Preserving the Cold War in Sunny California

We are looking for a museum of Cold War history that has a collection of everything from East German blueprints to Soviet artwork.

Reagan remembered in Berlin

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Ronald Reagan is remembered around the world for urging Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin wall. Berlin today doesn’t even have a Ronald Reagan street. But some in the German capital would like to change that, as Susan Stone reports. Download MP3

How Germans remember the past

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

On a day when we’re remembering soldiers and wars, it’s also useful to think about how we remember. In Germany, memory of the past is often painful: two world wars, the Holocaust, the Berlin Wall. Now, Germans are again thinking about how they remember these events. Writer Alissa Quart visited a couple of museums in Berlin. Download MP3(Photo: Gerry Hadden)

• Neues Museum
• Berlin-based Yiddishkeit band ‘Jewdyssee’
• Berlin Wall graffiti

East German guesthouse nostalgia

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

The World’s Europe Correspondent, Gerry Hadden, is in Berlin working on stories for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. He spent last night in the Ostel hotel. It’s a hotel refurbished to resemble a guesthouse in 1970s communist East Germany. Gerry gives us a tour. Download MP3 (Photo: Gerry Hadden)

• See photos from Ostel
• The World’s Coverage: First breach in the Iron Curtain

The post-communist generation

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

For some living in what was once the Eastern Bloc, the anniversary of bringing down the wall brings little cause for celebration. The last twenty years have brought freedom but also hardship and uncertainty – especially for the youngest generation who have grown up without Communism. Laura Lynch visited a high school in Budapest, Hungary. Download MP3

• Laura Lynch’s story on the first breach of the Iron Curtain in 1989
• Susan Stone reports how young Germans remember East Germany
• The World’s Gerry Hadden revisits the former East German border
• The World’s Alex Gallafent on owning a piece of the Berlin Wall

U2 behind a wall in Berlin

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download MP3
The group U2 is performing a free concert in Berlin tonight to mark 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Ironically, another wall is going up for the performance. Anchor Marco Werman explains.

First breach in the Iron Curtain

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Before the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, Hungary tore down its barbed wire. Hungary’s prime minister didn’t ask permission in Moscow. He just told Soviet President Gorbachev it was a done deal. Hundreds would escape to the West in a single day. The World’s Laura Lynch went back to Western Hungary. Download MP3

• Hungary’s role in the 1989 revolutions
• 1989: Europe’s revolution
• The World’s Gerry Hadden revisits the former East German border
• The World’s Alex Gallafent on owning a piece of the Berlin Wall

Fourteen walls

Two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the world is still plagued by barriers dividing countries, towns, and families. The desire to contain illegal immigration or violent conflict is often used to justify them. The BBC’s Spanish website BBC Mundo presents 14 such walls, we talk with the project’s editor, Juan Carlos. (Audio available after 5PM Eastern)

• BBC Mundo (en español)

Remembering East Germany

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, young Germans don’t give a lot of thought to what was once known as the GDR or East Germany. Few know much about a state that vanished before they were even born. And while some educators would rather not dwell on a recent but painful past, others say remembering is the only way to move the whole country forward. Susan Stone reports from Berlin. Download MP3

• The World’s Gerry Hadden revisits the former East German border
• The World’s Alex Gallafent on owning a piece of the Berlin Wall
• Former leaders recall Berlin Wall’s fall

A return to the East German border

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Next week marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. But today, we’re taking you to an even deadlier part of the former border between East and West Germany. Twenty four years ago, our Europe Correspondent Gerry Hadden lived along that dividing line in Travemunde, West Germany. He returns to explore the region’s past, present and future. Download MP3 (Photo: Gerry Hadden)

• See more of Gerry Hadden’s photos
• 1989: A timeline from the BBC

Owning a piece of the Berlin Wall

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Twenty years ago, the wall that divided East and West Berlin for decades came down in dramatic fashion. Since that time, the Berlin Wall has been broken up and distributed around the world, including downtown Manhattan. Former Berlin resident Juliane Camfield (pictured) tells The World’s Alex Gallafent about how she could never own a piece of the wall. Download MP3

• BBC Archive: The Berlin Wall
• BBC Audio Documentary: How the Wall Fell