Checkpoint Charlie

As tensions between east and west rose during the Cold War, East Germany committed millions to the creation of the Berlin Wall in the early 1960s, an eleven-foot-high barrier that would evolve through the years to consist of seventy-nine miles of fencing, 300 watchtowers, 250 guard dog runs, twenty bunkers, and was operated around the clock by guards who shot to kill. Over the next twenty-eight years, at least ten thousand people attempted to smash through it, swim across it, tunnel under it, or fly over it, desperate to escape the repressive totalitarian East German regime for the freedom of the West. In November 1989, the East German leadership buckled in the face of a civil revolt that culminated in half a million East Berliners demanding an end to the ban on free movement. The wall was opened, and then torn down, stone by stone. Checkpoint Charlie, the epicentre of global conflict for nearly three decades, was the location of the greatest jubilation as crowds flowed across the border. On the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Wall, Iain MacGregor captures the mistrust, oppression, paranoia, and fear that gripped Berlin throughout this era.