I have been working with colleagues on some videos and other work on the Fall of the Berlin Wall (to be celebrated November 9 at the Atlas Freedom Dinner), and I remembered I had some old photos, which I rummaged around and found and then scanned. I was in West and East Berlin a few times (and was just in both recently, with a conference on Adam Smith’s moral theory on the east side of where Die Antifaschistische Schutzmauer once stood). So here are a few old shots from my trips in the 1980s:
(You can click them for more legible versions. In order: me [above] expressing my view of communism — from the western side; one of my transit visas from a train trip from Bavaria to West Berlin across the DDR; cross commemorating the murder of Heinz Sokolowski, 48 year old East Berliner killed November 11, 1965, after 7 years of imprisonment, shot when fleeing; me in the early 1980s before the Brandenburger Tor; a shot of a “normal” section of the wall near the Brandenburger Tor; my lunch bill from the Palast der Republik, on Marx-Engels Platz — I had a bottle of something and a trout)
And two shots I just found in another box: one from the winter of 1989 in Central/Eastern Europe (not sure where, but I had bought the coat, which I still have, in Vienna) and one from Prague during the Revolution:
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Awesome pics.
By the way, do you save all your lunch bills?
I am so happy that the Berlin Wall came down. More walls that divide people need to topple. I know that the WAM (Wall Against Mexicans) is designed to keep people out, and not in, I feel that it is almost as heartless and unjust as the Berlin Wall.
Thanks for posting these.
I saw these linked on Facebook. Thank you for sharing them.
Great photos. It should be noted they were taken in the course of you contributing to great work.
Thanks.