Checkpoint Bravo / Soviet tank memorial

[lethargic_man]

I've been writing recently on WhatsApp about the places in and around Berlin I've been visiting by bike recently, because it's easier to bung photos onto there; but it strikes me I should make a bit of an effort to blog about them here too, so I'll start here.

You've all heard of Checkpoint Charlie, the main crossing point between East and West Berlin for foreigners. (There were, it turns out, a number of other ones for goods vehicles and for Berliners.) Well, there were also Checkpoints Alpha and Bravo, the former where the motorway connecting West Germany and Berlin crossed the inner-German border, and the latter where it crossed into Berlin (near where it got moved, which I posted about here recently), and I went for a visit two or three weeks ago.

There was a vast compound on the East German side of the border for checking vehicles, almost all of which has been torn down or repurposed now; it's now a commercial estate called Europarc, and is where eBay has its Berlin office (which is why I decided not to apply for a job with eBay, because it's in the middle of nowhere). However, the commandant's watchtower remains, inside which is a little museum (shut when I was there), and outside some infoboards (in German only).

Not far from there one can also find the tank monument. This was originally a Soviet tank on a plinth to commemorate the dead of the battle for Berlin in 1945.

It was first set up on one of the main roads out of Berlin after the Soviet occupation of the city but before the division of the city amongst the four allies, which led to it ending up in the American sector. During the Berlin blockade (when the Soviets stopped delivery of supplies to West Berlin, in an attempt to force the western Allies to give up the whole city to them, which the Allies foiled with a huge long-running airlift operation), anger against the Soviets from the West Berliners led to anti-Soviet graffiti and even the tank being set on fire.

Eventually the Soviets relocated the tank (twice) to East German territory, near the border, with the gun barrel pointing at West Berlin.

After the fall of communism, the tank got taken away and replaced with a pink... snow loader, whatever that is. (I think it's a type of snowplough, but it's not the normal German word for snowplough, and it doesn't look like one either.)

Here's a higher-resolution photo made available under a Creative Commons licence by Wikipedia user Lichterfelder:

Comments

[curious_reader]

If you remember I put a link to my cousin's story about that theme. He interviewed the closest family about the escape from East Germany/DDR. It was mainly about my aunt as she could not get out right away. She expected to be transported with her mother in boxes via Checkpoint Charly but the American soldiers had no space for her. She hid at different places from the government before she could be smuggled out. It was called "4 Tage Angst". It was a radio programme on the channel Bayern and a number I cannot remember. I am sure if you google it you can find it. I always connected Checkpoint Charly with smuggling people out of the country from East Germany to West Germany.

[liv]

Wow the pink snowplough is quite surreal. Interesting history investigation, thank you for writing it up.