Berlin

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, one of the more notable monuments to the failure of communism and economic planning. I had the chance to visit Berlin in January 1990 and was able to visit the Soviet sector (East Berlin).

Walking down one of the main boulevards I thought that, for all the talk about how terrible communism was, the place didn't look that bad. Then I looked down a side street and saw buildings whose condition made you think World War II had only ended a few weeks ago. I think there may have even been bullet holes. It was in stark contrast to West Berlin, which was the most brightly lit, energetic and cosmopolitan city I had ever been to in Germany. The city was the testament of the success of one system and the failure of another.

Some other observations from the trip:

• You couldn't spend more than $5 on lunch. It just wasn't possible. Ice cream went for something like 20 cents a scoop. And the food wasn't that great anyway. German food isn't all that special to begin with, so you can imagine what communist German cuisine was like.

• About the only thing worth purchasing as I recall were "Zeiss Jena" cameras and lenses, but they were hard to find. I don't think I bought anything other than food while in the East.

• Crossing the border from West Germany to East Germany at Checkpoint Alpha in Braunschweig, I was amazed at how suddenly everything became dingy and run down. Even the grass didn't seem as green. The numerous guard towers and floodlights were impressive.

As I recall photography was strictly monitored and I don't have any pictures of the eastern section, except for this one from outside the East German tomb of the unknown soldier:

I was, however, able to find a blog run by an intrepid photographer who managed to snap some pictures of Berlin before the wall came down. Here are a couple:

Desolate street scene. Crappy Trabant in background.

This is the condition of buildings as I remember them.

Be sure to click on the blog links and check the author's comments.

I realize some readers may be tempted to snark that these buildings are reminiscent of some American urban scenes such as Detroit or less glamorous parts of other cities. But those are failures of collectivist economic ideologies as well.

Update: Memories from Tyler Cowen of East Berlin here and here.