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Berlin Wall Trabant
This painting by Birgit Kinder is on a segment of the Berlin Wall that was on the east bank of the Spree River that separated portions of East and West Berlin. Because this section of the wall was on the opposite shore of the river, it was not covered by graffiti as was the case with the rest of the west face of the Wall (accessible to West Berliners). After the reunification of East and West….
Facial Recognition Manual
If they wanted to keep out spies, security personnel on both sides of the Berlin Wall had to become sophisticated readers of facial features. This manual, prepared by the East German border police as a training text for their front line guards, shows the reader how to recognize someone from telling facial features. Notice how the reader is directed to pay attention not to the entire face, but….
Forty Years of Making Vehicles
This plate is typical of the sort of commemorative object given to workers in factories all across Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union prior to 1989. In this particular case, the plate commemorates forty years of making motor vehicles in Gotha, East Germany. Workers were often expected to display objects such as this in their homes as a sign that they were proud of their personal productivity….
Two Lenins (profile)
These busts of Lenin (Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov), the first leader of the Soviet Union, are but two samples of thousands of different versions of Lenin's likeness. Both are copies of the same plaster bust, approximately two feet in height. Across the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and other states led by Communist parties, busts, statues, reliefs, and other likenesses of Lenin were ubiquitous….
Do You Know This Woman?
Throughout the Cold War both sides regularly sent agents across the border, both to gather information that might be useful and to test the ability of the guardians of the border to catch agents of the other side. The images shown here are from copies made by border guards in East Berlin during the final years before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Although the names and biographical data in these….
Two Lenins
These busts of Lenin (Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov), the first leader of the Soviet Union, are but two samples of thousands of different versions of Lenin's likeness. Both are copies of the same plaster bust, approximately two feet in height. Across the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and other states led by Communist parties, busts, statues, reliefs, and other likenesses of Lenin were ubiquitous….
Gunter Schabowski Press Conference
Schabowski, the spokesman for the East German Communist Party Politburo, played a vital role in the toppling of the East German Communist government in the fall of 1989. During a press conference on November 9, 1989, a reporter asked him about new travel regulations issued by the government that seemed to indicate the possibility of easier travel into West Berlin through the Berlin Wall.….
East Germany Protest
Protests erupt in East Germany, which leads to the fall of Honecker's regime and the eventual collapse of the GDR.….
The Trabant
For many in the West the Trabant automobile was one of the symbols of the economic differences between Eastern and Western Europe. When the Hungarian government opened its borders in the late summer of 1989, tens of thousands of East German citizens streamed westward, many of them driving or riding in “Trabis” as they were known. While Westerners scoffed at the cars, both because of the….
Against Pig-Headedness and Corruption
Poster criticizing the Stasi - the GDR secret police - prior to March 18, 1990 East German election in which voters overwhelmingly backed unification with West Germany. The red letters in the poster "GEGEN STARRSINN UND KORRUPTION" - "AGAINST PID-HEADEDNESS AND CORRUPTION" - spell out the name of the hated secret agency, and the number "18" alludes to the upcoming….
Wolf Vostell - 9 November 1989
A more abstract image of the night the wall fell appears in this painting by an artist whose work had also appeared on the western side of the wall itself. This painting represented a March 1990 show of Vostell's work in a gallery in East Berlin - formerly a bastion of "socialist realist" art hailing the communist regime.
[description as stated in the guide for Goodbye, Comrade:….
Berlin 9 November 1989
With the regime in disarry, an announcement that travel restrictions would be liberalized led East Germans to rush for the wall; confused guards let them pass, and by nightfall, Berliners from both sides had converged on the hated barrier and begun chipping away. This poster was sold in a (West) Berlin souvenir shop after 1989.
[description as stated in the guide for Goodbye,….
Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate
On June 12, 1987, President Ronald Reagan delivered a major speech on the Cold War with the Brandenburg Gate and the Berlin Wall as a back drop. Since the end of World War II, Berlin had been one of the main symbols of the Cold War. In staging this speech, President Reagan hoped to draw a parallel with the historic speech delivered in Berlin by President John F. Kennedy in July 1963. It was in….
Tear Down this Wall
On June 12, 1987, President Ronald Reagan delivered a major speech on the Cold War with the Brandenburg Gate and the Berlin Wall as a back drop. In staging this speech, President Reagan hoped to draw a parallel with the historic speech delivered in Berlin by President John F. Kennedy in July 1963. It was in this speech that President Kennedy spoke the famous phrase: "All free men, wherever they….
Remarks on East-West Relations at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin
On June 12, 1987, President Ronald Reagan delivered a major speech on the Cold War with the Brandenburg Gate and the Berlin Wall as a back drop. In staging this speech, President Reagan hoped to draw a parallel with the historic speech delivered in Berlin by President John F. Kennedy in July 1963. It was in this speech that President Kennedy spoke the famous phrase: "All free men, wherever they….
The Catholic Church's role in the Roundtable Talks
In following letter, a Solidarity activist writes to Józef Cardinal Glemp, the head of the Roman Catholic church in Poland, to inform him of difficulties in setting up much-anticipated Round Table talks with the Communist regime. The correspondence provides some insight into the complicated relationship between Solidarity and the Catholic church. On the one hand, opposition leaders clearly saw….
Telephone Call from President George H. W. Bush to Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany
Following World War II, Germany was divided into two countries, with West Germany (Federal Republic of Germany) becoming integrated into Western Europe and East Germany (German Democratic Republic) falling behind the Iron Curtain, with the Soviet Union in control. After the historic and spontaneous dismantling of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, East and West Germany were on the verge of….
Telephone Call from Chancellor Helmut Kohl of the Federal Republic of Germany to President George H. W. Bush
After the historic and spontaneous dismantling of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, East and West Germany were on the verge of reuniting. Helmut Kohl, the West German chancellor and later chancellor of the reunited Germany, and George H. W. Bush, president of the United States, engaged in ongoing conversations in the months leading up to reunification, which eventually took place on October 3,….