Photos of allied soldiers displayed at Checkpoint Charlie to be auctioned

Photos of allied soldiers installed at Checkpoint Charlie, a crossing between East and West Berlin, are reportedly being sold off by a German auction house in the coming week. According to an international media outlet the giant photos were taken by photographer Frank Thiel back in 1994. The checkpoint was where the soldiers from rival sides during the Cold War period would have stood and the place where the US and Soviet tanks faced off in 1961. 

Stefan Koerner, art expert at the Grisebach auction house told an international media outlet that the auction comes on the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Along with the Checkpoint Charlie photo, 12 other works including images of Russian soldiers still wearing Soviet uniforms are also being auctioned with a starting price of $100,000. Koerner further added that the images were iconic and could be popular with collectors or museums. 

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Escape tunnel opened for public

While celebrating the 30-years of the fall of the Berlin Wall an escape tunnel underneath the Berlin Wall has also been opened for the public for the first time. Mayor Michael Mueller opened the tunnel which is situated at Bernauer Strasse, near the city’s main Wall memorial. “It’s great to see that the battle for freedom was also taken underground,” said Mueller. The tunnel was built by people who had escaped to West Berlin and wanted to help their friends and family to flee from East Germany. But before it could get completed, East German officials somehow came to know about it and destroyed it partially. 

People can see the newly opened tunnel at Bernauer Strasse through two windows but can not get inside it. Ulrich Pfeifer, one of the builders of the tunnel, said that the Berlin Wall was tearing apart families. Pfeifer got the motivation to dig escape tunnels after her girlfriend was sentenced seven years in prison. “She was 22 years old and was sentenced for nothing other than an escape attempt,” he said. 

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