Typical Tourist Places
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The "real" wall


Standing inside the "death strip" looking at the second security wall.


A modern version of a visitor's tower in West-Berlin, where tourists used to look over the wall into the East.








Bernauer Straße

Bernauer Straße is one of the four places in Berlin where there still are large parts of the wall, the other three being Niederkirchner Str., Eastside Gallery and Mauerpark.

Except for Niederkirchner Straße the other three remains of the wall are not really located in central Berlin. There would have been more central places for tourists, but thanks to the Eastern German government there are no walls anymore. In the year from November 1989 up to the German reunification in October 1990 the completely broke German Democratic Republic simply sold most parts of the wall to tourists, rich americans and arabian oil princes, prices in the end coming up to 50.000 dollars for a single segment of the wall.

Bernauer Str. is the only existing part of the wall with all its original fortifications, barriers, no-man’s land, death strip, floodlights and a second security wall to slow down would-be fugitives.
Though everything looks very original, it isn't. Large parts of the wall had to be renovated in 2001 because for a period of ten years folks had arrived with chisels all over Berlin and chipped out private souvenirs. So the wall had a lot of holes which of course weren't pre-1989. 

In Bernauer Str. the wall had a very dramatic effect because the houses on the southern side of the street were in the Soviet sector, while the pavewalks in front of their windows belonged to the French sector. The windows on the ground floor were walled up and people were trying to escape through the upper floor windows. Later the tenants were evicted and the houses torn down.



More details: Wikipedia


How to get there:
Although there is a U8-station called Bernauer Straße it is not advisable to go there because it's a fifteen minute walk to the memorial along the quite ugly street. You better go to Nordbahnhof with S1, S2 or S25. That's much closer.