At numerous points around the border with both East Berlin and East Germany are posted signs such as this for the American Sector. Note the languages are those of the occupying powers and German. Looking over the top is a guard tower located at Dueppel.
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Here is a view of a typical platform found at many points along the wall for Westerners to view across to the East.
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View from the platform at Dueppel looking across to East Germany. This site is one of the few places where you may get a clear view of the makup and layout between the inner and outer walls.
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At Checkpoint Charlie, there is also a platform. Here I am in a position to look down at Friedrichstrasse and at the guard tower at the barrier where you enter East Berlin.
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The other direction at the platform at Checkpoint Charlie looks east along the wall where it turns out from the crossing area. Jane Gideon is shown here. Note that here in 1983 there is little if any graffiti on the West's side of the wall. During my visit in January 1990 it was fully covered. In a photo below, you will see me chomping away at this very section of the wall.
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The wall just north of the Brandenburg Gate. Look carefully at the right window and you will see a guard looking back with binoculars.
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Taken near Dueppel where the inner wall is stacked concrete blocks and the outer wall is mesh wire. Same locations as the photo to the right.
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Here I am cutting pieces of wire from the earlier version of the fence to take home as souvenirs. Beyond this location is the new steel mesh fence that looks out on the view as shown in the photo on the left.
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This is the way the wall looked as late as 1984 at Potsdammer Platz. There is a larger platform next to the wall at this location for "V.I.P." viewing, but otherwise open to anyone.
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In the summer of 1989 the same section of wall was full of graffitti. In January 1990, the wall was opened at this point and a road led across to the East. Both during our visits in 1996 and 1999, building activiy in the Potsdammer Platz area was progressing a a rapid pace.
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The fences along the East and West German borders were much different than at Berlin. They were wider, had many more barriers, and had land mines and other devices at the time this photo was taken. Later, they were removed.
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View of a guard next to his tower along the fence where West Germany bordered East Germany.
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Another view along the fence.
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Brandenburg Gate with the wall in front. This is the lowest wall of all between the Berlins.
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I am chopping away at the wall here with a hammer in January 1990. This is just east of Checkpoint Charlie. This aggregate is really tough.
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Just one of the many pieces of the wall that I was able to chop off in January 1990. The photo at the left shows the Brandenburg Gate in the background, with me poking my leg and arm through one of the many holes that had been chopped through the wall.
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