"I had been living in West Berlin since 1983 (following my legal departure from the GDR) and had a number of friends from East Berlin who had moved over in the late 1980s. We all wanted to mark the day of Monetary Union on 1 July 1990 with the people who had helped us in West Berlin. And we wanted to celebrate in a special way. There were about 30 of us and we hired a small passenger ship. Going down the River Spree and canals, we spent that Sunday travelling from West to East Berlin and back again. It was the first day without border controls.
When I look back at the pictures of this trip, I'm particularly struck by the photo of the Oberbaumbrücke – with its missing towers and bad state of disrepair. On the Kreuzberg riverbank (right hand side), you can still make out the guardhouses used by the border patrols. The watchtower on the Eastern side is just as striking."
Jürgen Lottenburger (West Berlin)
