The Other View. The Early Berlin Wall

Turn your speakers on and listen to the audio track at the link

http://www.aus-anderer-sicht.de/english.html

Annett Gröschner and Arwed Messmer

In our collective memory, the wall is a smooth concrete structure topped with a pipe. But in 1966, the almost insurmountable border consisted of ruins, building walls, wire fences, tangled barbed wire, and horizontal concrete strips, layered on top of one another.

On the fiftieth anniversary marking the erection of the Berlin Wall, Annett Gröschner and Arwed Messmer present The Other View: The Early Berlin Wall as both a book and as an exhibition (August 5–October 3, 2011, Unter den Linden 40, 10117 Berlin). The unique panoramas depict the course of the Berlin Wall through Berlin’s city center from the perspective of those who built it.

In the early 1990s, while researching at Potsdam’s Militärisches Zwischenarchiv, the photographer from West Germany and the writer from East Germany discovered a veritable treasure trove: a cardboard box full of negatives. The images show the Wall from the eastern perspective, and they were subject to the highest secrecy until the end of the regime.

In 1966, the border troops of the GDR photographed the entire 43.7-kilometer course of the wall through the city (from Treptow to Pankow, and only from the East Berlin side). The intent was to document the poor state of the border to West Berlin, which consisted of the most various materials. The films were developed and then forgotten…

Loved the story about the woman who got drunk and simply climbed over the fence.

Rec'd.