Berlin 1987 - "Ich bin ein Berliner"

[primocordara]

Thought these pictures might be interesting. I traveled in 1987 to Berlin.
A foggy winter day I passed Checkpoint Charlie and got my feel of the last days of the comunist regime. It looked as though it was there for 100 years more!

BTW the camara was Communist too, a veery heavy Zenit Reflex.


...Notice the tram raills going right under the wall!

[primocordara]

Second

[primocordara]

The famous car ! ("Trabant" I beleive)

[primocordara]

Checkponit Charlie

[primocordara]

Unter der Linden and the closed Brandenburg Gate

[primocordara]

Checkpoint Charlie with a "Herig" mural on the wall

[primocordara]

"Entering the Soviet occupied zone", I was aimed with a machine gun ("Halt"!) for taking this picture!

[primocordara]

Fashion producers area always creative for finding photo sets.

These models came out from the U-Bahn station (metro) to the comunist side to make a quick photo shoot.
Punk was already becoming a fashion reference!

[primocordara]

It was impressive, and seemed to be there forever.

Only two years later it dissapeared!

[sigue2000]

The famous car ! ("Trabant" I beleive)
Nope, it's a 'Wartburg'. The 3rd and 5th in the left row are a 'Trabi'. :peace:

[digdoi]

Thank you very much, Marcelo.
You showed not only nice images, but a great piece of history too. :clap:

[SWANK-E]

Zenit!!! :rock on:

you really need those Soviet optics to capture the Berlin Wall i believe.

those high contrast, light leaks, vignetting, meloncolic colours... bring it on!

[primocordara]

Thank you very much, Marcelo.
You showed not only nice images, but a great piece of history too. :clap:

They look soo old, yet it was only a few years ago! The fog and -10°c temperature contributed to giving this images a ghostly look!

BTW they are slides, I just projected them and shot them with a digital camera. I will try to scan them better and substitute them.

[primocordara]

Zenit!!! :rock on:

you really need those Soviet optics to capture the Berlin Wall i believe.

those high contrast, light leaks, vignetting, meloncolic colours... bring it on!

You're right Kevin! Kodak's bright colours would have been so inapropiate!

I'll post some more soon.

[primocordara]

Here a few more

[primocordara]

Check out the black crows in "no man's land" !

[primocordara]

Affter "checkpoint charlie", going through the section of the "wall" or "no man's land"
As you may see, the Soviets kept painting white over any graffiti up to this corner!

[primocordara]

main square, what was its name?

[primocordara]

Bulding still as bombed during WW II ! Any Berliner there to show what it is today?

[primocordara]

Just cleared the soviet checkpoint

[primocordara]

another view

[primocordara]

yet another

[primocordara]

a few blocks into soviet zone

[primocordara]

another

[primocordara]

unter der linden again

[primocordara]

Hey Kevin I still have the camera with me! :)

[primocordara]

two more. Check the white line someone took the task of drawing all arround the wall!!!

[primocordara]

last one, as night fell over the city...

This was the feeling at the moment ! :bang head

[Temjin]

here a view to postdammerplatz ( if i remember it correct)

[Temjin]

postdammerplatz itself

[Temjin]

the wall

[Temjin]

here on this spot in the noman land zone, there was a chuch;
this church was demolished in favor of the wall.
Some architects did (re)build a chapelle(church) made of mud and wood, too remind the past.
(it's name: kapel der Verzöhnung)

[Temjin]

kapel der Verzöhnung

[Temjin]

kapel der Verzöhnung 2

[Temjin]

kapel der Verzöhnung 3

[Temjin]

kapel der Verzöhnung 4

[cacapis]

Wow, Berlin is changing so much and so fast. It's been 4 years since I went there. I hardly recognize some places in primocordara's pictures and temjin's photos show a very different berlin either.
While there we met an argentinian girl and she said that what used to be the sovietic side was astonishing and very powerful, but we didn't notice that much of a difference. Streets were clean and nice and old buildings refurbished.
I think the central square in post 18 is alexanderplatz, but I'm not sure.

[primocordara]

kapel der Verzöhnung 4

very interesting, is it mud? like adobe?

[Temjin]

yep it is
they put the mud in layers and stamped on it with a machine to make it very compact.

there is some more information about, normaly.
gonne search for it

[SWANK-E]

i was planning on a whole photo series about that chapel soon too... so much to post, so little time!

[primocordara]

i was planning on a whole photo series about that chapel soon too... so much to post, so little time!

Looking forward to it!

[sigue2000]

Meanwhile here's a link to the Website (http://www.kapelle-versoehnung.de/bin/englisch/index.php)
More pictures (http://www.figure-ground.com/travel/image.php?versoehnung)

Architects: Rudolf Reitermann & Peter Sassenroth

[sigue2000]

Just found an (sorry its german) interesting document on its construction with lots of pictures.----> Baunetz (http://www.baunetz.de/sixcms_4/sixcms_upload/media/293/20_29_kapelle__berlin.pdf)

[guillermo]

I'm just back from Berlin , I 've seen the Capel and the piece of wall, now there is an free-observatory to look at the wall , let me find the pic I've took :
between the wall there is two walls of metal (one face is shining the other is like Corten (c))

[guillermo]

and Postdammer Platz has lost its grass ( I have to found the Palatz der Republik pictures)

[primocordara]

Today Fidel Castro started what appears to be a simmilar wall arround the American Embasy in Habana... so Cubans won't read the electronic bilboard on its facade... :bang head :bang head :bang head

[lavardera]

Nope, it's a 'Wartburg'. The 3rd and 5th in the left row are a 'Trabi'. :peace:
Trabant sound:

[sandropc]

What a nostalgia!, not precisely for the political regimen. For circumstances of the life I worked in East Berlin for almost two years, there I knew my wife (now for 18 years!), when I saw her, I get mad and “have stole her”, then we lived in London for a year, then we return to Nicaragua. The pictures bring me memories of happy moments lived in Berlin in the years 1984-86, thank you Primo, mine is a long, long history….



This is my wife, born in Leipzig, December 2005 picture…

[primocordara]

Wow Sandro! very interesting story! I supose you being in East berlin had something to do with the Sandinista government at the time?
Boy if I had met someone like your wife I would "have stole her" too!! :cheers:

[sandropc]

Primo:

Yes I was in the Sandinista Diplomatic Mission in Berlin, and my wife was my translator (dolmetcherin), the rest is history....

Un abrazo,

[primocordara]

pah mate!! I would love to invite you with an asado and beer, and hear about that period!!
I was at the university at the time, and the Sandinista revolution was the reference of the moment! (we were geting rid of the military dictators too, a nice gift of our friends Kissinger and Nixon :puke: !!)

Many students even whent there to "help" (VEERRY FEWW), but Sanidnista was "ON" music, fashion!! (yes! all students dressed as a revolutionaries :rock on: "COMPAÑERO"!!)
"...Love between nations" - mission acomplished Pedro!!! :cheers: :cheers:

[gorgon]

Sorry I'm posting your image again primacorda - this is a view (#19) from about 400m north (on the east side) of checkpoint charlie on Mauer Strasse (wall street) and you can just see my old appartment - the sliver of building between the 18th C neoclassical one and the 60's office block. There is a subway station, Mauer Strasse, just round that corner

Ah the memories. 3 years (1993-1996) in one of the most exciting cities in the world.

It was alexander platz, the big square.

Also I think that bombed out building was part of the museum complex by the river just south of alexander platz. To the right is Schinkels Altes Museum... I think... If so its been reconstructed and is part of the museum now. sorry no pics

[primocordara]

Wow incredible coincidence, no pics of the transformation of Berlin?

[sigue2000]

... Mauer Strasse (wall street) ... 'Excuse the pun.'
I love that one!
:D :D :D :D