• Welcome to the FREE TUGBBS forums! The absolute best place for owners to get help and advice about their timeshares for more than 31 years!

    Join Tens of Thousands of other owners just like you here to get any and all Timeshare questions answered 24 hours a day!
  • TUG started 32 years ago in October 1993 as a group of regular Timeshare owners just like you!

    Read about our 32st anniversary: Happy 32st Birthday TUG!
  • TUG has a YouTube Channel to produce weekly short informative videos on popular Timeshare topics!

    All subscribers auto-entered to win all free TUG membership giveaways!

    Visit TUG on Youtube!
  • TUG has now saved timeshare owners more than $24,000,000 dollars just by finding us in time to rescind a new Timeshare purchase! A truly incredible milestone!

    Read more here: TUG saves owners more than $24 Million dollars
  • Sign up to get the TUG Newsletter for free!

    Tens of thousands of subscribing owners! A weekly recap of the best Timeshare resort reviews and the most popular topics discussed by owners!
  • Our official "end my sales presentation early" T-shirts are available again! Also come with the option for a free membership extension with purchase to offset the cost!

    All T-shirt options here!
  • A few of the most common links here on the forums for newbies and guests!

Amazing Rare Photographs of the Berlin Wall Coming Down

Amazing ... thanks for posting!
 
The site seemed too busy to download the photos, so I'll go back later.

I as a 'Cold War GI' in W. Germany in the '60's. I went to Berlin and saw first hand the differences between East and West Berlin. Modern, vibrant West. Decaying, run-down, aching for freedom East. As an Army Engineer, we built training facilities snug against the E. German & Czech borders within sight of guard towers manned by E. bloc (Soviet) soldiers. I was able to get MUCH closer than most.

When the Wall was breached, I broke down in tears. I was driving a big truck across Ohio, and pulled over to listen to the live report on NPR. A cop car pulled i n behind me and asked why I was there. Turned out we were both Cold War/Vietnam veterans, and sat there weeping while E. Germans flooded across the newly opened frontier.

A great day for humanity.

Jim
 
Here's a video of the man who had the #1 song in West Berlin and ostensibly in East Berlin for 2 months during the time the wall came down. He sang it over the wall on New Years Eve in 1989. I don't know about others, but I have a list in my mind of places I would've liked to have been to experience the history. Berlin at the time the wall came down ranks pretty high up there.

http://youtu.be/0zXiClnK8oE
 
I have a few small chips from the wall. Friends were there just after it started coming down and they took a hammer to get pieces off.

I expected chunks but these are more like flakes off the surface. Many of the pieces crumbled on their trip home but I was able to get some to display in a small box.

I still do not have the photos of the section they got. They keep saying they'll get them to me to go with my display but talk about putting things off, I didn't realize it's been 25 years.
 
I had plans to visit the 2 French girls who I hosted during the Summer of 1989 - leaving for a 3 week trip last weeks of November, 1989. I flew over to Paris on the evening the wall was opened. I was staying outside of Chartres and just watching the TV (all in French naturally) for news. Remember, this is WAY before the internet and cell phone. I had planned to visit a girl I had worked with in Delaware who had transferred to Geneva, Switzerland for a couple of days, My French host family told me to NOT go anywhere except on the TGV train to Geneva and back to Chartres. During the last week of my trip, I went to the Brittany coast (Vannes) for 5+ days to visit my 2nd French guest & her single mother (a teacher who grew up in Poland).

Oh, how I wanted to see those dancing horses of Vienna ... so I took the train after Geneva to Vienna. I had to change trains in Zurich to go to Vienna ... but the majority of the riders from Geneva where GOING to BERLIN ... young Americans who had flown to Vienna as the only available flights with changing to take the trains to Berlin. I can't tell you the numbers ... the train was packed with them. I respected my French host family's experience to NOT be in Berlin - they thought for sure, the Soviets would clamp down and move to seize all of Berlin & maybe other parts on the borders ... the Soviets had lots of tanks.

It was a very stressed out Europe. The Americans were in such contrast (party hounds) .... I only knew what the Europeans knew. It was a scary time for me.

My very first trip to the European continent .... flying over the Atlantic .... during the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
 
Last edited:
DH and I spent 3 weeks traveling all over Germany in early February 1990 and flew into Berlin to visit family I had never met. What an incredible time. We have (bought) pieces of the wall, which I suspect are just painted pieces of concrete as I'm sure the wall itself was already sold :hysterical:. It's my favorite souvenir from our travels all over the world.

Even though the wall was down, logistics between the two Germanys were challenging. My cousins, driving us into East Berlin had issues crossing at Checkpoint Charlie. I would have to double check with DH, but as I recall, we, as Americans, had to walk through and they drove through. DH and I went on our own to visit Schloss Sanssouci in Potsdam and due to the train schedules, were going to be at least 2 hours late for dinner. When we tried to call, we discovered that the phone systems between the two countries were not compatible. I don't know what my cousins thought happened to us. The reunion when we finally showed up was very tearful!

We took the overnight train from Berlin to Bonn to pick up the rental car for the rest of the trip and the train was packed. Most were easterners traveling to the west.

We returned in 1997, again visiting Berlin. The building going on in E Berlin and the exclusion zone was incredible...cranes everywhere. I would love to go back now and see the changes. In fact, I think I'll suggest it to DH as his 'retirement' trip for next year.

Ingrid
 
IngridN said:
We took the overnight train from Berlin to Bonn to pick up the rental car for the rest of the trip and the train was packed. Most were easterners traveling to the west.
Click to expand...

I took the train from Bonn to Berlin on Feb 1, 1990 and again in 2012. In 2012 it took ~4.75 hours to make the trip. Amazing, compared to the lengthy ride back in '90!
 
Clemson Fan said:
Here's a video of the man who had the #1 song in West Berlin and ostensibly in East Berlin for 2 months during the time the wall came down.
Click to expand...

Yeah. Believe it or not, but he was an absolute sensation in Germany at that time. Posters on the street. His music on the radio and all over. It irritated me to no end.
 
November 9th is an important day in German history. It will be remembered with mixed feelings for many of us, with sadness for 1938 and wonder for 1989.

I may have posted elsewhere on TUG over the years that I was studying in Germany from January 1990, in West Berlin in February and East Berlin in April. While in West Berlin, I witnessed the removal of the Wall from around The Brandenburg Gate, a "wall opening" celebration (to a town cut off from Berlin just a few miles north of the city), and more.

I've got a lot of pictures from the time, and I'm still scanning my slides. Bu I've got a few to share which you may appreciate.

When the Wall around The Brandenburg Gate was removed in February 1990 I was lucky to arrive early (on the West side). The police put up barricades behind me, and the international press gathered in the area I was in. A very nice Spanish news crew told me to stay with them (since I didn't have a press badge), so I was within feet of the Mayor of Berlin, the Police Chief, and more during interviews. And, I was relatively close to the Wall itself.

Unfortunately, not all of my pictures came out well (I was flash deprived, which was remedied in the following days), but here are a few of the Wall directly by the Gate. Note that it was much more difficult for them to remove than they had thought, and it took hours. You can easily identify the same graffiti in these pictures.









From the Wall opening celebration (one of my larger pieces of Wall came from this event, marked with the date and number of this location):



Random pic of the Wall directly in front of The Brandenburg Gate (you can see one person on top):



I have many more pics, and need to finish scanning them all. Even at the time, it was clear to all the historic changes that were occurring. It was a great time to be in Berlin.
 
Ken555 said:
I took the train from Bonn to Berlin on Feb 1, 1990 and again in 2012. In 2012 it took ~4.75 hours to make the trip. Amazing, compared to the lengthy ride back in '90!
Click to expand...

We were in Berlin at the same time! I just reviewed my spreadsheet...I was tracking daily costs...and our trip was from 2/11/90 to 3/10/90. My recollections are not as good as I thought as we flew into Hamburg and took the train to Berlin and the overnight train from Berlin was to Dusseldorf, not Bonn. Bonn must have been our second time. I enjoyed reviewing the spreadsheet; had forgotten about the casino jacket rental and $13 for 3 loads of laundry (laundromat). I'm going to have to dig out the Berlin photos.

Edited to add: This was my first trip overseas, other than the one that brought me to this country as a child, and was when the travel bug bit. DH, boyfriend at the time, and I made our bucket lists and started from the top. Hmmm, good idea for a thread 'when did the travel bug bite.'

Ingrid
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top