Berlin..along the Wall and the Brandenburg Gate

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I go to Berlin fairly often, and its impossible for me not to reflect on its turbulent history. I was staying at the Adlon recently, and looking over at the Brandenburg Gate nearby which was trapped in the death strip between the inner and outer wall. Hard to believe now.....

During the Nazi period the Unter den Linden was dominated by huge columns along its length....



and Berlin was utterly destroyed at the end of the
war..

The gate was trapped in No man's land

The wall was 155km long and cut through neighbourhoods and even graveyards. :



So I took a stroll along some of what is left

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In old East Berlin you can still see where the buildings were simply cut and

This is a Bell tower with the original Bells of a church that was trapped in the death strip, and ultimately dynamited...







Today the wall looks just the same...

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A small section had been preserved....

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Graveyards were split in two

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The cemetery in Invalidenstrassen was split, and once contained the grave of von Richtofen. I noticed the graves of WW1 ace Ernst Udet and WW2 Luftwaffe pilot Werner Molders....

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Here is a place of pure evil...the old Gestapo HQ, now a museum . You can see the old basement chambers , and behind them the wall, and behind that, the old Reich Air Ministry. The wall went right down the centre of the street...

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