Berlin Wall & the cold war June 14, 2017

I was VERY excited to see the Berlin Wall.  I vaguely remember hearing about it falling when I was about 23.  I remember hearing about how the people in East Berlin would get shot if they tried to leave the country.  I am ashamed that I did not know more.  Here we are standing and touching a part of the wall that separated the city in two.

It is amazing how tall the wall is.  We are standing in front of the part that would have faced West Berlin.  That's why you can see all the Graffiti.  The other side of the wall is a plain shade of gray.  No one was able to write on that side.  This wall not only separated the city, it separated families, and it separated the German people from the rest of the world.  To get an idea of what life was like in East Germany, we are going to visit a historical museum later on in the week.  

Today there are many Germans who remember the day the wall fell.  It was interesting talking with them.  While there are tourists from around the world here, there are also many, many, German tourists as well.  

In the city there is a brick line that shows where the wall originally stood.

It is strange to "walk the wall".  Some parts go straight through buildings !  I can only imagine what it would have been like to wake up and suddenly have a barbed wire fence and armed guards separating the area where I live and work.

Near the wall museum in marble tile is spelled out in English and German: "Unity in Liberty"

Today, businesses use it to advertise.

Germans give a lot of credit to Ronald Regan for the wall coming down.  In the Berlin Wall museum they really celebrate him !

Today we also visited the Reichstag Building  This is similar to where our congress meets.  It has an interesting history so I hope you will click on the link above and read about it.

We also saw many beautiful building and architecture.  Many of these buildings are renovations or replicas of older buildings because many were destroyed in WWII.