the wall

as you might know from 1961 to 1989 the Antifaschistischer Schutzwall (anti fascist security wall) saved all the lucky citizens of East Berlin and the GDR from the bad people that lived outside the socialistic/communistic society. or in other words: better keep the people inside the country than let them face the truth.
since 1989 almost all parts of the wall vanished. here can you see a small part at a memorial at the Bernauer Straße.
You are looking from the east side though a gap of the inner wall.

background info:
the wall in the background and a strip of one meter behind it still belonged to GDR territory. between the two wall is the border strip, the so called " Grenzstreifen", which was used by patrol cars. One details that does not exists anymore and therefore is missing is the fence with barbed wire on top.
on some parts of the borderstrips were also dogs and some kind of automatic shooters. and there were a lot of guard towers every few hundred meters or so.
the funny thing is that on the west side there were also platforms at some places so tourists could see the famous wall better - and sometimes wave to the people on the other side (who better did not wave back if border soldiers or policemen could see it).

something personal:
i lived not far away of the place in the picture until the age of sixteen. one of the houses at the border, the backside being part of the inner wall.

the picture:
i cropped the top and bottom black parts, added some grain and adjusted the tone levels.