Hello and welcome to Berlin, it's now over a
generation ago that the Cold War ended and the Berlin Wall came down almost overnight
the division of Germany and the madness of living in West Berlin is something now if
you're under 30 you'll have absolutely no concept of, for those of us who lived in Germany
in the mid-1980s it was an everyday fact of life, so I thought for this video I
would revisit the Cold War Checkpoints or border crossings between East and West
today and compare them with life 30 years ago just in case you're not aware of the historical
background to West Berlin let me remind you in 1945 with the Nazi government defeated and Hitler
dead the Soviet Red Army occupied Germany up to the River Elba but the former capital of Nazi
Germany was then split into the occupation zones French, British, American, and Soviet however
in the 1950s the Soviet occupation zone became the Deutsche Democratic Republic DDR or East Germany
In the 1950s relations between Stalin's Soviet Union and the Western allies degenerated into
antagonism and finally a Cold war as the Western allies refused to relinquish their control of
their occupation zones in the west of Berlin and eventually West Berlin became an island of Western
democracy and a separate governed city-state deep within the Communist and Soviet-controlled DDR
In 1961 in an effort to make life unbearable the DDR government overnight sealed the inner
German border between West Germany and East Germany , and the Border surrounding West Berlin
By the mid-1960s the only way in and out of West Berlin on foot or by car was by a series of
military checkpoints, the principal of these checkpoints became known by their military code
letters Checkpoint Alpha, Checkpoint Bravo and Checkpoint Charlie and I'm pretty certain you've
heard of the last one on those. Ah I hear you ask? where's Checkpoint Alpha I can see Bravo and Charlie well
it's not on this map and we'll get into that later in the video but first we're going to take a look
and a trip out to another checkpoint that isn't on the map and one that doesn't have a code name
either, but I can guarantee it will be a checkpoint that you will have heard of , but in order to
do so we need to take a drive out to Potsdam so let's go, anyway I'm driving my shiney Tesla through the streets of Potsdam. Potsdam is a city that sits just to the west of Berlin Now by 1945
Berlin had been virtually reduced to rubble by World War II so the Occupying Soviet forces sited their
headquarters in the virtually undamaged Potsdam Over the 1950s and 60s Potsdam then grew into
the Diplomatic Quarter for the Soviet occupation a role that it held up until the late 1980s. An
important disctiction to make is the Potsdam lay in East Germany not East Berlin and the border
between West Berlin and Potsdam was a center of the River Havel , but by luck of geography this
bridge ran between West Berlin and Potsdam and is the site of our first checkpoint... The
Glienicke Bridge. Remember that I suggested you probably already knew of this checkpoint but
probably not by its German name but almost certainly by its media nickname.. The Bridge of
spies obviously we can thank Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks for bringing us the 2015 movie
that told the full story of the Glienicke Bridge but you have to remember that the Glienicke Bridge
has been a mainstay of every Hollywood spy movie from 1966's Funeral in Berlin with Michael Caine
to 2017's Atomic Blonde with Charlize Theron the nickname Bridge of Spies was in such common
usage in the 1980s that even mid-1980s British power ballad band to T'Pau named their 1987 album
after it... kids ask your Dad who Carol Decker was! This is a still taken from the 2015 Spielberg
movie and you don't get much more stereotypically Cold War than that do you? Sadly though, this image
is complete Hollywood bollox! Glienicke Bridge never looked like that during the Cold War I'm
sorry but I don't have time to tell you the full story of the bridge of spies here but basically
Glienicke Bridge was chosen to be the exchange point for either side's captured intelligence staff in
regular prisoner swaps, which also included Soviet disindents. Glienicke Bridge was principally because it's
in a remote location, well away from Central Berlin away from prying eyes of civilians and journalists and it was also the only border crossing that was
in complete Soviet control, no East Germans were at the border this was because it was more or less
the back door to the Soviet Potsdam Garrison During the Cold War over 100 Personnel were
exchanged between East and West at this checkpoint here's Glienicke Bridge in the present day from
the Berlin side of the bridge I.E the former West Berlin side it's a lot less sexy than
the Spielberg movie isn't it, although I'm led to believe much of the movie was filmed on location
here I think we need to take a look back at the real cold war Glienicke Bridge checkpoint not the Hollywood
version so this is Glienicke Bridge same view in 1988. 34 years ago because the West didn't
recognize the legitimacy of any border crossing for that reason border infrastructure on the
western side was always bare minimum in this case a single police officer with a Volkswagen van and
two barriers so he would simply check the ID of anybody coming from the Eastern side the actual East-West
border was across the center of the bridge marked with a thick white line across both carriageways
which you can see from this photograph the Soviet checkpoint was at the far end it
was just fortified with the electric gates and vehicle crash barriers manned by armed Soviet
soldiers this video from 1998 shows a BRIXMIS a British military Mission vehicle crossing the
Glienicke Bridge into the Soviet controlled sector this is not a normal checkpoint
the only people that can use this checkpoint are the British American and
French military missions and diplomats under normal circumstances West Germans and
East Germans could not use this checkpoint because they couldn't film I will show you the
Soviet checkpoint from a different angle it's funny really that the Soviet Soldier on
duty at this checkpoint is probably the same age as me in 1988, and probably equally hates static
post stagging on. We now rejoin the BRIXMIS team as they negotiate the final vehicle
barrier before being clear to enter Potsdam As I was setting up to film at Glienicke something quite eerie happened, almost in an echo of the BRIXMIS film you've just
seen about 20- 30 male and female U.S service Personnel turned up and were being given
a history lesson at the Glienicke Bridge they're all young enough to be the sons of daughters of
us cold war warriors! So for comparison this is driving across the Glienicke Bridge in the present day
of course in a Tesla not a 1980s Mercedes G-Wagon the white line across the center of the bridges
more or less gone but you can still see remnants of it, but now is a memorial plaque the wording says
<speaks German> German Partition until 1989 and this is where the gates to the Soviet
checkpoint would have been around the colonnade would have been the Soviet checkpoint
infrastructure and the far side of the Colonnade would have been the last pedestrian and vehicle
barrier and we would now be into Old Potsdam this is a view around the Potsdam end of the Glienicke Bridge where the Soviet infrastructure would have been it has been extensively refurbished
since 1990 and there is a small museum here an important point I would make is that with all
the checkpoints we're going to visit on this video people have actually died here trying to cross
into the West, in total during the Cold War over 900 people were killed tried across from East to
West , every checkpoint today is a German National Memorial and this Obelisk remembers people from
Potsdam who died trying to cross the Berlin Wall before we go on to look at the code named
checkpoints I want to take you quickly on a tour of the remnants of the Berlin Wall itself
It makes sense to see what you're crossing before you actually look at the Crossings. This is a
Brandenburg Gate central Berlin around 1985. of course everybody knows that Berlin Wall
dramatically came down on the 9th of November 1989. so what is left of it today , well plenty you
just need to know where to look , throughout Berlin today you will find the path of the former
Berlin Wall marked, quite subtly , but it is there, often with these brass plaques embedded into
sidewalks Berliner Mauer translates to Berlin Wall or across trafficable roads you'll see this
double row of cobblestones which marks the path of the old Berlin Wall, on certain
streets you'll find information boards With old photos showing what the street
used to look like during the Cold War because much of the death strip of the Berlin
Wall was seized during the 60s it still remains in government hands today, but it has now been
re-wilded and turned into a sort of linear Country Park called the Berliner Mauerweg or the
Berlin Wall footpath, the wall itself survives in several places around the city but now Bernauer Strasse
it's probably the best place to go and view the war remnants as when the war came down the former
death strip was actually preserved and turned into a Memorial Park, Bernauer Strasse that has a
250 meter long preserved section of the Berlin wall and the death strip more or less as it would
have looked back in the day, across the road there is a really good Berlin Wall museum with a viewing
platform to look into the preserved death strip there are some elements missing but it is
otherwise completely accurate, I have to say that walking along the wall on Bernauer Strasse
physically gave me goosebumps, it took me right back to the days of the Cold War but I do want to
make this point that the wall really didn't bother us back then, as a British soldier in my early
20s serving in Germany the wall had been around all our lives it was an inanimate object that
blocked off half the City and that was all, however for East German citizens their experience of
the war couldn't be more different the wall was a symbol of oppression and imprisonment this is the
hinter wall, the first wall on the East Berlin side of the death strip, simpler in construction but it
would have been topped by barbed wire back in the day contrary to popular belief probably caused
by some Hollywood movies the Berlin Wall death strip was never mined, the inner German
border was, in places, but never the Berlin Wall the wall did however utilize for a period these
welded steel mats of what could best be described as punji stakes, sharpened steel spikes designed to
impale an escapers feet as they jumped over the hinter wall because of international condemnation
all of these were removed by the mid-1970s but never lose sight of the fact that it was
a death strip, exactly that, if you climbed over the hinter wall and entered the death strip
the Grenztruppen had orders to shoot you the last East Berliner shot and killed on the
wall was 20 year old Chris Gueffrey born the same year as me he was a East Berlin restaurant
waiter shot on the 5th of February 1989 as he tried to cross a wall just nine months before the
wall came down, the Grenztruppen who shot him were put on trial after German reunification
for murder, but they received only three years for manslaughter due to the defense they were simply
applying East German law as it stood at the time on a much more lighter note something the war became
famous for was its graffiti because the wall was technically in the East the West German police
could take no action against graffiti artists sometimes the East German Grrenztruppen
would deploy around the front of the wall but then the graffiti artists would simply step
back into the west and mock them face to face probably the most famous piece of Berlin Wall
graffiti is this one originally from 1989 this is a restoration or a reproduction
coming which by the original artist it features Soviet Premiere Leonid Brezhnev
who died in 1982, and East German dictator Erich Honecker engaging in a socialist fraternal kiss
which actually happened and was in the newspapers but obviously here it's been intentionally homo
eroticized as an insult to socialism the labeling says both in German and Russian more
or less the same thing, I'll do the German because I can speak better German like and Russian <speaks German> my God help me to escape these deadly lovers. Finally if you know where to
look you can still find some of the surviving wall observation and gun towers this is a BT-9 model
on Erna-Berger- Strasse it dates for the mid-1960s it has eight windows and below each window is
a gun firing port the tower is a round court but these BT-6 models were superseded by square
designed BT-9s from the late 1970s onwards BT-6s had absolutely no heating and for that reason
they were deeply unpopular with the Grenztruppen from looking at the BT-6 tower in Erna-Berger-Strasse
it isa quick 10 minute walk to our first coded checkpoint: Checkpoint Charlie as you'll know
from the start of the video Checkpoint Charlie is the third in the chain of three Allied
checkpoints between East and West we used the term checkpoints because we didn't recognize
the border and therefore preferred not to use the term border crossing each checkpoint
was given a letter code name alpha bravo and Charlie people are very surprised to learn
that Charlie isn't named after an actual person Charlie was the single point of access for Allied
Forces and non-Germans from West Berlin to East Berlin and vice versa It is located on Frederiche
Strasse in Central Berlin, on the western side of the border at first Charlie was a simple wooden
Hut and by the 1980s a small modular building on a traffic Island this was in keeping with Western
policy to minimalize border infrastructure so not to legitimize the illegal Berlin Wall. I suggested
that you probably already knew Checkpoint Charlie but have you asked yourself why that is and
why it is still in popular culture today okay Hollywood spy movie has a lot to do with
it but as we've already demonstrated Checkpoint Charlie was not used as spy exchanges that was
Glienicke Bridge. No it was a terrifying events of October 1961 that took place at Checkpoint
Charlie that made infamous. During the four years of the Cold War NATO and the Warsaw Pact /
Soviet Union came within a hair's breadth of a full-scale war three times: 1983 in the Able Archer
incident, 1962 the Cuban Missile Crisis, and 1961 the Berlin Crisis that took place at Checkpoint
Charlie. In simple terms the 1961 Berlin crisis started when East German police interfered with
the US ambassador and his wife entering East Berlin to attend an opera, this was in breach
with the agreed protocols governing Berlin the Allies did not recognize their DDR or its
police only the authority of the Soviet Union so U.S MPs attempted to escort the Ambassador
across the border into the East , at this point guns were drawn over the next few days DDR
Personnel refused Allied Personnel access and The situation began to escalate by the 28th of
October there were in total 20 tanks 10 U.S army and 10 Soviet army tanks locked and loaded facing
off across the Checkpoint Charlie no man's area it was known that the Soviets were itching for an
excuse to take back West Berlin by force and a simple misjudgment by any tank soldier and a round
fired to this point would have led to the Soviets invading West Berlin, which almost certainly would
have led to all-out war in Europe possibly a nuclear exchange between East and West, for that
reason on both sides the chain of command went right to the top, on the U.S side to U.S president
J.F Kennedy and on the Soviet / DDR side to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev , for the whole day the world
watched on TV waiting for one side to blink first. Of course it is now known 30 years later
that in the Situation Room in the White House Kennedy had already decided to sacrifice West
Berlin if necessary to prevent World War III but in a surprise move that day it was a
Soviet that backed down and began to withdraw the world would be the sigh of relief but that
would only last a short year before a similar standoff over nuclear missiles in Cuba put
the world on the brink of World War III again this is Frederiche Strasser today facing
the site of the original Checkpoint Charlie it is today one of Berlin's biggest tourist
traps yet everything that is here today is a commercial reconstruction simply for tourists
it does pain me to think that the selfie taking tourists don't realize they're being conned this
isn't actually the real Checkpoint Charlie for example compare this tourist trap to the actual
checkpoint just before the Wall came down of course being prime real estate in the center of
Berlin many of the original pre-1990 buildings have gone as well, in fact I think the only
thing that is original in Checkpoint Charlie is the actual traffic Island the Hut sat on, and its
curb, the so-called 'Disneyfication' of Checkpoint Charlie got so bad that in 2019 the German
government stepped in to tone it down the hut for tourists to take selfies is permitted to stay as are
some of the more subtle gift shops but the over commercialization and particularly the hustlers
who scammed tourists into posing with them in Russian or American uniforms similar to a manner
you would find in Las Vegas strip or banned the German government quite rightly pointed out they
needed to act because Checkpoint Charlie is in fact a memorial a site where people died trying to
escape tyranny such as East German teenager Peter Fechter who was shot in 1962 as he tried to make
a break across Checkpoint Charlie from the East personally I don't blame the tourists
for coming here and I actually think it's a good thing that maybe the memory
of Checkpoint Charlie is kept alive by the selfie takers rather than it
becomes an anonymous part of Berlin just keep in mind if you do visit everything here
outside the museum at street level it's fake for example these are signs in this style disappeared
in the late 1970s by 1980 this is how the Soviet and East German side of Checkpoint Charlie looked
soon after this photo was taken though checkpoint Charlie was to have a very important visitor
and the Cold War was soon to become ice cold again The election of the Republican president Ronald
Reagan in 1981 was the start of a souring of relations between the US and the Soviets
that resulted in a nuclear weapons arms race this visit to Checkpoint Charlie is the world
leader equivalent of Reagan flipping off both Leonardo Brezhnev and Eric Honicker, you know , you've
met them, these two guys. Within a year Reagan will double down with his Infamous 'evil empire' speech
about the Soviet Union. During my time in the military this is how the Soviet East German side
of Checkpoint Charlie looked by the mid to late 1980s, it was much less militarized and more or
less resembled a U.S / Mexican border crossing today. As a member of the allied military based in
West Berlin you could cross into East Berlin via Checkpoint Charlie but not further on into
East Germany , as long as you're in uniform and had your ID, it wasn't dangerous in the East,
just depressing a bit like going back in time to the 1950s you were also under surveillance most
of the time you were in the East by the Stasi you also had to be back at Checkpoint Charlie
by midnight or you turned into a pumpkin. And then in 1999 it all came down! This is
the Soviet DDR side of Checkpoint Charlie in the present day, the Soviet and East
German side of Checkpoint Charlie was redeveloped in the year 2000 and the last
Soviet checkpoint flag is now in the museum this one hanging on the wall outside the
museum is just a replica the original Allied checkpoint Hut used in 1989 is now
located in the Allied museum at Templehof In the last part of the video we're going to visit
checkpoints Alpha and Bravo these checkpoints are best described as a pair because they serve
different function to Checkpoint Charlie you will recall at the beginning of the video I
didn't show you where checkpoint Alpha was on the map of Berlin that's because it isn't, it's
103 miles to the west of Berlin on the border between East and West Germany, checkpoint Alpha
was sited near Helmstedt in then West Germany, and checkpoint Bravo sited near Dreilinden in
Southwestern Berlin, they were the start and the end of the Berlin Transit Corridor. Now this
is a completely different topic and I don't have time to go into it in this video , however
if you are interested I've made a separate video on the Cold War Berlin Transit Corridor
click the link in the top right hand corner But I'll give you a quick taster and an explanation
from that video. <narration> you will travel along a 103 mile route through East Germany this is the only road
that the Allies may use to travel into West Berlin at the start and finish of the journey
all Allied Travelers are subject to Identity check by Soviet soldiers
at Soviet checkpoint Alpha and Bravo before going to the Soviet checkpoint at one
end and after leaving the Soviet checkpoint at the other end you're required to stop at the
appropriate Allied checkpoint either Allied alpha or Bravo. When we talk about checkpoint Alpha what
we actually mean is the Allied West German side of the operation, the East German / Soviet side of
the Border had a vast security complex known as Marienborn so I'm going to use this map to
show you where we're going to visit we're going to start off with Checkpoint Alpha and that's
a top left-hand Corner the blue shaded area is West Germany we are going to cross the border look
at the DDR Surveillance Tower have a look at some of the Border infrastructure, the Grenztruppen Garrison and finally the Marienborn complex itself sadly the exclusion Zone checkpoint
indicated here no longer exists the remember this was as far west as a normal East
German citizen could go without being arrested we'll start our tour of the Helmstedt / Marienborn off with a view of Allied Checkpoint Alpha situated in West Germany functioning in
1988. This is a view facing towards East Germany and now 34 years later it is now a Zoll Amt
.. a Customs Office, let's have a look On the Autobahn Bridge just in front of Checkpoint
Alpha was the border between West and East Germany marked across the
carriageway with a thick white line from a different angle at the same place
you can see the standard German warning sign <speaks German> stop here's the border
and also the East German surveillance Tower the DDR Surveillance Tower compound abutted right up
next to the Border it was intended intentionally to intimidate and you can see the US flag flying
over checkpoint Alpha in West Germany in the background the tower was equipped long-range CCTV
acoustic and electronic sliders equipment and was manned around the clock that meant the East
Germans and also the Soviets could see absolutely everything that was happening on the West
German side of the border at a Checkpoint Alpha the tower and its concrete compound are still
here today let's take a look, now I really wanted to climb this to have some great content for
the channel but the tower is now owned by the German forestry service and it has a sign on it
saying keep off which I intended to ignore until a German forestry worker arrived by car to watch
me like a hawk, I think he recognized my background and left me alone to film but I couldn't get
away with climbing a tower sorry about that but anyway let's compare the tower today with its
original occupants from 30 years ago I think this Tower really is a great historical place to
visit. Now I want to make a very serious and poignant Point here you'll notice that I a civilian and
I'm just wandering freely around the forestry blocks, footpaths and tracks here ... thirty years ago, no
exaggeration this close to the Border I would have been shot if I've been seen by the Grenztruppen,
at the very least further back I would have been arrested put before court and sentenced up to
10 years in prison for being in the Border Exclusion Zone Historically speaking all this is not that
long ago! Never take for granted your freedoms !! from the DDR Surveillance Tower right on the border
with West Germany, the next place we're going to come across if we head east about a kilometer
through the forest along the patrol track is the Grenztruppen Garrison or Barracks this
was the accommodation barracks for the Border security troops for the whole border sector
and some of the Marienborn complex staff it was walled and it was fenced in and
the occupants could not leave it without permission and then only on official transport
to the nearest town because even Grenztruppen could not be trusted not to make a break for the
Border. I had a good foot patrol around the old Grenztruppen Garrison and what I noticed is
that all the security patrol tracks are still there but they're overgrown with vegetation and
trees that wouldn't have existed 35 years ago but you'll be surprised to learn that most
of the Concrete Walling and the East German weld mesh fencing is still in place. The barracks
themselves are now a mixed residential village and Industrial Park the sign at the main entrance says
Private Property in German and as German privacy laws are stricter than those in the UK and the US
I chose deliberately not to come in here and film. Leaving the Garrison behind me for the next part
of my exploration I went over the Autobahn over a purpose-built Grenztruppen security access
bridge heading back towards the inner German Border death strip, I was going up there to see if I could
find a BT 4x4 tower that I noticed from Google Earth, even though the ground today looks nothing
like the 1980s border map I could tell I was getting close because here is a Border Memorial
sign and also a milestone from the pre-war years. That's a point of Interest whenever a
major road crosses over the former Inner German border you'll find one of
these Memorial signs it says <Speaks German> sorry for the pronunciation
native German speakers what that means is "Here was Germany and Europe until the 18th of
November 1989 around 8.30 hours partitioned" And here we are, lurking in the trees is a BT
4x4 Border Tower remember all these trees have grown post 1989. this is the death strip 30
years ago this would have been bare fields This example isn't in great condition to be
honest... BT-4x4s were a dual role border observation tower and Border sector command post they were
placed at strategic points along the border typically there would have been a BT-6 or a BT-9
Tower every kilometer along the border although it varied, and about 10 Towers linked into a
BT 4x4 by telephone. If you were a 1980s era East German Grenztrupp then being posted to
a BT 4x4 Tower was the height of luxury compared to your colleagues, who had to put up with a
miserable damp cold unheated 1960s era BT-6 Towers as you can see from the schematic BT-4x4 towers had
accommodation over four floors, the operational floor obviously the top floor, but the other floors
had heating running water, flush toilets beds and a kitchenette, there was also a Celler that acted
as a store room . Because I've never visited a BT4x4 tower in the wild before, I was quite
excited to explore this one and film it, but for various reasons the content doesn't come out
that well , firstly the camera i was using, the angles don't make good footage also the tower I found
internally was a quite poor condition and in my opinion too dangerous to climb, so I didn't
attempt that but I did nearly fall into the open Cellar which I nearly backed into, anyway
this is the BT-4x4 command post near Helmstedt By the tower is the death strip patrol track now as I've mentioned before
all these trees and vegetation I've post 1989 the their strip would have had
no vegetation for at least a kilometer after finishing with the tower a quick
20 minute walk, or a long 20 minute walk took me back to my car and then it was time to
head to the Marienborn Border complex itself this is a present day aerial view of
the former marienborn border complex after German reunification half a site, the lower
half was flattened and developed into a modern truck stop, filling station and Raststatte, however
half the former East German / Soviet border complex was preserved as a huge open-air museum and a
memorial to the division of Germany to say this museum is huge would be an understatement after
all Marienborn was the biggest border security complex in the Communist East, it was not only the
road gateway to East Berlin and East Germany but also Poland and the USSR. I spent three hours
here and it would be impossible for me to do this museum justice in five minutes content on
this video, you really need to visit this place for yourself! I will try and give you a good
overview though... this is the entrance to the Marienborn complex located about 1.5 miles
east of Checkpoint Alpha along Autobahn 2. Pre 1989 those trucks would not have been able to
drive on like that, only military vehicles would have been permitted past that point with all
civilian traffic turning right into the Border Complex this is the old DDR entrance gantry to
the Border Station notice the Concrete security wall on my right, to prevent any escape this will
be the first time you have probably encounter armed Grenztruppen here spotting for suspicious
vehicles but also remember you could be flagged up suspicious by the surveillance tower on the border
over watching Checkpoint Alpha, the preserved part of the Border Station is only open between 10
and 5 p.m and you won't be able to access the site out of these hours, this is a panoramic of the
main operational area of the Marienborn complex was a 24-hour operation and therefore had dozens
of 20 meter high floodlight towers now because Marienborn was in a very remote rural location
and the floodlight towers were visible from the West we nicknamed the whole complex 'The Death Star'
Crossing into East Germany for a civilian say on route to West Berlin was an absolute nightmare
and clearing Marienborn could take several hours The East German border guards were rude,
obstructive and aggressive; and you would almost certainly be searched entering the DDR
and you would 100% be searched exiting the DDR if you gave him any excuse to go for a secondary
you could be their hours having your car and your baggage pulled apart , the whole Marienborn complex
was controlled by this central control tower like an international airport, in the event of a vehicle
trying to ram its way down the Autobahn towards the West German border, the Autobahn and Marienborn
complex could be locked down remotely using huge hydraulic blockers that could stop a truck
at full speed, but ramming attempts did happen and this usually resulted in the driver being
shot. This building was the Complex Headquarters today it is a two-story Museum, but back in 1980
it also served as the custody center for the Border complex if you are found with contraband
you'd be brought here to be fined, however if you committed a crime against the state such as
smuggling people, you'd be handed over to the Stasi As I stated the experience for civilians going through
the Marienborn complex was miserable, you could queue for hours before it was your turn to be
processed and that started here with a passport and Visa check, and a few questions, if that was
okay then your passport was put into a conveyor belt and sent down to the Processing Bay, but you
would still probably queue for another hour or two until it was your turn to be searched and
questioned. By the time you arrived in the Primary Search Center the Stasi would already have
checked your identity against their files to see if you were known to them, or of any intelligence
value, when it was your turn to be processed you would be taken out of your vehicle your vehicle
and your baggage would have been searched and you get a few pressing questions by the Border Staff
about who you were going to see in West Berlin If you were sent to secondary chances are they'd
found something and you were going to jail, but if not you'd get your entry stamp from the DDR
Border staff and you'll be on your way to Berlin! The opposite number to Checkpoint Alpha was
obviously Checkpoint Bravo... 103 miles away and that was a Gateway to West Berlin situated in
Dreilinden, which was the southwest of West Berlin To introduce you to this part of our visit, this
is an aerial photograph from 1989 of Checkpoint Bravo looking North towards Berlin, so this is the actual
Allied Checkpoint Bravo itself and next to it is a famous Dreilinden Raststatte, the actual border
between East and West is along this Footbridge so you see how far back the Border
Defences start in East Germany also worthy of now is this
Landmark, The Tank Memorial let's look at all of those in turn starting
with Allied Checkpoint Bravo itself Certainly on the Allied side of
the checkpoint , Checkpoint Bravo on the West Berlin side it operated in exactly
the same manner and exactly the same size as Checkpoint Alpha, that wasn't true for the Soviet
and the East German operation further down the road at Drewitz which is much smaller than Marienborn. Today the whole site is being redeveloped but the checkpoint itself remains preserved and
is now the offices of a construction company unfortunately the company personnel in the
offices didn't really seem that impressed with me filming, so I didn't want to outstay my
welcome and I did one quick shoot and scooted off. All the Checkpoint Bravo signs still seem
to be intact so it makes me believe this is potentially a protected building like the
German equivalent of being a listed building On the opposite side of the autobahn
is this iconic 1968 brutalist building very 'Austin Powers' in design it is the
Dreilinden Raststatte, it's currently derelict but it was recently sold for half
a million euros, and because it's a listed building it is going to be refurbished and
apparently turned into a new Holiday Inn as you can see from the architect's
concept art for the site, there's going to be a restaurant here and apparently
it is going to be called the Checkpoint Bravo Diner which I think is very
apt from a historical point of view if you're leaving West Berlin for
East Germany via Checkpoint Bravo this is the view you would see, the Border
itself is the forward edge of the bridge and here I am on top of that border bridge in the
present day this bridge has been refurbished since 1989 and it now forms part of the Berlin Mauerweg
the footpath and Country Park created out of the original border deathstrip if you used Checkpoint
Bravo in the 1970s and 1980s then this would be a very familiar Landmark to you located about
one kilometer south west of the border with West Berlin this is the Panzerdenkmal the tank
Memorial it is a Soviet War Memorial constructed in 1968 featuring a World War II era T34 tank
on top of a typically brutalist Soviet concrete plinth, the memorial was for the fallen of the Red
Army killed during the Battle of Berlin in 1945. and this is the Panzerenkmal today....
obviously there have been some changes!! The story is short was after the war came down
in 1989 the presence of the Soviet Army in Germany became highly controversial and deeply
unpopular with certain elements of the community; and unfortunately this led to the war memorial
being regularly vandalized after 1989. So when the Soviet Army withdrew in 1991
back to the newly created Russian Federation they took the T-34 tank and their memorial
artwork with them leaving the plinth behind however seeing an opportunity a local artist
painted an old snow loader pink and had it craned onto the now redundant plinth , then principally is
a joke, but it is now 30 years later and a protected work of art. Our tour of Berlin's Cold War checkpoints
is about to reach its conclusion with a look at the East German and Soviet border complex at
Drewitz, about 1.5 miles southwest of Checkpoint Bravo . Drewitz operated in a similar function
to Marienborn near Checkpoint Alpha. Drewitz's complex was smaller and the reason for this was
only dealing with traffic to and from West Berlin and even then it was principally only looking for
East German citizens trying to escape to the West this is an aerial photograph of the Drewitz complex
in around 1989. Note the location at the top right corner with an arrow now, which is Checkpoint
Bravo, but also I want you to pay attention to the location of the Border Complex Control Tower
because that is all that survives of Drewitz today unlike the huge Museum you found at Marienborn
at Drewitz the border complex has been completely redeveloped into a smart modern Business
Park called Europe Park and all that remains of the original Cold War infrastructure is
the complex's control tower which is a listed building and is now home to a small
museum. The museum was sadly closed on the day I visited, which was a shame, but around the
tower area are a number of Border artifacts, and memorials to that period in German history. This
photographic info board gives you an impression of what the view into the DDR would look like
around 1989 from the Drewitz border complex To summarize this video... at the end of 1991 after
six years living in Germany.. the best six years of my life I would contend .. I was posted back
to the United Kingdom by the British Army it was a time of world turmoil, The Soviet Union
was in complete collapse, and we had just fought a new war, with a new enemy in the deserts of Iraq, something that we would do for the next 20 years!! The Germany I knew of my Teens and 20s
no longer exists, but I'm constantly reminded that it was The Cold War that shaped the modern
Germany today, and I'm always proud of my little part that I played in that during the mid-1980s !!
I hope you have enjoyed visiting the Checkpoints of Berlin as much as I did making this video, if
you did enjoy it please give me a 'Like' because it really does help me out with the YouTube
algorithm... anyway THANKS FOR WATCHING. GOODBYE NOW
