“Let us in!” The Opening of the Wall at Checkpoint Charlie

From October 19, to January 6, 2025

The photographer Mathias Brauner used his cameras to capture the situation at Checkpoint Charlie when the Wall fell. Unlike well-known photographs of other inner-city border crossings, most of his images show the minutes leading up to the opening of the border from a West Berlin perspective: A motley crowd that keeps building up pressure; members of the passport control units and border soldiers trying to maintain control of the situation. People on the West Berlin side call out “Let us in!” while those on the East Berlin side shout “Let us out!” 

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

Mathias Brauner grew up in East Berlin but was studying in West Berlin in 1989. He had been expelled from the GDR the previous year after being imprisoned for a few days in Hohenschönhausen for participating in the “AG Staatsbürgerschaftsrecht” 

Address: 
On the corner of Friedrichstraße and Zimmerstraße, 10117 Berlin
Admission is free. 

With support from the Asisi-Panorama.