Checkpoint

GREENSBURG, Pa. (Tribune News Service) Three decades ago, on Nov. 9, 1989, U.S. Army Sgt. Michael Rafferty was at home in West Berlin when word came over the Armed Forces Network that East Germans would soon be able to travel unimpeded to the West. The commu…

Berlin – Every Berliner knows him. And millions of tourists have taken photos with a picture of him. His faded, larger-than-life-sized portrait has loomed for 25 years over Checkpoint Charlie, the historic U.S.-controlled border crossing that stood for three …

November 9, 2019, marks the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the physical embodiment of the Iron Curtain separating East and West in the Cold War. The Wall was built in 1961 to stop East Germans escaping to the West, but thousands found ways t…

Gerardy Malie/Getty The scene was Potsdamer Platz in the heart of divided Berlin at about 5 a.m. on Nov. 12, 1989. On the far side of the Wall that had become the quintessential symbol of Moscows brutal domination in Eastern Europe the first hint of dawn was…

The scene was Potsdamer Platz in the heart of divided Berlin at about 5 a.m. on Nov. 12, 1989. On the far side of the Wall that had become the quintessential symbol of Moscows brutal domination in Eastern Europe the first hint of dawn was breaking. Ive alway…

Berlin Every Berliner knows him. And millions of tourists have taken photos with a picture of him. His faded, larger-than-life-sized portrait has loomed for 25 years over Checkpoint Charlie, the historic U.S.-controlled border crossing that stood for three de…

Saturday marks the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the barrier that divided West Berlin from East, and enclosed the West from the rest of East Germany. From 1961 to 1989, the iconic wall stood and symbolised the height of Cold War tensions.…

Tourists in front of the Berlin Wall in Germany at the Brandenburg Gate in June 1989; people walk near the same monument in October. (Photos: Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters, Alexander Koerner/Getty Images) Nov. 9, 2019, will mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of…

Image: Patrons gather at Obst und Gemüse (Fruitand Vegetables), a bar in Berlin’s Mitte district, 1992. (Ben de Biel / Bobsairport) 30 years after the Wall, the story of Berlin's anarchist utopia. Editor’s Note: This essay originally appeared in the Novembe…

In the dead of night on August 13, 1961, the East German Army began placing more than 48 kilometers of barbed wire through the center of Berlin, splitting the city into two stark halves. On one side, the Soviet-backed East functioned under a socialist state …