Saturday marked the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Construction of the Wall was started by the then-German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) on 13 Aug. 1961. It came to symbolize — metaphorically and physically — the ‘Iron Curtain’ that separated Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.
Print ad in the Tagesspiegel newspaper on Saturday, showing the scene at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin shortly after Nov. 9, 1989*. Germany was officially unified again in Oct. 1990. (Even so, many observe that the true unification of West and East Germany is an ongoing process to this day). *The Gate was soon hereafter refurbished at a cost of €6 million (from private donations), and reopened in 2002.
