Peter Thieme Berlin . city tour

I spent the evening of 09  November 1989 at my sister’s home in Berlin. Schabowski held his short speech on TV – later to become famous – and my sister began to cry. I did not believe him. Late at night my brother-in-law called me and said that the Wall was open and that people were dancing on the Ku’Damm. I wanted to go back to sleep. I set the alarm clock for five thirty. On 10  November I took the S-Bahn to the Warschauer Brücke station. Warschauer Straße to the Oberbaum Brücke was full of people. 15 minutes later I was standing at the Schlesisches Tor U-Bahn station. In August 1961 I had watched the construction of the Wall in Griebnitzsee, as a 10-year-old boy. Now I was standing here amongst people crying “this is crazy”. Later I was driven through West Berlin in the car. I spoke little. I looked out of the window the whole journey. What I saw was good, but it did not appear new to me. 

On Potsdamer Platz I climbed an observation tower and looked over the Wall into the East.