Germany celebrates 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall

The modern skyscrapers of Berlin's Potsdamer Platz glisten in the sun. Stylish Berliners sip coffee in swanky sidewalk cafes. And the streets are packed with cyclists and tour buses.

Hard to imagine this used to be the Death Strip. If you had tried to come here 20 years ago, you would have been shot.

The Berlin Wall ran right through the middle of this square, making it a deadly no man's land between freedom in West Berlin and Communist dictatorship in East Germany. Instead of skyscrapers were barbed wire, watchtowers and the wall.

But on Nov. 9, 1989, the wall fell. Two decades later, Berlin has roared back to life, offering visitors both a taste of modern Germany and a firsthand encounter with the wall's history.

To understand Berlin, you have to understand the story of the wall.

On Aug. 13, 1961, East Berliners woke to find themselves prisoners in their own country. During the night, the East German regime had sealed the border between East and West Berlin. What was at first a makeshift barrier of barbed wire became the Berlin Wall, a network of walls, fences and obstacles that stretched for nearly 100 miles.

For decades, the wall sliced through Berlin, splitting not just a city but also friends and loved ones.

But in the face of a pro-democracy revolution in 1989, the East German regime imploded and the wall fell. After the two Germanys unified a year later, the remnants of the wall were torn down.

While not much of it is left, a small segment was preserved and is now the must-see Berlin Wall Memorial. In addition to part of the actual wall, you can visit a memorial chapel and a small but informative museum that tells the story of the wall.

From a viewing platform, you can look over the wall and into the so-called death strip, a razed area along the wall where those trying to escape could be easily seen.

"The border guards had the motto 'Nobody gets through,' " said Axel Klausmeier, director of the Berlin Wall Foundation, which runs the memorial.

Guards were authorized to shoot to kill, he said. And 136 people lost their lives at the wall, many while trying to escape.

"This wall was built to keep people in. East Germans were voting with their feet," said Klausmeier, adding that between 1949 and 1961 nearly 3.5 million East Germans fled, many through the open border at West Berlin.

The wall — nearly 12 feet tall in places — plugged that hole.

Seeing history

While the Berlin Wall Memorial offers a look at the wall in historical context, the longest remaining segment of the wall has been turned into an open-air art gallery, the East Side Gallery. The near mile-long section of the wall runs along the Spree River and features more than 100 paintings maintained by a group of artists as a memorial to freedom.

When the wall split Germany, slogans and pictures were painted on its western side. In the East, such open expression was strictly forbidden.

Berlin's most popular wall-related site is Checkpoint Charlie, the border crossing where American and Soviet tanks faced each other down at the height of the Cold War. Actors dressed as border guards pose for tourists at the tollbooth-like reconstructed checkpoint.

Next to the checkpoint, the Museum of the Wall at Checkpoint Charlie offers visitors a crash course in Berlin's Cold War history.

"It's a lot more educational than just what you read in history books," American tourist Martin Mulford said as he browsed the exhibit. "The wall is such a vital part of our history. It's a reminder of the division of peoples."

In the years since the fall of the wall, the German capital has become one of Europe's hippest cities, with culture and clubs galore. The former East Berlin, especially, is hopping, with pubs, cafes and a pulsing night life.

The city is aggressively grungy and nonconformist. In the heart of the hip Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood, a dilapidated building displays a sign proclaiming, "Capitalism kills."

The mayor boasts that his city is "poor but sexy."

Yet visitors are constantly confronted with Berlin's history. Bullet holes dating to World War II are visible in many buildings. And a split is still noticeable between the wealthier, right-leaning western part of the city and the poorer, left-leaning eastern area.

"Walking down Unter den Linden, you experience several hundred years of history," said tourist Severin St. Martin of Berlin's grand boulevard that leads under the Brandenburg Gate.

"Princes and princesses rode down the street. The Prussians, Hitler and Stalin, you just imagine different periods of time and realize they all played out on the same street."