After The Fall

History, culture and art stir up a surprisingly avant-garde brew in what used to be called East Berlin

- Dan Booth

The shadow of The Berlin Wall traces across the face of Ger-many’s capital city like a duelist’s scar. In some places it’s the faintest reminder – an inlaid path of stones, or a memorial plaque – but elsewhere it springs full-blown to life, entire sections standing as living memorials. Indeed, The Wall and all the history that surrounds it is ever present, but it is neither celebrated nor downplayed. Instead, in its remnants one hears the subtle but insistent echo, “nie wieder” – “never again!”

For the better part of the 20th century, through two world wars, Berlin was at the center of global conflict. During the Cold War that followed, the city became a metaphor for a planet divided along the ideological fault lines between East and West. And The Wall itself was more than a symbol – it was a hard, dark reality that split a city, and a people. 

In 1945, in the aftermath of Germany’s defeat in World War II, the nation and its capital were partitioned among the four victorious Allied powers, the US, Great Britain, France and Russia. As tensions between the Western powers and the Soviet Union mounted, Berlin became a flash point and an exit for Germans seeking escape to a better life in the West.

To stem the flow of refugees, in 1961 the East German regime began erecting barbed wire barricades encircling the western sector of the city. Over the years, the border hardened into a series of concrete barriers, abandoned buildings and watchtowers. The stream of escapees slowed to a trickle; only the most daring made it across and some paid with their lives.