To drive into the heart of West Berlin on a dark, snowy night in December 1988 was to descend on to the cinematic frontline of the cold war. Watchtowers manned by armed East German border guards, searchlights, barbed wire, the blackened facade of the gutted Reichstag by the frozen River Spree – it was all there, just like the movies. Yet it was only too real. Holding centre stage: the sinister Berlin Wall.
US president Ronald Reagan had made a similar sojourn the previous year. Standing before the Brandenburg Gate, he decried the “vast system of barriers that divides the entire continent of Europe”. If the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, really valued peace and freedom, he should act. Like the Hollywood actor he once was, Reagan dramatically declaimed: “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
