Stories from West Berlin 1977

I have gathered together via the links on the left a number of stories (more to follow) about incidents that occurred in 1978-80 during my tour in the beautiful city that was West Berlin. The left hand image shows an example of a typical 4-language sign that was positioned at every crossing point into or, in this case out of, East Berlin. I took this one at Checkpoint Charlie and, since I was not allowed to travel to the East because of the nature of my work, I was technically out of bounds (to be precise, I WAS out of bounds, not just technically!). The map, copyright unknown, shows the three western sectors of Berlin on the left and East Berlin on the right- click on the image for a larger version. The heavy boundary line marks the limits of West Berlin. It also marks the line of the infamous Berlin Wall. The lighter boundary on the right hand edge of the map marks the eastern limit of the Soviet Sector. However, the East German Government considered East Berlin to be the capital of the German Democratic Republic (Deutsche Demokratische Republik) and did not refer to it as the Soviet Sector during my time. The three Allied Powers never acknowledged East Berlin to be the capital of East Germany. Since 1989, when the Wall came down, that has all become history, thank goodness.

Click here for a modern and interesting web site giving a historical view of East Berlin (it's in quaint English but hey, it's better than my German is these days)