The Fall of the Berlin Wall in Pictures

by Beth, November 9, 2012

On the 9th of November 1989, as the Berlin Wall fell and East Germans crossed the border, the first thing they saw on the other side was a wall completely covered in bright bubble lettering graffiti – the concrete was packed with slogans like God Ble$$, Concrete Makes You Happy and Death to Tyrants. The artworks that expressed what often could not be said lined the wall as they were helped over. To mark the anniversary of the fall of the wall and the end of the division of the German Democratic Republic (the East) and Federal Republic of Germany (the West), we’ve compiled the following collection of striking photography.

By the end of March, 1945 there had been 314 air raids on Berlin. After the war, the city was slowly reconstructed from rubble in a modernist style with extensive use of concrete as a primary building material. This provided a blank canvas for graffiti artists in post-war Berlin and they found themselves trying to express to a city (and the whole world) what it now was to be free. Having been prisoners of their own neighbourhoods, East Berlin graffiti artists took to the streets to debate politics, relationships and to reflect on daily life as free people. Berlin has since become a UNESCO City Of Design and residents have spent the last twenty years expressing the reality of being free, using walls as their primary canvas.

^{Image credit: Berlinnumsonst}

^{Image credit: BBC UK}

^{Image credit: Finn’s Wake}