August 13 marked the 50th anniversary of the Berlin Wall. Built with barbed wire and concrete, the wall stretched for 31 miles, separated East and West Berlin as a cold war divide, preventing East Germans from crossing to the west. These are some of my favorite pictures:
Man peering over the newly built Berlin wall in August 1961
August 1961, from the West Berlin side, a young woman, accompanied by her boyfriend, stands precariously near the top of the Berlin Wall to talk to her mother on the East Berlin side
East Berlin border guards stand on top of the Berlin Wall in front of the Brandenburg Gate on 11 November 1989 when the wall was beginning to be torn down
Crowds climb on top of the wall in November 1989
Original parts of the Berlin Wall stand on an area of a construction material company in Teltow, Berlin. On 13 August 2011 Germany celebrates the 50th anniversary of the construction of the wall and commemorate victims who were killed trying to cross from East to West Berlin
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