The border

"And time and again the border. A mysterious magnetic power radiates out of it. An attraction, irrespective of political or moral interpretation. Politically I understood the building of the wall, morally I was incensed - both actually overlook what it means today: a form of social contradiction condensed into stone. Of course the thing is perverse, but it shows its malady openly and does not hide it away awkwardly. The loss of this construction would impoverish life here. And even if it were only the anger that was lost.

"And it is not just the anger. The wall as a motor that permanently generates tension. It challenges, coerces much of what is everyday routine into shedding its superficiality, so as to get to the core - even if it's hard to swallow.

"This knife of history, ruthlessly cutting a place in two, which then turned into more than the halves of the previously existing city. At the time of separation both parts were falling apart, so that the wall joined them together.

"A zipper. The cement holding the whole of Berlin together. Its name a metaphor for something that holds a brittle hope. Fencing off is only viewed as necessary when things threaten to intermingle."

Lutz Rathenow in 'Ost-Berlin - Life before the Wall fell', first published by Jaron Verlag in 1987.