"Wall peckers" in Berlin, 10 November 1989. People started tearing down the Berlin Wall on their own. Official demolition began at Potsdamer Platz in November 1989, and continued from 20 February 1990 between the Brandenburg Gate and the border post at Checkpoint Charlie.
After the end of the war, the heads of government of the four Allied powers discussed the future of Germany at the Potsdam Conference in June 1945.
Quelle: Bundesarchiv/183-H27035
On 9 September 1948, during the blockade of West Berlin by Soviet troops, the city's mayor, Ernst Reuter, appealed to the international community for solidarity. The blockade accelerated the division of Germany, which was sealed by the foundation of two German states in 1949.
Quelle: picture-alliance/akg-images
Visiting Poland on 7 December 1970, the West German chancellor Willy Brandt went down on his knees before the memorial to the victims of the Warsaw Ghetto from 1943. This symbolic gesture increased international respect for the democratic West German state.
Quelle: ullstein bild/Sven Simon
In 1971 participants in a nationwide meeting of expelled Silesians protested in Munich against the Social Democratic-Liberal coalition’s “eastern agreements”, calling for former territory to be returned to Germany. The rest of the world looked on with concern.