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Check Point Charlie
Not sure how I missed the exposure settings of this one. Had it set nicely for good exposure coverage with 3 shot 2EV step brackets, then realized aperture was set at f8 intead of 1/2 step smaller. So I made the change to aperture and exposure and fired away. Definitely messed up. The +2EV shots are not even usable...
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The above image was taken while on a trip to Berlin to take part in the 40th Berlin Marathon. The biggest challenge in taking a shot like this is correcting barrel distortion, perspective and converging verticals in order reflect a true impression of the view our eyes record.
I was in Berlin attending the INCONECSS Conference. We were within walking distance of Checkpoint Charlie - the military line between the American and Soviet sections of the divided Berlin during the Cold War. From the Visit Berlin site - "Located on the corner of Friedrichstraße and Zimmerstraße, it is a reminder of the former border crossing, the Cold War and the partition of Berlin. The barrier and checkpoint booth, the flag and the sandbags are all based on the original site." Also - "The checkpoint booth was removed on 22 June 1990, about half a year after the wall opened in November 1989. The original booth now displayed in the Allied Museum in Berlin-Zehlendorf. Later on a copy of the first guard house was built on the site of Checkpoint Charlie, a much smaller booth than the one removed in 1990." Taken on Wednesday May 14th, 2025 in Berlin, Germany.
Der Checkpoint Charlie ist der bekannteste ehemalige Grenzübergang in Berlin und eine Attraktion bei Besuchern
In 1989 I left apartheid South Africa and spent much of the next year travelling Europe. In October I found myself in the outback of Turkey, and the word on the street was that the Berlin Wall was about to fall. With it's fascinating history, cold war angst and strong David Bowie connection, Berlin had always been on my "must visit" list and I accelerated my plans to get there. Unfortunately the wall began crumbling on the evening of November 9, 1989 and continued over the following days and weeks. Nevertheless, I skipped through the Greek islands and caught the ferry from the port of Piraeus in Athens to Brindisi in Italy. I decided to bypass Naples and caught a fast train north to Rome. I think it was either on the ferry or on the train that I met fellow traveller, Serge Bowers from Pennsylvania in the USA. He and I made good companions and has a Chianti-fuelled blast through Rome, Florence, Pisa and Venice (but that's another story).
On November 25, Serge and I went our own ways - he headed for Amsterdam, while I spent a couple of days in Milan, visiting the magnificent Il Museo Storico dell’Alfa Romeo in Arese. I then skipped through Switzerland (Lausanne, Bern, Luzern and Lurich) beofre finally making it to Stuttgart in Germany, taking in the Mercedes-Benz Museum and the Porsche Museum. By this time (December 4) I was running low on cash and so resorted to hitch-hiking from Stuttgart to Mannheim, heading for Bonn where I was going to be staying with Prof. Dr. Marcella Rietschel (a Research Fellow at the Institute of Human Genetics, University of Bonn) who I had met in Istanbul in October. It was freezing cold and snowing out on the road, and by the time I reached Mannheim, I had had enough and headed to the Hauptbahnhof. After a cup of steaming coffee, I bought a ticket to Bonn, boarded the milk-train and continued the journey north. As fate would have it, I ended up in Zeppelinheim, close to Frankfurt, and that extraordinary interlude is detailed here.
Being on the bones of my financial arse, and with a severe cold snap making hitch-hiking a really bad idea, I now resorted to using the Mitfahrzentrale - an organised hitch-hiking (or "cap pooling") service where a driver can register how many spare seats they have in their car and where they are travelling from, to, and on what date. Potential passengers are provided with contact details and descriptions of the journey including any proposed stops along the way. As all travellers share costs, the savings can be extensive and it also serves as a good way to meet interesting people and to practice your German!
Our route to the east The so-called "inner German border" (a.k.a. "Zonengrenze") was the frontier between the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany) from 1949 to 1990. The border was a physical manifestation of Winston Churchill's metaphorical Iron Curtain that separated the Soviet and Western blocs during the Cold War. The border could be crossed legally only through a limited number of routes and foreigners were able to traverse East German territory to or from West Berlin via a limited number of road corridors, the most used of which was at Helmstedt-Marienborn on the Hanover–Berlin A2 autobahn. Codenamed Checkpoint Alpha, this was the first of three Allied checkpoints on the road to Berlin. The others were Checkpoint Bravo, where the autobahn crossed from East Germany into West Berlin, and most famous of all, Checkpoint Charlie, the only place where non-Germans could cross from West to East Berlin. Lengthy inspections caused long delays to traffic at the crossing points, and for some the whole experience was very disturbing: "Travelling from west to east through [the inner German border] was like entering a drab and disturbing dream, peopled by all the ogres of totalitarianism, a half-lit world of shabby resentments, where anything could be done to you, I used to feel, without anybody ever hearing of it, and your every step was dogged by watchful eyes and mechanisms." (Jan Morris) Personally, having spent almost three decades of my life under the oppression of the apartheid regime, it felt all too familiar.
So, after an uncomfortable 6-8 hour road trip, I was finally there - Berlin! One of my German friends from South Africa (P.A.) had been a regular visitor to Berlin during our high school and university years, before relocating to the city in the mid-80's. In those days it made a lot of sense - getting out of South Africa after studying meant escaping two years military service with the south African Defence Force and moving to Berlin meant avoiding conscription into the German military as well. That is, in order to encourage young people to move to West Berlin, they were lured in with exemptions from national service and good study benefits. It was December 8, 1989 and P.A. was unfortunately not in town. But a mutual friend was - L.M. had left Africa at about the same time as Pierre and was an aspirant artist in Berlin. He offered me a place to stay and we spent a brilliant week together, partying, clubbing and taking in all the delights that this city in change had to offer! I don't remember too much, but have some photos that I am sharing for the first time, a quarter of a century later, to the day.
45657-09-ew - the caption on the back of the photo reads:
"The famous "Checkpoint Charlie" - gateway between East and West Berlin. From the Western side. Sunday, December 10, 1989." On this day, L.M. and I walked along "The Wall" from Checkpoint Charlie to Potsdamer Platz and then on to the Brandenburg Gate. Here's the route on Google Maps.
This and many other of my photographs are featured in my book "Berlin in the Cold War, 1959-1966" (Allan Hailstone, Amberley Publishing, October 2017), together with the story of my experiences of photographing divided Berlin in those years.
Checkpoint Charlie (or "Checkpoint C") was the name given by the Western Allies to the best-known Berlin Wall crossing point between East Berlin and West Berlin during the Cold War (1947–1991).
East German leader Walter Ulbricht agitated and maneuvered to get the Soviet Union's permission to construct the Berlin Wall in 1961 to stop Eastern Bloc emigration and defection westward through the Soviet border system, preventing escape across the city sector border from communist East Berlin into West Berlin. Checkpoint Charlie became a symbol of the Cold War, representing the separation of East and West. Soviet and American tanks briefly faced each other at the location during the Berlin Crisis of 1961.
Nathaniel Brown was the military police officer in charge on the night of 9 November 1989.
After the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc and the reunification of Germany, the building at Checkpoint Charlie became a tourist attraction. It is now located in the Allied Museum in the Dahlem neighborhood of Berlin.
Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin
One of the crossing points in the Berlin Wall between East and West Berlin
In 1989 I left apartheid South Africa and spent much of the next year travelling Europe. In October I found myself in the outback of Turkey, and the word on the street was that the Berlin Wall was about to fall. With it's fascinating history, cold war angst and strong David Bowie connection, Berlin had always been on my "must visit" list and I accelerated my plans to get there. Unfortunately the wall began crumbling on the evening of November 9, 1989 and continued over the following days and weeks. Nevertheless, I skipped through the Greek islands and caught the ferry from the port of Piraeus in Athens to Brindisi in Italy. I decided to bypass Naples and caught a fast train north to Rome. I think it was either on the ferry or on the train that I met fellow traveller, Serge Bowers from Pennsylvania in the USA. He and I made good companions and has a Chianti-fuelled blast through Rome, Florence, Pisa and Venice (but that's another story).
On November 25, Serge and I went our own ways - he headed for Amsterdam, while I spent a couple of days in Milan, visiting the magnificent Il Museo Storico dell’Alfa Romeo in Arese. I then skipped through Switzerland (Lausanne, Bern, Luzern and Lurich) beofre finally making it to Stuttgart in Germany, taking in the Mercedes-Benz Museum and the Porsche Museum. By this time (December 4) I was running low on cash and so resorted to hitch-hiking from Stuttgart to Mannheim, heading for Bonn where I was going to be staying with Prof. Dr. Marcella Rietschel (a Research Fellow at the Institute of Human Genetics, University of Bonn) who I had met in Istanbul in October. It was freezing cold and snowing out on the road, and by the time I reached Mannheim, I had had enough and headed to the Hauptbahnhof. After a cup of steaming coffee, I bought a ticket to Bonn, boarded the milk-train and continued the journey north. As fate would have it, I ended up in Zeppelinheim, close to Frankfurt, and that extraordinary interlude is detailed here.
Being on the bones of my financial arse, and with a severe cold snap making hitch-hiking a really bad idea, I now resorted to using the Mitfahrzentrale - an organised hitch-hiking (or "cap pooling") service where a driver can register how many spare seats they have in their car and where they are travelling from, to, and on what date. Potential passengers are provided with contact details and descriptions of the journey including any proposed stops along the way. As all travellers share costs, the savings can be extensive and it also serves as a good way to meet interesting people and to practice your German!
Our route to the east The so-called "inner German border" (a.k.a. "Zonengrenze") was the frontier between the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany) from 1949 to 1990. The border was a physical manifestation of Winston Churchill's metaphorical Iron Curtain that separated the Soviet and Western blocs during the Cold War. The border could be crossed legally only through a limited number of routes and foreigners were able to traverse East German territory to or from West Berlin via a limited number of road corridors, the most used of which was at Helmstedt-Marienborn on the Hanover–Berlin A2 autobahn. Codenamed Checkpoint Alpha, this was the first of three Allied checkpoints on the road to Berlin. The others were Checkpoint Bravo, where the autobahn crossed from East Germany into West Berlin, and most famous of all, Checkpoint Charlie, the only place where non-Germans could cross from West to East Berlin. Lengthy inspections caused long delays to traffic at the crossing points, and for some the whole experience was very disturbing: "Travelling from west to east through [the inner German border] was like entering a drab and disturbing dream, peopled by all the ogres of totalitarianism, a half-lit world of shabby resentments, where anything could be done to you, I used to feel, without anybody ever hearing of it, and your every step was dogged by watchful eyes and mechanisms." (Jan Morris) Personally, having spent almost three decades of my life under the oppression of the apartheid regime, it felt all too familiar.
So, after an uncomfortable 6-8 hour road trip, I was finally there - Berlin! One of my German friends from South Africa (P.A.) had been a regular visitor to Berlin during our high school and university years, before relocating to the city in the mid-80's. In those days it made a lot of sense - getting out of South Africa after studying meant escaping two years military service with the south African Defence Force and moving to Berlin meant avoiding conscription into the German military as well. That is, in order to encourage young people to move to West Berlin, they were lured in with exemptions from national service and good study benefits. It was December 8, 1989 and P.A. was unfortunately not in town. But a mutual friend was - L.M. had left Africa at about the same time as Pierre and was an aspirant artist in Berlin. He offered me a place to stay and we spent a brilliant week together, partying, clubbing and taking in all the delights that this city in change had to offer! I don't remember too much, but have some photos that I am sharing for the first time, a quarter of a century later, to the day.
45657-16-ew - the caption on the back of the photo reads:
"Christ, that stuff was hard! M.P. collecting bits of the "The Wall". A section near "Checkpoint Charlie", West Berlin. Germany, Sunday, December 10, 1989." I still have pieces of "The Wall" in my collection :-)
My photograph of Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin Germany appears on the cover of the November issue of Where Berlin. I took this image in 2011 when I was on a tour of Central Europe.
My image was noticed by posting on Flickr.
"I've got a man coming over tonight" said Leamas.
"Here, at this crossing point?".
(John le Carre, "The Spy who came in from the Cold")
Berlin. 2016.
"BlackLivesMatter Protest Berlin (No Justice = No Peace)".
Thorsten Strasas. - Wien | Berlin. - Photographers in Solidarity.
Near "Checkpoint Charlie" on Zimmer Str. in Berlin, tourists are able to fly above the streets and buildings on-board the "Die Welt" sponsored balloon.
berlin july 1973 Checkpoint Charlie (seen from the west) [UP0026]
+++ REPLACED in May 2014 by a cleaned scan of the original slide +++
This year, things took a more ominous look with the Flying Baby Hammer group. They always change their names each year for every new Doo Dah Parade, but this year's entry got just a bit more serious and political. Called "The Flying Baby Home Run Boarder [sic] Crossing," someone with the group managed to get a sign (or make a good copy of a sign) that could have come from Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin, since the warnings are in English, Russian, French and German. I have other shots of this entry, which I will later share here, and posting a video of it as well.
This is a frame capture from HD video, using the Canon EOS Rebel T6. I am using the 18-55mm lens, though I am not sure which focal length I chose for this setup.
You can see this same shot in part one of the 2017 Doo Dah Parade by clicking on the link below to my YouTube channel:
Big Mack
Berlin / Friedrichstraße / Checkpoint Charlie
Leica M8 + Voigtländer Color-Skopar 35mm f/2.5
sunday 7am. little bike ride along the wall. nobody on the streets. 3°C. forgot my gloves...
25 years fall of the berlin wall!!
"Vom 7. bis zum 9. November 2014 ist das innerstädtische Berlin von der Bornholmer Straße über den Mauerpark und die Gedenkstätte Bernauer Straße, zum Reichstag, vorbei am Brandenburger Tor und Checkpoint Charlie bis zur East Side Gallery vorübergehend geteilt: 8.000 weiße, leuchtende Ballons markieren dann den ehemaligen Mauerverlauf. Die emotionale und visuelle Kraft dieser Lichtinstallation ruft auch die Brutalität der Mauer in Erinnerung. Die Installation basiert auf einer Idee von Christopher Bauder und Marc Bauder."
Europa, Deutschland, Berlin, Grenze zwischen Kreuzberg und Mitte, Friedrichstraße, Checkpoint Charlie
Rund 1.000 Menschen nehmen in Berlin an einem kurzfristig organisierten Demonstrationszug zur Erinnerung an die Opfer von rassistischer Polizeigewalt in den USA teil. Die hauptsächlich aus der Black Community stammenden Menschen ziehen lautstark skandierend durch die Bezirke Neukölln, Kreuzberg bis zum Potsdamer Platz in Mitte. Dort endet die Demonstration mit einer Abschlusskundgebung, auf der die Namen der von US Polizisten getöteten Menschen verlesen werden, während sich die Teilnehme aus Respekt vor den ausgelöschten Leben auf den Boden legen.
A Russian Guard, as depicted in the Checkpoint Charlie Museum, Berlin, Germany.
The red star of the tank soldier`s head gear highlights the historical happenings of 1961 when American and Soviet tanks confronted each other in the divided City of Berlin. Soon afterwards the Russians erected the Berlin Wall and stopped all travel between the east and west sectors.
I forgot I was in Berlin for a moment. So much America everywhere.
"Checkpoint Charlie (or "Checkpoint C") was the name given by the Western Allies to the best-known Berlin Wall crossing point between East Berlin and West Berlin during the Cold War.
GDR leader Walter Ulbricht agitated and maneuvered to get the Soviet Union's permission to construct the Berlin Wall in 1961 to stop Eastern Bloc emigration westward through the Soviet border system, preventing escape across the city sector border from communist East Berlin into free West Berlin. Checkpoint Charlie became a symbol of the Cold War, representing the separation of East and West. Soviet and American tanks briefly faced each other at the location during the Berlin Crisis of 1961.
After the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc and the reunification of Germany, the building at Checkpoint Charlie became a tourist attraction."
wikipedia