Long Description:Berlin's
Brandenburg
Gate is now nothing more than the inner-city border between the
boroughs of Berlin-Mitte and Berlin-Tiergarten, but it has an
incredible history as a border crossing. Since 1737, when a
Prussian king built a wooden city wall around Berlin, this location
was first a custom check point, then a border between two German
provinces and then, after World War Two, a checkpoint between the
Russian and the British sector of Berlin.
Ironically, the gate became most famous during the 28 years of
the Berlin Wall - the only time of its 250+ years of history, when
crossing this border was not possible.
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Customs Gate, 1737
In 1737, Prussian king
Frederick William I built the
Berlin
City Wall to enable the collection of taxes from anybody
entering the city. While the city grew, the wall was shifted
several times, but Brandenburg Gate, the official entrance to the
city for travelers coming from the town of Brandenburg remained a
custom checkpoint until 1870. |
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Old Gate,
1737-1788
The city wall was shifted the first time in 1788. Until then,
there was only a wooden gate as seen here in a 1764
picture. |
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Brandenburg Gate,
since 1791
In 1791, Prussian king
Frederick William II ordered architect
Carl
Gotthard Langhans to build a new gate which was completed in
1791.
Here is one of the oldest pictures of the gate, dating back to
1860. Note the two smaller buildings to the left and the right of
the gate: those were the quarters for the custom
officers. |
Fees were collected at the gate until the foundation of the German
Reich in 1871. From 1871 until 1920, Berlin was part of the German
province of Brandenburg-Prussia. In 1920, Berlin became an
independent city and the gate was once again a border, now between
the German Capital District and the province
Brandenburg-Prussia.
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Berlin's Darkest Hour,
1933-1945
The march of Nazi Storm Troupers through the Gate in 1935 marked
the beginning of the end for Berlin. Only ten years later, the
town, the country and large parts of the world were in rubble and
an iron curtain came down, dividing the town, the country and large
parts of the world for decades. |
Brandenburg Gate at the End of World War II; Oil Painting by
Marcel
Backhaus
You Are Leaving The American Sector, 1945-1961
At the end of WW II, Berlin was divided into four sectors. While
most of the historical focus is on the border between the Soviet
and American sectors (see Checkpoint Charlie), the Brandenburg Gate
was actually the most famous border crossings between the Soviet
and the British sector. (Unfortunately, I counldn't find any "You
are leaving the British sector" signs.) Though crossing the line
was discouraged by Soviet and East German authorities, it was legal
until the building of the Berlin Wall and for many East Germans,
the Gate was the gateway to freedom. The picture above, taken a day
before the Wall was built, shows that crossing the line between the
systems was a common event.
All that was about to change:
The Wall, 1961-1989
Building of the Wall, Aug. 13, 1961 |
The Wall at Brandenburg Gate,
1961-1989 |
On August 13, 1961, Russian and East German troops blocked all
entrances to the Western Sectors of Berlin. In the following days,
the infamous
Berlin Wall
was erected, dividing the city for the next 23 years and denying
border crossings at the Brandenburg Gate.
On November 9, 1989, East Germany's
peaceful revolution brought the Wall down and one of the first
places re-opened for crossing was the Brandenburg Gate. As a matter
of fact, the first people crossed the border here in the night of
Nov. 9, simply by climbing the Wall.
German Reunification, 1990
Technically, East- and West Germany remained independent states
with separate seats in the United Nations until German
Reunification on October 3, 1990. So, for 11 months, the
Brandenburg Gate was actually a Border Crossing between two
sovereign states. After reunification, this former Border between
two worlds became a simple crossing between two boroughs and nobody
was sad about that. Today, only a line of bricks indicates the
location of a wall that once divided the world.
In August 2007, we - Volker, born in East Germany and Judy, born
in California celebrated 270 years of exiting German history and
crossed the "border" between Berlin-Mitte and Berlin-Tiergarten
without anybody collecting taxes or shooting at us.
Judy on the eastern side of the gate |
This is where the wall used to be |
