The Other View: The Early Berlin Wall. Annett Gröschner and Arwed Messmer

On the fiftieth anniversary marking the erection of the Berlin Wall, Annett Gröschner and Arwed Messmer present The Other View: The Early Berlin Wall as both a book and as an exhibition. The unique panoramas depict the course of the Berlin Wall through Berlin’s city center from the perspective of those who built it.

In the early 1990s, while researching at Potsdam’s Militärisches Zwischenarchiv, the photographer from West Germany and the writer from East Germany discovered a veritable treasure trove: a cardboard box full of negatives. The images show the Wall from the eastern perspective, and they were subject to the highest secrecy until the end of the regime.

The exhibition and book project on the early Berlin Wall seeks above all to convey the atmospheric feel of the division for both sides of Berlin. Taking pictures of the border from the Eastern side was strictly prohibited for private individuals, and was subject to heavy punishment.

The file, consisting of 1,200 individual negatives, is shown in 324 panorama photographs that Arwed Messer prepared digitally.

Date: until October 3.
Place: Unter den Linden 40 (second floor, between Friedrichstraße and Neustädtische Kirchstraße). Berlin. Germany.
Hours: from Monday to Sunday from 10am to 8pm.