It only lasted another 6 months !
That's crazy when we say something isn't gonna last it usually last forever take the Eifel tower for example or covid
And when we say it's gonna last it's actually not hahha Guess god love trolling us
Absolutely incredible.
Well, as long as you didn't have money in Long Term Capital Management, no big deal.
One of those times where you feel good missing the mark, cheers to hopefully more peace.
@@mastr-sf1jv I was thinking much the same... never so happy to be so wrong.
Sometimes an amateur-shot without a big concept, text and cut, can be TH-cam gold!
Thanks for the upload!
Yes, "slice-of-life" has its own honesty that I love too.
My plan was to shoot much more "next time" (spring 1990, say). This was just a test. Had I known the wall would be gone soon after, I'd force myself to film more places (I knew exactly where I wanted to go, including spots very rarely shown, like the Am Sandkrug "wedge") instead of goofing off. But carrying the largish camera bag and a tripod was a bit of a hassle. Who knew.
Yes to see just normal the day life is priceless
I was an American soldier in West Germany the night the wall came down. Unbelievable. We went into town, it was the biggest party EVER: new years, christmas, 4th of july combined. People celebrating, and free beer everywhere.
Any concern in that moment that somebody from the other side's army would try something in your unit? I fear we won't ever get another Glasnost-era.
American from which country? America is a continent. From Brazil? From Peru?
@@aylinguluzade5962 There's only ONE America. The rest is South America.
@@aylinguluzade5962 That is not the typical usage. Its common speech to say American to refer to a US citizen. The geographic continent is something talked about in a geographic class in school but not in any way in common day language. You are simply referring to a word in a manner that it is never taught in the US.
@@lijohnyoutube101 Which is wrong. Being 'typical' doesn't mean being right. It's as if Russia was claiming "we are Europe, the rest is Western Europe". The US should finally start looking for a name, 'America' is more closely related to other countries on the continent.
That is a funny Berlin conversation at 15:00:
Older guy: That's smearing. It has nothing to do with art, it should be banned.
Young guy: Well, try to imitate me.
Older guy: Any toddler could do that, I don't need to show you.
Lol! I was wondering what they were talking about
This was Nikita Khrushchev’s opinion on modern art
I can’t disagree
he aint all that wrong
I caught that too, funny
@@wfr1108 who was? not so long before? what are you talking about?
I visited East Berlin from the UK about a year before the Wall came down. At the time I thought it would be a permanent feature in my lifetime. What a strange place Berlin was. I had to change about $30 into DDR Marks for the day and couldn't find anything to spend it on. Before I returned to West Berlin I tried to give the remainder away to a young assistant working in an art gallery but he panicked and chased after me and made me take it back. Some time later when in China after the fall of the wall I met a guy from East Germany who'd been sent there as a technical adviser. He was a loyal Party member and told me he had no country to go back to!
Were you in the secret service or some diplomatic mission? You've seen a lot!
That's how socialism mess a brain.
@@ranjittyagi9354troll
Easy Germany stil existed for nearly another year after the wall came down.
In 1991 I was driving through Europe and from Berlin I just went into East Germany and I had this strange feeling, that I went into a time machine. Everything was different, the buildings, the cars, the people. Even if the wall went down only 2 years earlier it was still so different from the West..
no it wasnt
DDR was pure poverty, still there are people crazy enough wanting this back🤦🏽♂️
@@mcpartridgeboy Many people have said it was like going back 30 years
@@molasses1257poverty??
Funny how there was no homeless people and every one had a roof over their heads and food was plenty.
You're just parroting western propaganda.
It wasn't a utopia, but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as the western media made it out to be.
It still is different and remnants of the DDR/GDR times are still to be found in many places (and unfortunately in some heads, too) 34 yrs later ...
Yes, East and West Berlin have grown together again but the former border line is still visible.
Building design was very different between East and West.
This footage is absolutely incredible. Being a kid born at the end of the Cold War I never got to experience any of it. This is like a portal into time and I thank whoever for it !
You're welcome! I believe this is the first time I was called "Whoever", haha! It was a bit of luck that few months earlier (in April 1989) Canon put the first Hi8 Hi-Fi stereo-sound video camera on the market which I used here (the Canon A1). I think the sound greatly improves the "presence".
Holy shit, it's a dude with a camcorder in the 80s - relax 😅
Being a guard in on of those towers must have been incredibly boring.
I heard somewhere they changed almost every day and the two would not have known one another beforehand. If this is true, then from their perspective a one day sit-down at the border was probably somewhat interesting and different than the routine? I don't know what it was about the binoculars, they seemed surgically attached to them all day.
@@JanPBtest every Border Guard post was given a Sector. most of the Sectors were overlapping as well.
inbetween you had control Stations and Sections that monitored the Guard posts.
the repercussions if someone fled in your Sector and you did not shoot at them were bad, but if you didnt even see it... lets say your loyalty was questioned and you dont want that to happen in the DDR.
Standing in line for almost everything you need DAILY tops that!
The socialists wachteslange💔💔💔
@Vandole i agree with 1 exception: "in the worst case you ended up in Jail": your Dad left out some bits then.
i 100% agree with everything else you said.
@@JanPBtest They were from the same unit,
Incredibly cool footage. Went to both sides of the city in 1985. Bring back memories. Thank you so much for sharing! Greetings from Denmark.
Most of those places are almost unrecognisable today.
Yes..I was there 1986, both sides. I remember photographing the East Berlin guards while they watched me with binoculars. I waved. They didn't.
We took the train back at night from the east. I was by the window, and could look down to see two soldiers with weapons and dogs, searching under each carriage for escapees from that place, the world's biggest prison.
I will never forget it.
@@danstrayer111 самая большая тюрьма в мире это СССР!!
@@JanPBtest Haha, even for the ones born here it gets difficult. Cheers from Neukölln ;-)
@@alielabdimarras7965 That's where I stayed at the time (Emser Straße).
I lived in Berlin from 1988-1992 about 100-yards from the wall, I remember when it opened and being able to speak to East German soldiers and them selling tons of military stuff, hats, uniforms, medals. I was also able to collect lots of pieces of the wall and bring them home. I have them in a display case in my office.
Na siehste
You should post pictures of this stuff
Interesting film. I visited the DDR three time back in the early 1980s and stayed at the Palast Hotel in East Berlin (opposite the Dom). I went each time on my motorbike and everywhere I stopped, big crowds of people gathered around it to look and admire it. On my DDR visits I saw Leipzig and Dresden. It was a very fascinating period which I’ll never forget. Thanks for posting.
Fascinating. I was living in West Berlin when this footage was shot. Hard to imagine that in less than six months the wall would be down.
was it easy to go for a walk in the east part? Was the permit/visa difficult to get?
@@ytrew9717 depends what decade you're talking about
Mehr als sechs Monaten!
Im Januar 90 stand die Mauer immer noch und war nur für Ost- und Westdeutsche links und rechts vom Brandenburger Tor durchgängig !
@@ytrew9717 After 1971 the crossing was possible by showing your passport and paying a fee. There were several checkpoints, some of them only for West Berliners, others for West Germans, other for foreigners, some of them combined those categories. It was quite a system :-)
@@stephanesimon6667 I have videos of that too, need to post it soon.
I was stationed in Berlin 72/73 and this is one of th best films from that time. I was fortunate enough to see most of those. Sites. It really brings back memories
My plan was to also film oddities like the Eiskeller exclave or the "wire" (portions of the Wall on the southern (mostly) border which consisted of high fence and no concrete), or the Am Sandkrug "wedge" near Frohnau. But I was too busy partying and just resting (running around with a camera can be surprisingly tedious and a seeming "waste of time"). I had simply assumed I'd come back to do it "properly" next year. Nobody at the time, including all my German friends in Berlin, had the slightest clue the situation will change completely within months.
@Charlene Olson Did you keep contact with them?
Thank you for posting this video. I was in Berlin in April/May 1989. I have not been back since and hope to return next year.
Amazing footage. We moved to Berlin 15 years after these scenes were filmed due to work. We even bought an apartment in Friedrichshain, near Boxhagener Platz and the East Side Gallery. By then it was already a completely different city, vibrant and youthful. Brings back a lot of memories. Regards from Stockholm.
yeah, I was living in Berlin during your tenure... I was there from 1999 to 2011... great memories and great times during that transition... even during my time, Berlin transformed and became a different city.
it was the best decision to buy an apartment in the former east... now it costs tenfold...
That man berating the graffiti dude, pure gold. 😄
"Alles klar" :-)
Hauptsache was zu meckern. Don't know what he thought he was achieving. Hope the kid kept painting.
What was he saying to him? If he was berating him, given all the graffiti there already and the injustice of the wall in the first place it makes no sense unless he was a DDR border guard or Stasi in disguise. Great footage in any case.
@@caj1119 It was ridiculous. He was saying to him that he should stop, that it was the property of the GDR. He must’ve had nothing better to do.
@@JennHolt Thanks. Yeah, he truly must have had nothing better to do, and that "property" of the GDR was so heavily painted all over already anyway, why should he really care?
Missed you by a month I just turned 27 I actually recognized and remember the girl on the Bike around 14:45 I spray painting my name with a friend of mine in the same exact location I took my photos and looked the girl on the Bike her name was Marina she worked at a Club of the Kudam Tostelfenz!!! Amazing!! I was staying on Moomsen Straße in SAVINGYPLATZ!!
Haha, small world! I like her smile at the camera. I wonder what the wall sprayer does today, perhaps owns a modern art gallery :-)
@@JanPBtest I think he went on to study something completely different than art and either stopped doing it or does it as a hobby (I don't think he does it illigally though since they usually stop doing it at the age of 30years)
Thanks for letting us know. The Stasi will be giving you a visit
@@knerduno5942 HA HA!! It would be a PLEASURE IN 2022 because I remember you could just tell you were being watched when I was in the Old East!!
There is no girl at 14:45 or at this time.
An excellent video 😊 thank you to be kept and watched. Remembering that view from easternside when I was 10yrs old and couldnt understand that....
What a wonderful video archive. Thank you for uploading this.
Das Kreuz von Chris Gueffroy (9:13), der letzte der bei der Mauer erschossen wurde, war als dieser Film gedreht wurde erst 4 Monate alt. (Die Kreuze sind zum Gedächtnis immer noch heute da.)
hab ich sich grad beim Ansehen gedacht, ein brutaler Mord
In the early 80s we made a school trip to Berlin(West) for a week including a day trip to East Berlin. I made friends there this day in GDR and stay in loose contact over these years with them. 1987 I moved to Berlin(West) and gave the other part of the city at least once a month a visit. I did use many times the Invalidenstr. Checkpoint (11:13) as pedestrian and later as car driver. Still have some stories in mind, some obscure and some not so funny, crossing the boarder. Today i life in the eastern part and my work place is in the west, my duty stroke is bypassing me still at Invalidenstr. Checkpoint and now and then i remember there the stories back in the days,
Thank you for uploading the video and refreshing my memories, 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
When you moved to Berlin, did you have to change your passport? Because IIRC the West German passport was slightly different than the West Berlin one (the former stated the bearer of this passport is German, and the latter said "German national" ("Angehöriger"? I forget)). And you had to pay every time you crossed, yes? This was apparently a decent source of extra income for East Germany :-)
@@JanPBtest I am not sure about passport i think i kept my federal republic of Germany passport - because it was still valid or because i didn't need it (Berlin(West) id card was sufficient for traveling in east and west Europe)- but i remember exactly about ID card, at first i got a "temporary provisional ID card" (vorläufiger behelfsmäßiger Personalausbweis) till my "provisional ID card" (Behelfsmäßiger Personalausbweis) was ready printed.
all inhabitants of Berlin(West) have a "provisional ID card" and yes you are right there was only "the bearer of this document is German" (or similar) written and nothing about "federal republic of Germany"
Also yes to the forced minimum exchange of 25DM to 25M for a single day. Bought books about electrical engineering or computer science and have nice dinners-if i have left over some money, i deposit it at state bank ("Staatsbank") and use it at my next visit (it was forbidden to export M (Mark der DDR) to the West.
Can you post some of those stories? Anything unusual?
Fascinating and interesting.
This is absolutely brilliant. Thank You so much for sharing. Just amazing.
I lived in Berlin for 15 years, and pretty much all the places filmed were places I started to walk intensively during the corona time, because it was finally less crowded without the tourists. I now had to leave Berlin for some obligation, but I miss the city every day. Even though I lived in more modern times, I notice some things never changed. Some scenes and especially the sound from the street immediately took me back.
Thanks for the great footage!
If you like the sound, maybe this one would bring some memories :-) th-cam.com/video/K5GLx12rZrw/w-d-xo.html
The old man at 15:00 is like: "That has nothing to do with art, it's a smear. This is a superficial stupid design and nothing more. Every child can do that. The Allies should prohibit such a thing. Someone from the other side should come out of the door and say you are already on DDR territory." 🤣
I always suspected he was an East German (retirees were allowed to go West), probably a former bureaucrat of some kind. Of course the concept that the wall itself was awful-looking did not occur to him.
@Leonid Lemburg Most graffiti to me looks bad. But in this case it was just a weird thing to say :-)
@@JanPBtest That's possible in general. But from his dialect he sounds more Southern German.
@@JanPBtest I nearly lost it when he said the graffiti were defacing the wall. No sir, the wall itself was the defacement.
@@heinrichalthausen7522I Thought the same first. But the way he pronunced the "R" and "verboten", I would say that it's some kind of northwestern Plattdeutsch dialect. It's definetly not a Berlin or any kind of Eastern German dialect.
The time that shaped me the most in my childhood was between 1988-1993 in East Berlin (Friedrichshain and Mitte) . So many memories about the differences between east and west Berlin on a daily base and that wasn't a good VS bad. It was just so different
This is so cool. Knowing that just a couple months later everything would change. My dad tells me about what it was like there but to actually see this footage is amazing. I’ll never take for granted being allowed to live in berlin so freely today
Thank you so much for this marvelous nostalgia. I truly got goose pimples (in German: Gänsehaut) watching this footage. I lived in West Berlin in my 20s just before and at the time that the wall fell.. None of us ever thought it would come down that soon. It was a surprise to everyone.
Yes, it was a total surprise.
This is fascinating. As a toddler I was in Berlin in June 1989 and I have so many photos of me and my parents in front of the wall and Checkpoint Charlie. To see this video of how it all looked exactly at that time is brilliant. Some of the graffiti in this video is in my photos too.
Brilliant ✌
The time that shaped me the most in my childhood was between 1988-1993 in East Berlin (Friedrichshain and Mitte) . So many memories about the differences between east and west Berlin on a daily base and that wasn't a good VS bad. It was just so different
You were there as a toddler? Are you responsible for all the graffitti on the wall by any chance?
That's a very interesting comment. Very interesting. Good on you.
Nice!
Awesome! We just travelled to Berlin for the first time and I was very curious to see how it was back then. Some familiar places, but from a very different angle. Thank you for this work.
I love to watch this kind of everyday insight on both west and east side.
Fascinating stuff, a time before mine. I've been to modern Berlin many times for work so very strange to see it like this. Thanks for posting!
Jan,
Thanks very much for sharing what is a very valuable film on the closing days of the Wall. You did very good work and have captured the essence of the city at that time!
I would have done much more, I knew exactly what I wanted to shoot but I pushed to off to my next visit which was... late November 1989. Walking around with a (largish) camera and sometimes a tripod was a bit of work. I went to some places without the camera out of laziness (like the Prinzenstr. checkpoint or Oberbaumbrücke), who knew, right? The city was in general slightly surreal because it had a look and feel of a major capital city yet it was quiet, no signs of the usual government buildings, few tourists. I remember walking one day past an abandoned villa in an equally abandoned garden, behind an unexpectedly expensive-looking but a bit unattended iron fencing. Like signs of former glory but the current owner, living somewhere far way, simply keeps the place and does nothing with it. Turned out this was the Japanese embassy building, before the war. (All the government for the West was in Bonn.) When you took the S-Bahn from East Berlin and crossed to the West, you suddenly rode along the super-opulent Tiergarten and a couple of times you'd catch a glimpse of the Siegessäule at the end of a very long wide avenue lined with trees, just a magnificent perspective, and... the avenue is practically empty. There were no such grand perspectives in any city in West Germany. This odd dislocation between the look-and-feel of the place and its "non-function" was always there. OTOH one never felt enclosed by the wall. Seems strange but the place was so huge anyway.
@@JanPBtest You've described the feeling so well! I went through Berlin, coming from the East on a transsiberian trip from Beijing to Paris, and crossed the border at Friedrichstraße station like you seem to have done, too. That was in 1986. I wasn't supposed to stay, just change trains and more importantly cross the border, but a last minute change of mind from some of my group of fellow students had some of us stay longer in West Berlin. We stayed at a YMCA near the then center of West Berlin, the Zoo station area. We were on a high school trip, had stayed in (very) communist China for nearly 2 months at a university, and when we arrived at Zoo station and heard pop music for the first time in 8 weeks (at the Burger King in front of the station, which I believe is a Dunkin Donuts nowadays), we felt like lions out of a cage. We didn't see much of East Berlin outside of the insane line where we waited for about an hour before being let to cross the border to the West. However, since we arrived in East Berlin from Poland and traveled by S train to the checkpoint, we still got to see what East Germany looked like from the train, upon arrival in East Berlin, and from the S-bahn while traveling to the border. I was impressed by the historic buildings in Mitte and soon realized that was where most were (still) standing. The streets had a very drab and grey, desolated, sort of dusty, eerie look, as if out of some weird dream. That was also visible from the other side of the wall, from the viewing platforms. But like in Poland and contrary to China, Mongolia and the USSR, people were often clad in clothes that wouldn't have looked out of place in the West. Once we passed the bridge into West Berlin, everything looked rich and modern. Being used to lots of old buildings in my own country, the modern side of West Berlin was also quite enticing. I was impressed by the dynamic, friendly and open-minded atmosphere of West Berlin, and by the size of Berlin as well as its green spaces, specifically Tiergarten. To this date, these times spent in that incredible city are precious memories. I love to watch these videos that take me back to this fabulous trip. Thank you for sharing!
@@Bellasie1 Great memories! Do you remember what you saw when you stepped out of the Zoo train station? As soon as you started walking along Joachimstaler Strasse there was this giant shop with giant glass windows across the street: TEPPICH KIBEK. Every time I went to visit West Berlin, that sign would be the first thing to greet me there, it was like: "Oh, it's you again". This was only possible, I think, because of the relative lack of market pressure on what would in a "normal" city be considered a prime location! And that place was _huge,_ with _huge_ carpets hanging in the _huge_ display windows.
I have really appreciated the comments. So many intersecting stories and so much good will in the comments.
I lived in Koln in 99/2000 and travelled sometimes on weekends to Berlin to hang out with a friend. I remember partying in one of the military/guard houses within the wall area that had become a club and was completely off my head. I always loved both sides of Berlin and remember how wonderful it was to see people on the wall in 89. The human spirit is resilient. Much love!
I was in Berlin in December 1987, and saw many of these scenes. I remember having a sense that the city was still in ruins. Much was still empty. Thanks for posting.
West Berlin itself was just fine, it was the areas near the wall that were left undeveloped, for various reasons. I should post a video showing the city at that time.
Amazing footage..in 1988 i spent 9 days in DDR..almost 1 year before the fall of the wall..even though we were scrutinized as tourists some discontentedness was slightly evident..the state control was appalling..watching this film bring many memories to me..a world that no longer exists...
The border passport control guys never smiled and never reacted to any attempt at small talk, it was probably their training. I was very surprised when I got back home that day to see the guard waving to me (I hadn't noticed it while filming because of doodling with some camera controls). The camera had a very noticeable red flashing LED in front which tended to attract attention sometimes.
Its like today
I was in the GDR in summer 1988 as well - as a west German 13yo "tourist" my father and me visited our relatives in the east for 2 weeks. We had to spend a certain amount of "Ostmark" everyday. My father had to check "Volkspolizei", the local police, to tell them at which relatives we stayed. We were driving an Audi80 coloured in "flamingo metallic" and everybody knew, those guys are "westerners". I'm glad I had this experience as a teenage boy, but I'm even more glad that teenagers in present Germany don't have to make this experience.
discontentedness...make it easy...discontent
;) 9 days ? ;)
... I spend 33 years in East Germany.. and I escaped..
3 months before the border was opened..
Greetings out of the spring
In the summer of 1972, I traveled from Poland (to see relatives) through East Berlin train checkpoint going to West Berlin for a music event. I was shocked that the train stopped and armed soldiers with a dog came through the train checking papers and all luggage. I looked out the window and saw that the train was surrounded by soldiers. They could have just taken people off the train if they wanted. Later, I walked through Checkpoint Charlie from West to East Berlin. I had my nice camera around my neck and a telephoto lens on my hip. In East Berlin, I started walking towards the center (the tall needle thing) and then went off on a side street. What was I thinking? At the East Berlin center, two guys asked me if I had a car. I still don’t know why. Thanks for this video. It is a bit of history that we need to remember.
They wanted you to hide them in the trunk.
@@cowsmuggler1646 Good thing I didn’t have a car !!!!!! I didn’t need to be tortured by the East German military. In reality, this year was one of my first experiences with actual communism, the iron curtain, and armed soldiers. I was a “book-learned” but rather naive young student and the real world had some shocks for me. Thanks for your reply Cow Smuggler.
@@johnmaryn4497 I mean, yea, the DDR sucked, but that situation? The Berlin wall thing isnt that different from the Mexican American border..the only thing different is that Mexico and USA are not mortal enemys.
@@foty8679 It was different though. The Berlin Wall had a killing zone where people were shot and killed trying to escape to West Berlin. For myself, seeing the Wall and the East German border guards showed me that “freedom” with all of its benefits (a more prosperous life) was something people were willing to risk their lives, often usually losing their lives. Thankfully, those days passed.
The US border with Mexico has no one shooting at each other, though people do die in the deserts and river trying to get into the US.
No one wants to see people or families lose their lives.
@@foty8679 Oh it is very different, except you want to talk about the structure itself. ;)
Thanks for this incredible footage. I visited West Berlin only a few weeks before the wall came down. Walked along that wall that seemed like it would be there for ever. Wish I’d stayed a little longer to see people breaking it down, what a shining piece of history.
I have some footage from late November/December and January, crazy times! I'll post some soon.
THANK YOU! I visited there in '93, and visited the Cafe Adler to try to imagine what a divided Berlin looked and felt like. Your terrific video fills-in many historical gaps.
In 1993 those areas were just a sea of cranes, one huge construction zone, with little improvised shacks selling Glühwein!
@@JanPBtest Yes, cranes, cranes and... more cranes! Only thing else visible from old Checkpoint Charlie was a Benetton sign.
2 months later my friends and I also took to the streets to demonstrate against the GDR system. They then came with clubs and dogs. We didn't know whether they would also shoot. Many were arrested. And in November 1989 the dictatorship was over. I stood on the wall in front of the Brandenburg Gate. I was 20 years old!
"And in November 1989 the dictatorship was over." If it was true, you would have been shot on the spot. Proof it wasn't a dictatorship is you are alive to tell your story.
@@internetcensure5849 Such nonsense what they say! We were chased by dogs and beaten up with rubber clubs and arrested. The fact that there were no orders to shoot was just a coincidence and great luck for the people who were on the streets. You should look into the history of the GDR before you tell such stupid crap! At the border there was an order to shoot. Anyone trying to flee East Germany could be shot. Many died trying to escape. These murdered people who only wanted to live in freedom can no longer tell their story. Others who were fasted alive went to jail.
Wow! That is a very nice footage. I've been looking so long for actual footage in the Eastern Bloc with no commentary.
That brings back a lot of memories. I spent about 6 months there from Dec 1983 to May 1984 studying German at the Geothe Institute. What different times they were.
crazy how u can see somehouses still having like Bullet holes and scratches from the battle for Berlin 1945. 19:10 for example
Absolutely amazing footage, thanks for sharing
I was working in the east in July 1989 as a guest of the state as part of the Scotland gdr friendship society. Fantastic to see, thanks!
Must have been interesting!
Commie?
Very cool profesional footage dude, It feels like I'm there wondering around in 1989.
Fascinating stuff. Thanks for the upload. I have lived in Berlin and the city remains a mystery to me.
First time there was in 1986. Last time was 2012. It was hard to recognise the same city. So much has changed. Thanks for this excellent upload!
Exact. Militaire dans l'armée française en 1980, j'y suis retourné en 1996. Tous mes repères étaient par rapport au mur et j'ai eu beaucoup de mal à m'y retrouver dans ces forêts de grues de reconstruction, j'étais perdu, ne sachant plus si j'étais dans la partie Est ou dans la partie Ouest...
First time in 1986, second and last in 2017. I was prepared for a slap in the face, and I got one. My mind was constantly looking for the wall.
Visited east Berlin in 1982 as a member of the British military we were in uniform and would get the evil eye of the East German troops like 2 opposing teams of boxers but the population were just the same as ours. It was like visiting another planet which was a replica of earth, felt the same but something was different.
So true. Like traveling to the past in some other communist countries, too...
Great description!
Was it actual Germans guarding border or Soviets.As far as I know were half million Soviet troops stationed in East Germany?
@@billybigballs5776Allied Statutes prevented GDR authorities from dealing with Allied soldiers in Berlin. Each checkpoint had a small detachment of Soviet MPs. No GDR Border officer or VoPo was allowed to check or ID uniformed allied troops entering the Soviet sector or on the transit roads from and to Berlin or the Allied Military Missions. Allied soldiers on duty could travel pretty much all of the GDR with the exception of some regions where access was restricted by the Soviets. There's that legendary story where British Military Intelligence obtained info on the calibre of a new tank-mounted gun by sticking an apple at the end of the barrel and then simply measuring the dent it made....
Great footage! I lived in Germany in the late 1980s as a child and hope to revisit in the next couple years. I got to experience the Fall of the Berlin Wall in person...an experience I'll never forget! My family lived near Giessen (Langgöns) and we just happened to be visiting Berlin when the Wall fell, a very lucky coincidence. My Father had a camcorder at the time and recorded our experience with many of the same sites as your video!
Yes, it was something else! I came back in late November 1989 and remember _walking across_ the Brandenburg Gate, it was unbelievable. An advertising poster was on the wall's eastern side already, it said (IIRC): "Saatchi & Saatchi, first over the wall".
Danke danke... for this historical time document! ♥️
OMG was there in 1983 and remember this all! We were guests of the American ambassador, he provided us with a driver (American solder) for a day trip to East Berlin.. What a trip!
First was lucky enough to transit via Checkpoint Charlie. Could not have been crazier, driving down a noisy, bustling, crowded West Berlin street, stop at Checkpoint Charlie for paperwork, across the no man's land complete with tank barriers, then the DDR border guards; we were instructed to keep the doors locked, show them the cover of our passport, then the picture/info page. That's it. The solder driver put on his hat on since solders were accorded free movement around the city when "in uniform". Then OMG a completely different city! Little traffic, gray streets buildings, and clothes.
Visited Pergamon museum where I recall one payed with an aluminum coin to use the restroom. Then (as in this video) the monument where one observed the goose stepping DDR solders. Met up with our solder driver, reversed process back through Checkpoint Charlie, and back to reality. Was like a dream -- kept thinking about he children's' book, "The Phantom Tollbooth".
That night, just for grins and giggles, took the U-Bahn back through East Berlin to observe the "ghost stations" where the train slowed down as it approached these stations and one could again observe the DDR border guards.
The view on Stresemannstraße around 12:59 might just look like this today: goo.gl/maps/kdWerHpgVBdw4cwKA
Around 16:59: goo.gl/maps/2WL8wD7pUFyb2zJw5
17:16 where the wall is still visible when this was taken in 2008: goo.gl/maps/k5G4fZZRXydQ8Uti8
If you were not military, just a foreign tourist, you did give your passport to the border guards at Checkpoint Charlie and they would stamp it. I still have those stamps (and the Friedrichstrasse, Griebnitzsee, etc.) in my old passport. You also had to declare any hard currency you had, just list it on a piece of paper. It was forbidden for some reason to carry the eastern marks across. Of course I did sometimes, because of forgetfulness or just ignoring those "stupidities". And then off you go and, like you said, always a mild shock, in either direction. There was also a western S-Bahn line under East Berlin (like those two U-Bahn lines you mentioned) but because the S-Bahn still used the old 1930s cars (long story why), its doors were not kept mechanically shut while in motion: the mechanism only _closed_ them at station departure. So one could simply open the door while the train was in motion (a standard teenage entertainment then). So this meant that while riding along those ghost stations one could theoretically open the door and let the eastern guards in, since the trains always slowed down at those platforms for some reason. Because of that the East Berlin geniuses came up with a solution: steel mesh curtains hanging from the ceiling to the platform. The mesh was quite large but good enough to prevent an escape. This was not needed on the U-Bahn lines because their door were kept shut under pressure at all times. Those mesh curtains disappeared within few weeks after 9 November. There were many more such weird bits, my plan was to tape it all properly "next year". Meanwhile...
Bin heute froh, Berlin noch mit der Mauer erlebt zu haben, ich rieche und fühle es als wäre es gestern gewesen.
das Gefühl habe ich auch noch......
Wow you really captured great shoots in this movie thanks 😍
Thank you for uploading, Great footage
Something in this video reminds me of how things were in Brazil at the same time. The video shows almost nothing on the eastern side, and what little you see is a quiet and poor town 17:23, but even on the western side you see simple cars and poorly paved streets. Funny how it gives a feeling of nostalgia for a time that was good, people had little and I venture to suggest that they were happier. Thank you very much for these footage.
Views from the eastern side are shown until 4:46. As for the look of the western side, remember that the area near the wall (several metres typically) was in fact legally in the eastern sector, that's why it was so run down (it could not be developed by the western government).
"is a quiet and poor town"? The western part looks no different. And now, Germany has turned to semi-third-world.🤣
@@JanPBtest Yes, the western part is better, by definition, but not based on the video.
@@internetcensure5849 semi-third-world? Do you even live in germany?
@@internetcensure5849 Germany is probably the most first world nation in all of Europe, far better than any neighboring countries or France or England. You sound very American
Blast from the past. I lived in West Berlin 1987 to 1990. Best three years of my life!
More or less an incredible video. Mostly thankful for your generally strong effort at videotaping this with a relatively good camera.
Thank you! People don't normally pay attention to such things, and cameras in those days were much bigger and heavier. I also carried a tripod for some scenes, it can be seen e.g. at 11:24 (very fuzzy) and I still have it and it still works(!) But the effort in general would have been _much_ heavier had I known this was really the last chance to film it. My plan was to continue filming in the summer of 1990, the footage you see here was really "just a test".
Thanks for sharing this, fascinating look from a real life perspective, instead of just at a high level as a lot of Cold War era history footage can be sometimes
When i was younger in the early 80:s my family took a trip to Berlin. For some reason our bus took the wrong way and missed the designated lunch place and we ended up in a normal east german village. The Kneipe were more than happy to sell for D-Mark. Basically no one spoke english but they were super nice people even if maybe a bit wary. Luckily for us and them the village was to small to have a Stasi office. But i also remember Berlin and even when entering east Berlin at Check point Charlie they used the low mirrors.
Pure gold this! West Berlin was fantastic in the 80s! Great times. Thanks for the upload.
Relatively few people went there. Berlin got popular after 1989.
@@JanPBtest that’s why it was good 👍🏼 Plenty going on without the tourists. I hardly recognize Berlin these days.
@@More-than-ladyboys i agree. I consider moving to West Berlin in 1988 for job reason. Eventually did not move. Berlin was genuine (East and West). Thesedays too artificial. Too many green fascists.
@@guidostahl2139 I was lucky to have experienced 80’s West Berlin on numerous occasions. Such a thrilling city. Went for the last time in 91 but the vibe and the raw possibility that anything could happen was gone. Seems plagued by talentless graffiti now.
Go Wally go!
When a teacher in professional school said 1988 the sentence: "In 5 years we will be reunited", we all laughed at him. Dear Mr. Geifes, you were so right. Sorry for the laugh.
I have really enjoyed this footage thank you so much for posting
Thank you for the note! The images look odd today, as in "how on earth was such a thing even possible in the middle of Europe??" But I remember very well that in 1980s one could not imagine Berlin _without_ the wall, it was just a part of "normal life". A weird relativity.
Thank you so much for this footage impressions ! A very valuable work, because of getting a feeling of reality without any disturbing speech or music. GREAT ! Double Like, if it were possible.
Thanks, cool!
One of rare pearls of youtube!
Thank you!!!
I was living in Wunsdorf (near Zossen) 1989-1992 and had visited East Berlin a lot.
When The Wall was broken it was... i don't know how to explain... Just something ANOTHER to all of us. Another world was opened.
I was 12 y/o that time.
Very cool footage. Having seen only the gentrified 2010s version of Berlin, it's cool to get to see the rougher wall era version I was told about.
What a great video of a unique time in history.
What an amazing and incredibly valuable video this is.
I've never experienced the Berlin wall... looking at this video at the berlin wall, gives me a weird dystopian, eerie feeling... something straight out of George Orwell's books... I see some comments here from people that did experience the wall, thinking it would be there still for decennia to come... What a weird, dark future must have been expected...
The East Germans expected a brighter, more democratic more free future. Communists have always been optimists. They built the wall against fascism to prevent the society we live in today.
Unfortunately, fascism won and we are now living in a dystopian, capitalist world that's being rapidly destroyed by the US empire. Even war returned to Europe and we are sacrificing our economy at the behest of our American masters. Our media and politicians are controlled by the US, people have been brainwashed to hate socialism and defend capitalism even as it collapses. We are totally enslaved while our children are brainwashed to falsely believe to be free. And due to the inevitable and increasing failure of capitalism, things are getting worse and overt fascism - not just fascism disguised as liberalism - is returning. The same propaganda the Nazis used against the Soviets and Jews is now being used against China, the US is even trying to start a world conflict against China. We live in a far worse place than Eastern Europeans imagined... communists thought we would colonize other planets by now, instead of still serving our billionaire masters. :(
Wow. I was on both sides in June 1989 and was hunting the footage for a glimpse of myself and my friends but didn’t find us. We went to many of the same locations. It’s amazing to think of how much time has passed and I’m so glad that despite how insane the world is now that, at least, Berlin is one again and all of Germany is free.
Awesome! Great video! Miss the GDR/DDR…lucky you got to visit…
Hard to believe four years later I spent the summer in Germany and walked all around there with no wall.
A few weeks ago, I was in (East) Berlin. I recognised some of the places in your video. Invalidenstrasse (Invalid St.), where the hotel was, Zimmerstrasse, and Checkpoint Charlie. There's a good museum there, the Black Box Cold War Museum. I didn't get to go to the Berlin Wall Museum, as one of our party wasn't interested. Bit weird, but yeah. The river/canal is quite a nice area now, by the main station (Hauptbahnhof). They've turned it into a park area, and it's a nice place to have lunch, or go for a walk. I'd happily go back for a longer break.
That Ikarus bus at the beginning hit close to home really hard. Here in Bulgaria we used to have them still until soon enough!... Anyways, as a country which was very much influenced by Germany pre-1945 (and which still is), Bulgaria has so much similarities with what East germany was, even today that if you take a walk in Sofia or other major towns, you'll notice them right away. Me myself - I live near a school which was formerly named after Wilhelm Pieck. As a result Ive always been interested and fascinated by how the whole transition happened in Germany and the reunification, as well as the Treuhand, the way of life, the life itself and History. Thanks for uploading this - TH-cam and the Internet have been the closest thing we have to a time machine!
Thank You for awakening my Childhood memories!
History is crazy man, like a dream at times. I was 2 years old at the times of this footage. And the world has both changed so much, and in another way very little. You can recognize they are different people then you, but at the same time I remember the exact spots where this footage was taken as I was there when I was an adult. I have a weird sense of nostalgia (not for the USSR) but for the time before internet and mobile phones. Weird as in I prefer our technology now, but some things do get lost.
It's a sign of things that all the 'Unknown' fatalities marked by crosses in the video are now identified. (For example at 08;05 - are now known to be Rene Gross & Manfred Mader) - only 1 unknown victim remains.
Interesting. The biggest shock to me then was Chris Geoffroy because of the date.
@@JanPBtest He was the last person to be shot at the wall, if only he had waited a few more months.
@@JanPBtest there actually was a later death- Winfred Freudenberg on the 8th March, he died when he fell from balloon he was using to escape.
Went there in 1989 and 1990, a lot has changed in between those dates, returned in 2015 and its completely different now with very little trace of the wall.
Lived in East Berlin in 1990-1994, best childhood memories, witnessed all the changes.
This is amazing. There's this similar video on TH-cam of berlin in July of 1945. And one location I saw here is 4:07 it stayed almost the same but so different. The damage are still there and there was a middle strip of burned out cars looking like Swiss cheese leading up to it in 1945. It's so eerie
I'm from the UK and I was 6 in 1989. Our next door neighbour was German and he came to our house one day shouting "David, David, they're tearing the wall down!" Of course being that young I had no idea why he was crying.
Fascinating.
Thanks for posting this.
☮
Brings back memories I visited east Berlin before the wall came down. I remember how drab everything was lines for stores.
I did my national military service in Berlin between December 1987 and September 1989, and when I got on the train home, I had no idea that a few weeks later the wall would be gone.
THANK YOU so much! I was there in June 1989 and took a roll of slide photos of the wall. Motion and sound really brings back memories so much better!
I had an interesting conversation with graffiti artists painting on the wall. They were all convinced East Germany was near collapse. I thought they were crazy optimistic but they were right!
You are not in the video, are you? (haha) One of the posters here recognised the girl on the bicycle at 15:49, she was a waitress at a bar at Europa Center, so one never knows... I have panoramic shots of the wall taken from Reichstag Ufer (180-degree) but haven't even scanned those negatives yet. I guess I'm as bad as Vivian Meier at this.
@@JanPBtest Alas, no, that would have been so cool though. I was there for the European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers convention.
Christ that brings back memories. From Berlin Brooke Bks, 1989, we'd take the kids down to the Wall of an evening, past the Russian memorial and go up onto the viewing platform. The ossies would be waving at us from the other side. You could get opera tickets for next to nothing and go over Charlie in uniform for a night out. When the Wall was coming down we took the kids for a walk along the inside, and two border guards came towards us; they just ignored us. We've photos of border guards looking through the wall to the west. Many a time the east German police would be stood on top of the Brandenburg Gate.
It's a miracle that all this ended peacefully just some months later. People standing on top of the Berlin Wall, kissing, cheering and this absurdity was OVER.
Yes. When I was a kid I frequently heard adults discussing the future of communism and the standard assumption everyone made was "it will end in a bloodbath in Russia". That communism there ended in a rather civilised manner was a wonderful surprise to many.
build another soon
Nice piece of history. I was there the previous year. I haven't been back to Berlin since. Would love to go back and see all the changes.
The border patrol boat at 9:50 was a GSB 075. It was not electric, but powered by 2 Russian V8 gasoline engines. The enines were inside the boats body. The "electric" sound is probably the whining of the special gearboxes that were used to transmit the power to the steerable propellers.
Interesting, thanks!
@@JanPBtest You're welcome. :-)
And now, in summer 2022, Scholz still working for Moskwa.
don't let the memories slip out of our heads. thanks
Da war noch Ruhe von allem!! Bin echt sauer mit Dir Erich! Du hast versprochen das die Mauer noch 50 oder 100 jahre steht!! Jetzt haben wir den Schlamassel!!
I lived and worked in Munich for several years and had opportunity to visit Berlin. I was there about 6 months before the wall was torn down. It was a sad sight to see the near-ruins of the once majestic Brandenburg Gate. The stone was overgrown with crud and schmutz, and the Quadriga atop was badly corroded and broken.
It makes me happy to see the sandstone pillars cleaned, and the Quadriga restored to its' former glory.
I was only 17 at the time. Strange to think how in just over a year, that wall would no longer be a barrier.
Großartiges Zeitdokument!! Vielen Dank dafür!!
I was in Berlin Labor Day weekend 1989. You knew something was going to happen!.I went back right after Reunification 1990. Stayed in Mahlsdorf. Crazy 🎉
If anyone is interested in whats being said from 14:00 onwards:
The old guy is complaining in a thick north German accent (ie probably tourist not from Berlin) that he does not like the young chap "vandalizing" the wall, that its ugly, unaesthetic, it should be forbidden, this is not art, every child could do that, they are (according to the dude) already on GDR terretory and he cant understand why the east Germans are not intervening and stopping people from graffiti the wall. The young guy doing the graffiti pretty much just says whatever and lets the guy rant. He also offers him the spraypaint to make something better if he thinks its so easy :)
but the graffiti on the wall was only in the western part or was it also done in the eastern part? because I believe that in East Berlin the wall was absolutely unapproachable ...
@@ddr7246 Yeah its on the western facing part of the wall but its not built directly on the border but like 3 m on the east German side so workers and machines didnt have to cross over to W Berlin to build it.
@@antonk.2748 ok ... but the graffiti on the eastern part were there ??
Wow!!! Absolut beeindruckend. Ich habe damals von 1985 -1990 in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen gelebt. Für mich ist dieses Video eine Reise in meine Vergangenheit 🥹. Vielen Dank fürs Teilen ❤️
So much has changed!
Complimenti per questo splendido video lei ha vissuto quei tempi dal vivo . Io oggi lo sto visitando Berlino anche se non c’è più quasi nulla però ancora c’è quell’aria e pezzi di storia . Grazie per questa testimonianza
this is an awesome video mate. So rare to have views from both East and Western side in one video. And I love the fact that there is not music or annoying talking but just the original noise/sounds. That guy complaining about people spraypainting the wall is hilarious.
Thanks! Needless to say, I'd have filmed _much_ more had I known the Wall would disappear within months. It was actually more difficult to film the wall from the eastern side because the police or the military would likely approach you. It happened to me once (two young guys with machine guns) and... I sort of _yelled:_ "What? Is this forbidden?!" I was very surprised that they just looked and walked away. When Wim Wenders was making his film _Wings of Desire_ (highly recommended), he approached the East Berlin authorities for a permit to film the wall from the eastern side. The way Wenders tells this story is that the eastern official just looked at him and started laughing. Wenders ended up filming a very short scene in East Berlin (in Prenzlauer Berg) in secret, and then smuggling the unprocessed film through Friedrichstrasse, half-expecting it to be confiscated. So these were the conniptions partially expected while doing this. I visited Ukraine (Lviv) about a year ago and in some ways it was less intimidating 🙂(if you didn't mind air raid sirens every day that is).