Through the Shadows of Berlin: A Return to Potsdamer Platz
22 November 2024
Last week, I visited Berlin. The weather was pure 1940s noir: cold, gray, drizzly. It felt as though I was walking into an old war drama—the kind I devoured as a kid. But Berlin isn’t just a cinematic backdrop to me; it’s personal. It’s a part of my life.
Thirty-five years ago, in November 1989, I stood among the crowds at Potsdamer Platz in the dark pre-dawn hours as the Berlin Wall came down.
The Past
That night was surreal. The Wall—this unyielding symbol of division—was being destroyed, not by protestors, but by the East German government itself. An excavator on the East Berlin side, equipped with a hydraulic claw, bent down and bit into the Wall, tearing away massive slabs of concrete. Silhouetted against the dark sky, it resembled a giant prehistoric beast, a Tyrannosaurus rex ripping into its prey—one dinosaur being used to pull apart another. I could almost hear the Wall groan, feel it shudder, as it was reduced to jagged rubble.
At the New National Gallery, an exhibit explored how art has been used to resist repression. A bold piece by Barbara Kruger declared in stark white text on red:
“My people are better than your people. We are more powerful, intelligent, beautiful, ethical, cultivated and cleaner. We are good, and you are evil. God is on our side. Our shit doesn’t stink, and we invented everything.”
It was perfect in its simplicity—a reminder of how ideological superiority leads to dehumanization and oppression.
The air was cold and crisp but I barely felt the chill. The crowd jostled with anticipation, holding up candles and waving flowers and oranges. Once the opening was wide enough, the mayor of East Berlin stepped through the gap. Standing amid the debris, he shook hands with his Western counterpart. Camera lights flashed as the two men smiled—a moment of unity etched into history.
Then, it happened. The crowd erupted. A deafening roar rose as people surged forward, jubilant at the thought of reuniting with loved ones, of finally seeing an end to that hated Wall. I couldn’t fight the tide of bodies. Swept through the gap, I stumbled—and when I looked up, I froze.
Standing before me, stone-faced and unyielding, were the dreaded, legendary East German border guards.
For years, I’d heard stories of their ruthlessness—armed men trained to kill, tasked with defending the Wall at any cost. I imagined hulking, brutal enforcers, inhuman in their devotion to duty. That night, seeing them up close for the first time, I was in for a shock.
They were boys. Maybe twenty years old, if that. Their faces were smooth; I doubt some had even begun to shave. They stood stiffly in the cold, lips pressed into thin lines, their hands clasped behind their backs. I walked up to two of them and spoke. One was excited. He talked about going to the West, exploring the world that had always been forbidden to him. The other was bitter, his voice sharp with betrayal. All his life, he’d been taught that the Wall was sacred, that his duty was to defend it, even to kill for it. Now, his government had ordered him to stand silently and watch as it came down. The world he thought he understood was crumbling before his eyes.
So, these were the terrifying border guards I’d imagined for so long—children taught to kill. I thought of Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, a book that lays bare the brutal truth of war: that it’s always the young who are sent to fight, to die, to bear the burdens of ideologies they didn’t choose. These boys hadn’t built the Wall; they’d only inherited it. And now, as it fell, they were left standing in its rubble—not absolved, but lost, unsure of who they were or what came next.
The reopening of Jannowitzbrücke U-Bahn station on 11 November 1989, the first of the ghost stations to be reopened after the Fall of the Berlin Wall. Source: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-1989-1111-007 / Roeske, Robert / CC-BY-SA 3.0
In the days that followed, people from the East poured into the city. They came in waves: first the young, then the middle-aged, and finally the old. At first, they arrived by subway. Before the Wall came down, the trains that looped through East Berlin didn’t stop at its deserted, dimly lit stations. These “ghost stations” were eerie, places the trains would slow down for but never pause, reopening their doors only after circling back to the West. Now, those stations were alive again, and the trains were packed with excited teenagers and twenty-somethings, crammed shoulder to shoulder.
Next came the invasion of the Trabis—small, ugly, yet oddly endearing smoke-belching cars that choked the streets of Berlin, driven by thirty- and forty-somethings. Finally, the older East Germans, many in their fifties, sixties, or beyond, made their way across. Unlike the younger travelers, these older visitors moved quietly, their reactions subdued, almost solemn, as if too much had been lost to celebrate.
They gathered in crowds outside McDonald’s, marveled at pastries in bakery windows, and gaped at the gadgets displayed in electronics stores. I didn’t speak to any of them, so I can only imagine what they were thinking. But observing them, I recalled both the excitement and the bitterness of those East German guards, but especially the reaction of the latter. There was the realization that his government had lied to him. For years, it had lied. What was he to believe now? That question, I realized, wasn’t his alone—it belonged to everyone forced to rebuild their understanding of a broken world.
The Present
Now, thirty-five years later, I returned to Potsdamer Platz—and barely recognized it. Where once there was no man’s land, there are now sleek buildings and bustling streets. The Wall is almost entirely gone, with just a few preserved fragments curated for tourists.
The transformation was somewhat shocking and left me a bit conflicted. After all, so much time had gone by. What had I expected? I told myself that the changes were natural and good, but a part of me had to wonder. What does it mean to erase the physical scars of history? Is it healing—or forgetting? When a wall comes down, what do we lose along with the division and pain it causes?
At Pariser Platz, near Brandenburg Gate (Brandenburger Tor), history still speaks to those willing to listen. Once a symbol of division, it now stands for unity.
Brandenburg Gate
Monuments to the Holocaust and other horrors stand nearby, each a reminder of how this city remembers and confronts its past.
This sign on the boulevard Unter den Linden points to many of the monuments and memorials nearby, including the Memorial to Homosexuals Persecuted under National Socialism (Denkmal für die im Nationalsozialismus verfolgten Homosexuellen), the Soviet War Memorial (Sowjetisches Ehrenmal), the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas), and the Memorial to the Sinti and Roma of Europe Murdered under National Socialism (Denkmal für die im Nationalsozialismus ermordeten Sinti und Roma Europas). Note that Berlin is also a city of vibrant artistry and cultural awareness, as evidenced by the nearby Art Academy (Akademie der Künste) and Museum Island (Museumsinsel).
A good change, a wonderful one. But standing there, I couldn’t help but feel the echoes of that dark era—not just as they apply to the past or Berlin or Germany, but to the present and the world itself. I’ve seen, time and again, how history haunts the cities it touches, how its shadows linger in unexpected ways.
The Brandenburg Gate may now symbolize unity, but the persistence of division—of old fears and rising ideologies—remains undeniable. I felt relief in seeing all that has changed, and a persistent concern about what hasn’t: the fragile line between remembering and forgetting, the rise of movements that distort truth, and the unsettling realization that no place, no nation, is immune to history’s darker lessons repeating themselves.
Every street and monument here tells a gripping story. But Berlin isn’t only a place of shadows. Just a short walk from Brandenburg Gate, a coffee shop offered this playful declaration: “I’m only happy on two occasions: when I’m in Berlin and when I drink coffee.” It’s a perfect reminder that this grand city is also a place of life and joy.
Not far from the Gallery, I spotted a club offering a tribute to Josephine Baker. Once despised by the Nazis for her defiance, Baker is now celebrated in Berlin—a symbol of triumph over hatred and a city’s ability to honor those it once vilified.
Theater marquee in modern-day Berlin advertising a tribute to singer-dancer Josephine Baker, an American performer who found international fame in Paris during the 1920s and was denounced by the Nazis because of her race during World War II. November 2024
In Berlin, every effort’s been made to not only renew and reinvent itself, but also to remember and make sure the lessons of the past stay alive and vivid for those in the present. But elsewhere, there’s a growing movement to forget entirely. To ban books, to deny the practice of institutionalized religion-justified inhumanity, to whitewash entire swaths of history and present it as something cleaner, simpler, and far less truthful—and potentially quite useful as a further tool of repression.
If we cannot confront our past, what hope do we have for shaping our future? I felt this question everywhere in Berlin—at Potsdamer Platz, at the Brandenburg Gate, and in my own memories of that November night in 1989. The past may haunt us, but it also teaches us—if we let it. It reminds us that the fight for justice and freedom is rarely quick or easy, and the sacrifices made by those who resist oppression often go unseen, their victories felt only by future generations. The greatest tribute we can offer them is to carry their stories forward, honoring their resilience and determination, and ensuring their struggles are never forgotten.
