Berlin Winter 1980 / 1981 - Der Kalte Krieg

Anhalter Bahnhof - Kreuzberg - 10 February 1981

The hateful wall - Bernauwerstrasse - 13 December 1980

Drachenzähne / Dragon teeth / Anti tank block - East-Berlin - 15 January 1981

Snowfall - melancholy - view from my room in Kreuzberg - Midwinter - 1980

Even the free West-Berlin was divided into zones/sectors. Here we leave the American sector - January 1981

Olympiastadion -Rosseführer by sculptor Josef Wackerle 1936 - December 1980

Nightview of the Boyerstrasse - Watchtower at full moon - Berlin Mitte - 17 November 1980

FleishKrieg - Pedestrian tunnel below Der Grosse Stern - 10 December 1980

The iconic 1968 Mercedes-Benz 200D - November 1980

Reichstag im Nebel am Morgen - Platz der Republik - December 1980

Banhof Zoo, in the background the ruins of the Gedächtniskirche - January 1981

Bahnhof Zoologischer Garten - Christiane F Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo - January 1981

Saturday night at the U-Bahn - We're gonna rock this town Rock it inside out -17 January 1981

U-Bahn station at Wittenbergplatz near to KaDeWe Kaufhaus des Westens - 10 January 1981

Policeman observing the house squatters riots with the latest technologies - Kreuzberg - 16 December 1981

Anarchists waiting for the riot to start - Kreuzberg - 17 January 1981

Berliner Morgenpost the day after the riot - Kreuzberg - Januari 1981

Watchtower West Berlin provides a view of the Fernsehturm in East Berlin - 15 January 1981

Ost-Berlin, taken from the watchtower west side of the wall - January 1981

Elena! you run like an open razorblade through the world, they cut themselves on you - 17 November 1980

The future is female - Von Frauen Bezetst -

Pere Ubu - KZ36 - Kreuzberg - February 1981

Billboard of the movie Asphaltnacht at a U-Bahn entrance, 1980 a film by Peter Fratzscher, About a 30 year-old guitarist/song-writer down on his luck, cruises the streets of West-Berlin in his drag-racer, and meets and befriends a 17 year-old punk guitarist who has left home -

Night Cityscape at full moon - Corner Chaussee- and Boyerstrasse - Berlin Mitte - 17 November 1980

Sowjetisches Ehrenmal - Treptower Park - Ost-Berlin - 11 November 1980

In between the summers of 1980 and 1981, I spent five months wandering the streets of West-Berlin, Kreuzberg. My home at the time.
Balancing the planet on its shaky shoulders, the Cold War was an everyday fact of life back then. Especially in Berlin, the isolated centre of the DDR, the war left a grimy taste on people's tongues.
In that ice cold winter, I followed the wall staggering its way through the streets of the free West-Berlin, my only companion being my analogue camera. I spent my days capturing the shameful eyesore in hundreds of grainy, grey images.
I haven't been to Berlin since.
As a result, I've never been able to shake the monochrome appearance of a city enclosed in an invisible war.
Of the many graffiti texts the Berlin wall spewed back at the West-Berliners, I remember one that couldn't have reflected the hurt of its citizens more fittingly:

Ich bin allein, wir sind allein, Berlin ist allein.

It's about time I go back.