Music Behind the Wall: Rock, Punk and Wolf Biermann in East Germany
The other side of the Berlin Wall in music – the state-licensed rock the GDR tolerated, the church-sheltered punk scene the Stasi hunted, and Wolf Biermann, the banned songwriter whose 1976 exile helped crack the country open.
More...Berlin Wall at 65: Commemorations and What’s On, 13-16 August 2026
The Berlin Wall’s construction turns 65 on 13 August 2026. The official commemoration program, exhibitions at the Memorial and Brandenburg Gate, and how to visit.
More...Khrushchev’s Berlin Ultimatum: The Crisis That Built the Wall
The Berlin Wall did not appear out of nowhere. It was the last move in a four-year crisis that began on 27 November 1958, when Nikita Khrushchev gave the West six months to get out of Berlin – and which ended with American and Soviet tanks facing each other, guns loaded, at Checkpoint Charlie.
More...The Berlin Wall in Music: Songs, Concerts and the Sound of a Divided City
How the divided city became a subject and a stage for music – Bowie’s “Heroes” and the concerts hurled at the border, the anthems of 1989, and the classical farewell from Rostropovich’s cello to Bernstein’s “Ode to Freedom”.
More...Leipziger Platz Wall Segments
On the green between Potsdamer Platz and Leipziger Platz stand several original Berlin Wall segments painted by the pioneers Thierry Noir and Kiddy Citny, whose bright cartoon heads, crowned figures and hearts made them among the first to turn the Wall into art in the mid-1980s. Decorated on their western face, the segments are set upright on the grass beside the former border course, a short walk from the surviving Erna-Berger-Straße watchtower. It is one of the few places in central Berlin to see the pioneers’ Wall art out in the open rather than in a museum.
More...The Berlin Wall in Art: Graffiti, Murals and the East Side Gallery
How the Berlin Wall became the largest canvas in the world – Thierry Noir and Kiddy Citny’s graffiti, Keith Haring’s lost 1986 mural at Checkpoint Charlie, and the East Side Gallery, where artists finally painted the side that had always faced East.
More...The 1953 East German Uprising: June 17 and the Road to the Wall
Eight years before the Berlin Wall, East German workers rose against their own government. On 17 June 1953 a strike on Stalinallee became a national revolt of a million people – and Soviet tanks crushed it in an afternoon. The story of June 17, why it failed, and where to find it in Berlin today.
More...
Checkpoint Charlie
East Side Gallery
Bahnhof Friedrichstraße
Bornholmer Straße
Music Behind the Wall: Rock, Punk and Wolf Biermann in East Germany
Berlin Wall at 65: Commemorations and What’s On, 13-16 August 2026
Khrushchev’s Berlin Ultimatum: The Crisis That Built the Wall
The Berlin Wall in Music: Songs, Concerts and the Sound of a Divided City
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