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Nick Gay, founder of Berlin Wall tours, stands near Checkpoint Charlie.
A Gate, A Wall
And Berlin Sites
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S
tately and ornate, the
Brandenberg Gate is one of
the dominant landmarks
of Berlin.
Nick Gay stands here, too —
but for a different reason. He's
our guide for a walking tour fo-
cused on the Berlin Wall, which
once stood in the shadow of the
Brandenberg Gate.
Although it came down in
1989, the wall remains a power-
ful symbol for Berlin, which is
now the official capital of Ger-
many.
On our tour, titled "Where Was
the Wall?" we explore the route
of the wall, see actual remnants
of it, learn about its history and
its dramatic effect on all Berlin-
ers.
"This area was part of 'no
man's land' because the wall was
in front of the Brandenberg
Gate," says Mr. Gay, as he holds
up a photo showing the massive
wall. "If you came here 10 years
ago, you couldn't even stand here.
It was sealed off"
We are just inside eastern
Berlin on the wide boulevard
known as Unter der Linden. It is
difficult to imagine that there
was a time when this very cen-
tral part of the city—just a quick
subway ride from the fashionable
Ku-Dam in western Berlin —
was totally sealed off to those in-
side the area.
The wall had a vital impact on
the city's Jewish life. It meant
that the Jews who lived in East
Berlin — few in number after the
war — had no way to connect
with those in West Berlin. It is
only since the wall came down in
1989 that Jewish life in eastern
Berlin has been dramatically re-
born.
As we start to follow the
boundaries of the wall, Mr. Gay
tells us of its origins. Berlin had
been a divided city ever since the
end of World War II, with the So-
viets administering East Berlin
and the Western allies in charge
of West Berlin.
The Berlin Wall was erected
because the Soviets wanted to
stop the exodus of East Germans
who were able to escape their
country via Berlin.
This method was so successful
that by 1960, 4 million East Ger-
mans had resettled in West
Berlin. Their solution was to wall
off West Berlin and the Soviets
implemented it with dramatic
speed in August 1961.
To make the barrier even more
secure, the Soviets later built a
tunnel to stop people from swim-
ming across the river. Still later,
in the 1970s, they built a second,
internal wall near the original
one.
In all, the outer wall was ex-
tended for a length of 100 miles
— a solid and forbidding concrete
barrier, 11 feet high, with barbed
wire on top and guard towers
nearby.
As he talks, Mr. Gay also holds
up a diagram showing a cross sec-
tion of the two walls and the st rip
called "no man's land" in be-
tween.
A native of London who has
lived in Berlin for five years, Mr.
Gay is the founder of Berlin
Walks, a series of tours in Eng-
lish. The Berlin Wall tour is one
of his newest, started just over
a year ago. To prepare for it, he
read avidly, visited archives, in-
terviewed people.
Our route takes us along Potts-
dam Platz and then Leipzig
Platz; and soon we get to a piece
of the actual wall, a solid chunk
that remained intact after the
wall came down in November
1