Unique photos of the fall of the Berlin Wall
When the Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989, 28 years of division between East and West ended. Robert Conrad took photos of the wall's demolition.
Watchtower, a threat no more (April 1990)
About 300 watchtowers like the one at the Nordbahnhof S-Bahn station surrounded West Berlin. One of the few that survived the wall's demolition stands on the grounds of the Berlin Wall Memorial on Bernauer Strasse. Visitors who get off the train at Nordbahnhof can't miss it.
Potsdamer Platz (February 1990)
Shortly after the fall of the Wall, a provisional border crossing was established at Potsdamer Platz, but controls were only sporadic between East and West Germany. On October 3, 1990, Germany celebrated its reunification.
Idyllic allotment plot along the Wall (July 1990)
The above allotment garden was located in West Berlin's Neukölln district. The garden colony was poetically named "Märkische Schweiz" (a reference to Switzerland), in reference to its hilly landscape. The demolition of more than 150 kilometers of the Berlin Wall took about a year, so in the mean time people chopped large holes into the concrete barrier to move around the city more quickly.
The writing on the wall (October 1990)
Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, only the western side had colorful graffiti. That changed quickly, however, and soon people also tagged and scribbled on the East German side like in the above photo from 1990, showing a section of wall on the northern city border between the Frohnau and Hohen Neuendorf districts. "So what?" someone wrote in green paint.
A view of the death strip (April 1990)
Houses in the divided city often stood right by the wall or by a watchtower, and thus the notorious death strip, as seen in the above photo. The residents who lived on Wollank street in the eastern Pankow neighborhood lived with that view.
Watchtower, anti-tank obstacles at Steinstücken (April 1990)
A tiny area named Steinstücken that jutted out in the very southwest of West Berlin was almost completely walled in by East German territory. The border there was particularly well secured. The guards had a panoramic view in all directions from the watchtower.
All that remained (July 1990)
After the fall of the Wall, this is what areas along the former concrete barrier looked like for quite some time. Even months later, the so-called "wall woodpeckers" still managed to hack small mementos from leftover concrete slabs. Today, there are only very few remains of the Wall left in Berlin.
Unter den Linden S-Bahn station (February 1990)
No trains stopped at the so-called ghost stations: Altogether, 16 metro stations were unused for years, as trains would just hurtle through while border guards patrolled empty, dimly lit platforms. The station Unter den Linden was renamed Brandenburg Gate after the fall of the Wall because it is the site of one of Berlin's best-known landmarks.