30th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall

By Carl Kruse

The Berlin Wall fell 30 years ago and with it the beginning of the end of the Cold War. Today only fragments remain after much of the wall was demolished as Berlin re-stitched itself whole again.

The longest surviving stretch is the “East Side Gallery” on the banks of the Spree river in Friedrichshain. Here, as the wall fell, more than 100 artists from 20 countries took to painting it and their efforts were preserved as an open air art gallery. If you walk alongside it, you reach an area where the wall is no longer preserved and has been left to local graffiti artists, much as it would have been before its fall, or at least as it would have been on the Western side where anyone could walk up to it.

This photo was taken there. A jump for joy. And might we see fewer such walls, perhaps more bridges in the future?

Carl Kruse
https://www.carlkruse.com

For a beautiful amalgam of photos of Berlin before and after the Wall check out the work of Jo Furch who has assembled a beautiful collection of every day images spanning tumultuous times.

Check out my other Berlin post on Carl Kruse – Tempelhof Airport.