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The Border Opens at Hohen Neuendorf/Berlin-Frohnau, 17 February 1990: Preparations for the border crossing opening at Hohen Neuendorf/Frohnau [1/1]

OBJECT INFORMATION

Info

February 3 1990
Berlin/Brandenburg, Berliner Straße (Hohen Neuendorf)/Oranienburger Chaussee (Frohnau) border crossing
Duration: 11:20 min.
Created By: Dirk Liborius

License: Creative Commons License

From the Set

Exhibition theme: The Border Opens

Preparations for the opening of the new border crossing at Berliner Straße (Hohen Neuendorf)/Oranienburger Chausee (Frohnau) in Forhnau on February 17 1990: A welcome banner is hung up and hand-made city limits signs for each of the two towns are erected. Followed by footage of the border strip, partially filmed from a watch tower.
© OpenStreetMap contributors

Depicts

banderole, barrier grid, Berlin Wall, border guard, border strip, child, coat of arms, fire service, group of people, guard room, nature, opening of the border, street, street sign, watchtower

People/Organizations

police (FRG)

Places

Berliner Straße (Hohen Neuendorf)/Oranienburger Chaussee border crossing, Other places (Berlin)

Text in image

Frohnau grüsst seine Gäste

Hohen-Neuendorf / 1,5 km / Berlin

Polizei

Teerbau

Hohen Neuendorf / Land Brandenburg

Frohnau / Land Berlin

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Memory

"When the border opened, I came up with something special: our first new town sign. A member of our SPD group in Hohen Neuendorf arranged to have the standard metal sheet cut; a master painter from Hennigsdorf took care of the lettering; craftsmen from the municipal housing combine manufactured the metal stake, and then the sign was mounted onto it. With all the work finished, and after a friendly talk with an officer of the East German border troops, I set off on the evening before the Wall was to open in the Frohnau region to erect our new town sign. When I was done, I covered it with a blanket. The following morning, after the district mayor Detlef Dzembritzki from Reinickendorf and the French military governor had arrived, I unveiled the sign. It read 'Frohnau/Land Berlin' on the East side; and 'Hohen Neuendorf/Land Brandenburg', on the West.

Only a few weeks later, this very first town sign was removed and disposed of by a high-ranking officer with military authority within the Hennigsdorf Border Troops. It is a shame to have lost this testimony to the times, for there would have been a place for it today in our Hohen Neuendorf History Workshop. For me, it was the birth certificate of Land Brandenburg, which was not officially constituted until 1990; I had known it as a state from when I attended Hohen Neuendorf Primary School between 1933 and 1939. In any case, my sign was the most photographed one around: people cheerfully posed in front of it to commemorate the fall of the Wall. At times there were as many as ten different people taking photos or filming simultaneously. And a resident of Frohnau had filmed me, too, one day earlier, while I was erecting our new town sign."

Text: Günter Siebert (Hohen Neuendorf), Video: Dirk Liborius