Photographer Allan Hailstone said he came upon this remarkable scene in Gendarmenmarkt in the east of Berlin on September 11, 1959. It's now one of the main tourist squares, which lies just south of Unter den Linden. The ruined church is one of two twin churches in this square. In contrast to the work done to repair war damage in West Berlin, the East German government had not even begun to clear the rubble from the wartime devastation in this square. Gendarmenmarkt was originally constructed around 1688 as Lindenmarkt (the Lime Market). Its two almost identical churches are the French Church and the German Church. The square is also the location of a concert hall
Friedrichstrasse Station pictured on September 12, 1959. The station, in the east of the city, was, and remains, one of the principal railway stations of Berlin serving both the S-Bahn and U-Bahn. During the period of the Berlin Wall, it was the main rail connection to and from the West for non-Germans, who were subject to strict controls when entering or leaving the East. At the time of this shot, anyone could travel by rail or on foot between the two sectors of Berlin while undergoing few, if any, formalities. An advertisement for Neues Deutschland, the principal communist daily newspaper, can be seen on the railway bridge, and the ubiquitous political slogan boards are also in evidence
A shot that looks north along Friedrichstrasse from West Berlin into the East in July 1960. The cyclist is about to cross Zimmerstrasse, along which ran the white line marking the border after Checkpoint Charlie came into force. Photographer Hailstone said when he took this shot, he did not appreciate that this location would become world famous and, although many photographs of Checkpoint Charlie now exist, there are probably few which show how this crossing appeared before August 1961.
The ruins of Anhalter Bahnhof, West Berlin, in August 1960. Hailstone says this was one of the more bizarre experiences of his visits to Berlin. He said: 'I entered the ruin of this railway terminus and discovered a tunnel which I explored. As it was very near the border with the East I imagined with some trepidation that the other end might surface in East Berlin. However, after crawling along it for some time I found that the other end emerged near the border but still in the West. It was later pointed out to me that the tunnel was constructed in 1927 from the station to connect to the basement of the nearby Excelsior Hotel.'
Potsdamer Platz in East Berlin in August 1960 before the Berlin Wall was built. This faces west in the days when traffic moved freely between West and East Berlin. The Volkswagen vehicles bear West Berlin license plates. In the background is the ruined Haus Vaterland (Fatherland House), which lay on Eastern territory, with Stresemannstrasse off to the left. Potsdamer Platz and the border with West Berlin is off-camera to the right. Haus Vaterland, built in 1928, was a major entertainment center housing among other attractions Cafe Piccadilly, the largest cafe in the world. It was demolished in 1976.
Bernauer Strasse, pictured in August 1962, is arguably the most well-known of the locations of the Berlin Wall, and where a number of deaths occurred as a result of people fleeing from the East. The buildings are in East Berlin, whereas the pavement is in the West. Shortly after the Wall was built, refugees used to jump from the windows on to the street below. The authorities then removed the inhabitants of the buildings and bricked up the windows. As can be seen here, one brick space was left open so that the People's Police could observe the activity in the street below.
Hailstone was able to take this shot at Chausseestrasse in East Berlin in August 1962 without being approached by the People's Police because he was standing about a meter inside West Berlin. He said: 'The border guards are clearly enjoying their work. The officer standing on this side of the Wall was clearly a very trusted individual, and it is unclear whether the others would have been given orders to shoot him if he had made a run for it.'
The view of Potsdamer Platz in 1962 looking along Leipziger Strasse, which is where the East Berlin tram can just be made out. Off-camera to the left is the site of Hitler's bunker. Although Westerners could approach the Berlin Wall up to any distance, East Berliners were kept beyond a control zone which extended approximately up to the position of the tram. The 'X' shaped constructions are tank traps. When this shot was taken, from the West, the Berlin Wall was still made of crude blocks topped with barbed wire. Later it was replaced with a more solidly built barrier. The site the photographer is standing on is now the five-star Ritz-Carlton hotel.
Hailstone came upon this motorcade purely by chance while walking along the Kurfuerstendamm, and needed to be very quick with his camera. Robert Kennedy was in Berlin to mark the first anniversary of U.S. President John F. Kennedy's famous "I am a Berliner" speech on June 26, 1963, and gave a speech from the same platform. Robert Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles in June 1968. Willy Brandt, the mayor of West Berlin at the time, right, later became Chancellor of West Germany
Unter den Linden in East Berlin at Christmas 1964. This shot looks westwards towards the Brandenburger Tor from the approximate location of the present-day Hotel Adlon. The pre-war Adlon was one of the great hotels of Europe, but was largely destroyed in 1945. At the time of this photograph the remains of the hotel, still functioning, lay off-camera to the left of the pillar clock, and the edifice was so near to the Berlin Wall that the windows on the western side were heavily festooned with metal bars. Otto-Grotewohl-Strasse was named after the first East German Prime Minister, who died three months before this photograph was taken.
How Berlin looks in the present day, more than 50 years on since the Cold War and almost 30 since the fall of the Berlin Wall. In his book "Berlin In The Cold War," Hailstone includes images he recorded between 1959 and 1966, both before and after the building of the Berlin Wall, including several taken surreptitiously of sensitive locations in communist East Berlin.
