Checkpoint Charlie: what happened there and what's original

Why is it called Checkpoint Charlie?

Charlie wasn't a person. It's how NATO spells out the letter C. On the way into central Berlin, the Western Allies' military personnel went through three checkpoints: Alpha at Helmstedt, where you crossed from one Germany into the other; Bravo at Drewitz, the way into West Berlin; and Charlie on Friedrichstrasse, the way into the Soviet sector. From 22 September 1961, the Allied guards at the post checked the Allied soldiers heading east and helped foreign tourists with information.

Why did it matter so much? Because, in theory, Berlin was still under the joint status of the four powers that had won the war, and Americans, British and French were free to travel through any sector, the Soviet one included. So their soldiers only ever identified themselves to Soviet officers, never to East German police. Letting those police check them would have amounted to admitting that the line was the border of a sovereign state.

What happened at Checkpoint Charlie in 1961?

It all started with a night at the theatre. On 22 October 1961, Edwin A. Lightner, second-in-command of the American mission in the city, crossed in ordinary clothes to see a performance in the East. East German police demanded his documents. In Washington, that bit of red tape was read as an assault on Allied rights.

On 25 October, General Lucius Clay sent tanks to the crossing. There were talks and they withdrew, but on the 26th the East German police stopped an American major out of uniform from crossing, and the tanks came back. On the 27th, the Soviet Union answered with its own. For sixteen hours, the armour of the two superpowers stood nose to nose in an ordinary street. At the same time, the British moved rocket launchers and armour up near the Brandenburg Gate.

That night Clay spoke to Kennedy on the phone, with the KGB listening in. American intelligence, meanwhile, was monitoring Soviet radio traffic. On the 28th the Soviets pulled their tanks back first, and the Americans did the same. Nobody fired a shot.

The outcome was shared. The armour that turned up on the other side was Soviet, not East German, which made it plain that Moscow answered for the whole of Berlin: exactly the point Clay wanted to make. But the next day Washington stopped sending servicemen across in civilian clothes to test the checkpoint.

One girl watched it all from home. Monika Scheffe lived at Friedrichstrasse 206, on the western side, right by the crossing, and she followed the stand-off from her parents' front room. Many years on, she still saw it as a power struggle between two systems that rode roughshod over the neighbours. Then came December, and the West Berlin Senate set up two Christmas trees beside the checkpoint. Monika remembered the soldiers in the hut fondly: they decked it out with small trees and helped people on the street with favours and swaps.

What happened to Peter Fechter?

Ten months later, about two hundred metres away on Zimmerstrasse, the Wall claimed a life in full view of everyone. On 17 August 1962, Peter Fechter, an eighteen-year-old bricklayer, tried to escape with a workmate. His workmate made it over. Peter didn't: four guards fired 35 shots and he was left wounded at the foot of the Wall. He called for help for about fifty minutes. West Berlin police threw bandages to him from a ladder. The American soldiers didn't cross: the tank stand-off was still fresh and nobody wanted to start a conflict. In the end East German border guards carried him away under cover of a smokescreen. He died. Since 1999, a steel column has marked the place.

Is the Checkpoint Charlie hut original?

No. The hut and the sector sign are reproductions. They arrived after 1998, the year the artist Frank Thiel installed his light box: a column almost six metres tall with two large portraits of young soldiers, one facing each way. The American looks towards the former East; the Soviet towards the former West.

The image suggests that soldiers of the two superpowers kept watch on each other at the crossing, face to face. They didn't. The Allied side did have its soldiers. But the people in charge of the other side weren't Soviet troops: they were the Stasi and East German customs officials. Thiel wasn't trying to portray the checkpoint itself; with one soldier from each power, he wanted to talk about Berlin's peculiar status.

So who are they? The photos date from 1994, when the occupying troops were about to leave the city. The American in the picture is Jeffrey Harper, who played the tuba in the Berlin Brigade's army band. He never stood guard at Checkpoint Charlie. He discovered he'd become the face of the crossing in 1999, on a return trip to Berlin.

What became of the real hut? The Allied hut still standing at the crossing was taken down on 22 June 1990, at an official ceremony held alongside the Two Plus Four talks between the two German states and the four powers, which paved the way for reunification. According to the museum's own record, that hut is in the collection of the Allied Museum (AlliiertenMuseum) in Berlin.

What's still genuine?

The crossing itself: Friedrichstrasse, Zimmerstrasse and what happened in them. And the border's odd geometry: the whole of Zimmerstrasse lay in the Soviet sector, and the border ran exactly along the house fronts on the Kreuzberg side. The Wall went up beside that pavement, which became no man's land, patrolled by Western soldiers.

And there are genuine objects from those years, even if they aren't at the crossing. In the late 1980s, every American soldier about to cross was handed a green folder. Inside was a map of the Soviet sector, numbers to ring if things went wrong and advice on how to behave with East German police, who were not to be shown any documents. There were shopping rules too, and they say a lot about the times: since many goods were cheaper in the East, bringing food back was banned, and footwear, toys or alcohol were limited to one item at a time. Eleven of those folders went to the Allied Museum in 1994.

Did Martin Luther King cross at Checkpoint Charlie?

Yes. On 13 September 1964 he went through this checkpoint to preach at the Marienkirche in East Berlin, at the invitation of Provost Heinrich Grüber. He turned up without his passport, which had been taken from him, and one of the East German guards recognised him. The familiar anecdote is that he showed his credit card to prove who he was. The US National Archives present it as fact; the parish that welcomed him tells it with an "allegedly". A good story, but unconfirmed.

Fact or legend?

• Fact: the name comes from the NATO alphabet; in October 1961 American and Soviet tanks stood face to face at the crossing for sixteen hours; Peter Fechter died in 1962 about two hundred metres away.
• Myth: that the hut and the sign are the originals (they're reproductions put up after 1998; the Allied hut taken down in 1990 is kept by the Allied Museum) and that Soviet soldiers stood opposite (the other side was run by the Stasi and East German customs).
• Doubtful figures: you'll often hear "ten tanks against ten". The Berlin Wall chronicle counts ten American tanks on the 25th and around thirty on each side on the 27th.
• Unconfirmed: that Martin Luther King crossed by showing his credit card.

Where to hear it

Podtour tells the story of the crossing on the route "From Wilhelmstrasse to Checkpoint Charlie: from Nazi power to the Wall", over five stops in a row: "The street that was entirely in the East", "Checkpoint Charlie and a diplomat's theatre trip", "Sixteen hours with tanks facing tanks", "The original checkpoint and the replica" and, to finish, "Peter Fechter's fifty minutes". King's sermon is at the stop "Martin Luther King in East Berlin", on the route "Alexanderplatz and the TV Tower: Legends of East Berlin".

If you're planning your trip, our Berlin guide has the practical side.

Further reading

• Chronik der Mauer (Berlin Wall chronicle), October 1961: https://www.chronik-der-mauer.de/en/chronicle/_year1961/_month10/?month=10&year=1961&moc=1
• Stiftung Berliner Mauer (Berlin Wall Foundation), "Checkpoint Charlie": https://www.stiftung-berliner-mauer.de/en/node/1901
• Claudia Botor and Lene Schargitz, "The light box installation by Frank Thiel at Checkpoint Charlie", Chronik der Mauer: https://www.chronik-der-mauer.de/en/sites/184081/the-light-box-instillation-by-frank-thiel-at-checkpoint-charlie
• Carolin Lange and Kalin Ohmann, "Please remember that you are representing the United States Government", Chronik der Mauer: https://www.chronik-der-mauer.de/en/sites/184078/please-remember-that-you-are-representing-the-united-states-government
• Patrick Weever and Felix Lodermeier, "The first Christmas at the Wall", Chronik der Mauer: https://www.chronik-der-mauer.de/en/sites/184080/the-first-christmas-at-the-wall
• Christine Brecht, "Peter Fechter", Chronik der Mauer: https://www.chronik-der-mauer.de/en/victims/180502/fechter-peter
• AlliiertenMuseum (Allied Museum), "Fotografie: Abbau des Alliierten Kontrollhäuschens vom Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin-Kreuzberg" (22 June 1990), photo archive record, inv. B 2018/08.05851, on museum-digital (in German): https://berlin.museum-digital.de/object/49670