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The Wall shrine, Berlin, 1990: At Brandenburg Gate border crossing [17/17]

OBJECT INFORMATION

Info

January 1990
Berlin, Brandenburg Gate
Created By: Gottfried Schenk

License: Not Creative Commons

At the new border crossing by Brandenburg Gate, which was opened during a celebratory ceremony on 22 December 1989. Over 100,000 people and hundreds of camera teams attended the ceremony, presided over by Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Chairman of the GDR Council of Ministers, Hans Modrow.

Depicts

barrier grid, Berlin Wall (West), border guard, child, group of people, guard room, plastic bag, Wall graffiti

Context

deconstruction of the Wall, luckiness, tourist, unemployment

Places

Brandenburger Tor border crossing, Brandenburg Gate, Potsdamer Platz

Text in image

Dumont

Other items in this set

Memory

"Coincidence would have it that I was unemployed in the first three months in 1990. I used the time to work on my first book. Whenever I got stuck or needed a break, I'd take off to the Brandenburg Gate, to Potsdamer Platz and other inner city hot spots. I wanted to marvel at the gradual demise of the Wall and to document it with my camera. Standing in front of the eroding bulwark in the company of hundreds of people from all over the world not only helped me shake my writer's bloc, but also provoked a rush of joy similar to the one I'd felt in the first hours. And that's why each time I visited the places where the Wall had stood, I experienced the collective kick that pilgrims feel when on a pilgrimage."

Gottfried Schenk

Original Caption

"Pedestrian border controls"