Germany marked the 39th anniversary of the building of the Berlin wall yesterday with the reopening of a replica of Checkpoint Charlie, the most famous border crossing between East and West Berlin.
Ten years after it was dismantled with much pomp and ceremony, the border crossing on Friedrichstrasse in the centre of the city was yesterday reinstated as a tourist attraction at a cost of £80,000.
Checkpoint Charlie was the third US army checkpoint at the border between East and West Berlin and was named C or "Charlie" in military-speak. In 1961 the checkpoint was the site of a tense military stand-off with US and Soviet army tanks sitting 100 yards apart for 27 hours, guns aimed at each other.
The former Soviet Foreign Minister and current president of Georgia, Mr Eduard Shevardnadze, said yesterday that the historical importance of Checkpoint Charlie must not be forgotten.
"I would like it to remain as a symbol of history. You must always remember how easy it is to divide people," he said in a letter read out at the ceremony.
The replica guardhouse is located in the middle of Friedrichstrasse in the centre of Berlin adjacent to the well-known sign which says "You are now leaving the American Sector". But like the checkpoint, the sign too is a replica.
The reinstatement of Checkpoint Charlie is just one of many acknowledgments by Berliners that in their eagerness to remove all remnants of their city's divisions 10 years ago, they also removed almost all traces of their city's biggest tourist attractions.
Of the 106 km Berlin wall erected overnight on August 13th, 1961 only two km is still standing. Even that is steadily diminishing thanks to determined tourists with hammers. Today, a discreet trail of cobblestones embedded in the ground marks the course of the wall through the city.
For younger generations of Germans, the Berlin Wall is already simply the stuff of history lessons and television documentaries.
