An 18-year-old bricklayer, Peter Fechter, was shot attempting to climb the wall at Zimmer Strasse, near famed Checkpoint Charlie.

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Guards returned to their prison-like towers, East German border guards patrolled the wall, and visitors to "Checkpoint Charlie" still had to present documents to reach the other side.

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Similarly, the upcoming generation of American politicians will not have spent their formative years goggling at Checkpoint Charlie in divided Berlin, or feeling their spirits soar at the courage and triumph of dissidents such as Andrei Sakharov.

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If 30-odd years ago, the Polish electrician Lech Walesa had called his new union the All-Gdansk Shipbuilders and Shunters instead of the simple and iconic Solidarity, my guess is that East German border guards would still be goose-stepping round Checkpoint Charlie.

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When painting the start of the stripe at Checkpoint Charlie, a former east- west border-crossing where new building has almost entirely blotted out the past, Eberhard Diepgen, Berlin's mayor, felt obliged to calm unease by declaring that there was no intention to split the city again.

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