"Let us in!" The opening of the Wall at Checkpoint Charlie

Pop-up exhibition

Photographer Mathias Brauner captures the moment of the fall of the Wall at Checkpoint Charlie with his cameras.

Checkpoint Chalie

In contrast to the well-known photographs taken at the other inner-city border crossings, he mainly shows the time immediately before the border was opened from the West Berlin perspective: a colorful crowd of people building up more and more pressure; members of the passport control units and border guards trying to remain masters of the situation. On the West Berlin side, shouts of "Let us in!" ring out, on the East Berlin side they shout "Let us out!".

Brauner's meticulous black-and-white shots convey the tension and excitement at the border crossings and show how hopelessly overwhelmed the GDR border guards were.

Mathias Brauner was a student in West Berlin in 1989, but grew up in East Berlin. A year earlier, he had been expelled from the GDR after being imprisoned for a few days in Hohenschönhausen for participating in the "Working Group on Citizenship Law".

With the support of the Asisi-Panorama.

Translated with DeepL

Runtime: Fri, 11/10/2024 to Thu, 12/12/2024

Takes place here:

• Checkpoint Charlie (Berlin - Mitte)