I have uploaded some of our holiday snaps taken at the start of April 1990, just over 4 months after the Berlin Wall came down, thought I would post them here if anyone is interested.
We were there to visit my uncle and his family who were in the British Army, based near to the Olympic Stadium. He managed to get us to some places between the walls out of the tourist areas, still with both walls standing and untouched due to them being in the countryside parts of Berlin.
If you look closely at some of the images, you will see where the trip wires once lay in the sand also an East Berlin scout car doing its rounds although they no longer had a 'license to kill'.
It was a really wierd time, only a few months before, if you got even to touching distance of the wall from the east side, you would of been shot dead (hence the graffiti only on the west side) yet we were allowed to roam 'free' in no-man's land, East & West Berlin police were seen chatting and laughing with each other (you certainly wouldn't have seen that either!). Another good thing was the currency ratio from GBP to the East Berlin rate, you could dine out in luxurious 5 star hotels for pittance.
Anyway, enough of the babble, onto the pics, which btw I cannot take credit for this time round as I was only Six at the time so my parents were the ones behind the lens.
Please esxcuse the Perms & Fashion, it was 1990!!
Residential homes in the British Army base
Group Shot (me on the left)
Towards a traffic checkpoint
Me in no-man's land
Walking towards the Reichstag
Some residents climbing from West to East
People chipping the West side to sell on to tourists
Me and my dad
The Trabant was the only car available to East Berlin, there was the occasional Trabant van or estate, but thats as exciting as it got lol.
Pictures for sale on the wall
Looking through to an East Berlin watch tower
My Dad on the edge of West Berlin on the Glynicka(sp) Bridge, the Potsdam sign represents the start of the DDR (East Berlin)
Me & my sister playing between the walls in the countryside area of Berlin, still untouched by wall chippers as the area was so far out, graffiti artists hardly bothered to tag the west wall.
An East Berlin Scout car doing its 'ghost round' they were still paid to drive around, so why not! They had no issues with us being there nor taking pictures of them.
Close-up, once again it is a converted Trabant car! (note the diagonal lines in the sand, my uncle explained to us that these were where trip wires once lay)
Scout car going back into East Berlin
Through the wall
A wooden lookout point
An empty checkpoint, before the wall came down, these would of been packed every day.
A memorial to those who were shot when trying to escape swimming through the river from East to West
British (though might be French or American) tanks rolling through West Berlin
The Stasi Headquarters (East Germany secret police)
East & West Berlin guards talking with each other (fraternizing with the enemy)
A slide show of the above images with some music...
D-UK