Walk in Berlin #2, East Side Gallery, The Wall Museum

The longest remaining section of the Berlin Wall between Ostbahnhof and Oberbaumbrücke has become world famous as the East Side Gallery. After the fall of the Wall, 118 artists from 21 countries created the world's longest open-air gallery on 1.3 kilometers of the former border element. As a symbol of the joy of overcoming German division and at the same time as a historical testimony to the GDR border regime, the East Side Gallery is today one of the most visited tourist sites in the capital.

The gallery was opened on September 28, 1990, and in November 1991 it was entered in the list of monuments of the state of Berlin. Many artists are still involved in the artists' initiative East Side Gallery e.V. for the preservation of the paintings, whose last comprehensive renovation took place in 2009. In November 2018, the East Side Gallery was transferred by the State of Berlin to the Berlin Wall Foundation. Today, various guided tour formats provide information about the site and the artworks.

Even in GDR times, the border fortifications at this site had a special significance. When the Wall began to be built in 1961, the Spree River between Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg became a border strip. In addition to its topographical peculiarity, the border fortifications here also exhibit a structural rarity: Unlike in most other places, the eastern side of the Wall was visible to all, as Mühlenstraße served as a "protocol route" for high-ranking visitors to the GDR. For this reason, the Wall here was designed as the so-called "Border Wall 75," which elsewhere almost always faced West Berlin. The 3.6-meter-high sections of the wall were intended to block the view of the death strip.

museumsportal-berlin.de

Music:
Epidemic Sound
Wired - AGST