Berlin Reflections: A Wall, A Memory, A Legacy

A chance encounter with the remains of the Berlin Wall unleashed a flood of unexpected emotions during my vacation in Germany. Walking these streets 35 years after my first visit as a young backpacker, when the city was still divided by concrete and barbed wire, brought history vividly back to life in ways I wasn't prepared for.

What does it mean when your neighborhood is suddenly cut in half by armed guards, barbed wire, and bricks laid at gunpoint? How do families cope when they're separated with no means of communication? The resilience of Berliners who lived through the wall's construction reminds us how quickly "normal" can vanish and how humans adapt to unimaginable circumstances. Standing at the spot where I once crossed into East Berlin, I couldn't help but reflect on those who attempted escapes—some successful, many tragically not.

This experience has me thinking about modern preparedness challenges. While enjoying the vibrant, unified Berlin of today, with its street festivals and overflowing cafés, I've been contemplating what would happen if a serious situation prevented international travel while abroad. Even a minor air traffic control glitch delayed my flight from Newark—what if something more serious occurred? Do you have backup communication methods when traveling? Could you manage if suddenly cut off from home? These aren't just academic questions for preppers; they're practical considerations for anyone who ventures beyond their comfort zone. I encourage you to travel when possible—whether across the world or just to another state—but always with awareness and contingency plans. The lessons of Berlin's wall continue to teach us about human resilience, the fragility of our connections, and the importance of preparation.

Chapters

• 0:00 Greetings from Berlin
• 0:59 Encountering the Berlin Wall
• 4:04 Life Behind the Wall
• 7:04 Tourist Berlin and Travel Reflections
• 9:04 SHTF While Traveling Abroad
• 10:12 Emotional Impact and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey folks, it's Keith and welcome back to the Common Sense Practical Prepper podcast, august the 31st 2025. Coming to you from our affiliate office in Berlin, germany. As you know, I'm on vacation and I've been here I think this is day three With the time change and jet lag it's got me completely turned around, but I've had a chance to walk through a lot of Berlin. I think I've probably put 20 miles on my feet in the last couple three days here visiting family, and it's a very unique experience because many of you know, I was backpacking through what was Western Europe at the time and I ended up in West Berlin to get a day trip into East Berlin and I could talk for hours on my day in East Berlin and how it almost went really bad, but I was able to make it back into the West before anyway, before some things happened. It wasn't going to be an international incident per se but, needless to say, story for a different day and I've had the chance in the last couple of days to, you know, get on the U-Bahn and go to some of these sites that I took photographs of 35 years ago and compare the photographs on my phone with what the city looks like now phone with what the city looks like now, and it was really quite.

Speaker 1: 1:32

It came as a shock to me when I came around the corner yesterday afternoon and, unbeknownst to me, I was basically right next to the location where Checkpoint Charlie was and a section of the wall that is still there and the Berlin Wall Museum which is behind that section of the wall, and I was really flooded with emotions and it kind of surprised me, not because of what happened, you know, with the wall going up, a city literally divided in half. Families that were on one side of the wall that did not have a chance to get back across from the east to the west, the west to the east, when they decided to put up the wall and put up the barriers, brick masons were literally being held at gunpoint as the soldiers strung barbed wire and the masons were at gunpoint putting down bricks and cinder blocks just as fast as they could, and the East German guards, the soldiers, were keeping folks from the east jumping the fence to get to their family and then, vice versa, folks from the west trying to get to their family and friends in the east. It's just like you live in a big neighborhood and all of a sudden you come home and there's a wall like right down the middle of the street in your neighborhood. You can't get to your neighbors, you can't get to your kid's school. So I was really flooded with emotion.

Speaker 1: 2:53

Then it kind of surprised me a little bit that all the things that these folks went through and how resilient they had to be, they had no choice. They were behind the wall and a lot of people knew what the West was about. But as time went on, as young folks were raised, they were subjected to you know the East German propaganda and what was provided to them about how evil the people were in the West. Now, when I went into East Berlin, I went into the East Germany. I think it was the DDR History Museum and it's still here and I'm not going to go back to it. It was just so depressing to see what East Germans' version or the communist version of history was. Again, I'm not even going to go into that on how skewed their version of history was. But regardless, if you talk about resilience, you talk about folks making do with what they had. Resilience, you talk about folks making do with what they had. You know I complain a lot, we all complain a lot about how things could be. I wish I had this. I wish I had that.

Speaker 1: 4:13

I can't imagine those folks in the East when that wall went up just one afternoon and they're separated from their family, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, husbands and wives. Co-workers could not get back to each other and many tried to escape into the West. Some made it, but a lot didn't. I mean, can you imagine just coming back from work and then seeing this wall in the middle of the street and you're not able to get to your wife or your boyfriend or girlfriend? On the other side of the wall, no cell phones, no cell phones, no radios. You don't even know if they're alive or not. And how much time went by and how much anguish and pain that caused those people of 89.

Speaker 1: 5:16

And I left just prior to that, going through some photographs of, you know, checkpoint Charlie. And Checkpoint Charlie now is not there, although they have a little guard shack surrounded by sandbags in the middle of the street with a sign that says Checkpoint Charlie, and there's tourists just like falling over each other to stand behind these sandbags and have their photo taken. You just don't have the heart to say that's not what Checkpoint Charlie is and nor was it in that location. But you know, you do you. You get your photo by the fake Checkpoint Charlie and you know and call it a day. But it was really really quite a quite a sight to see. And coming around the corner and seeing the wall just kind of accidentally near where Checkpoint Charlie was, and knowing that in this area was where I actually walked through and went into the east. So so far the trip has been absolutely fantastic and I am certainly blessed to have had the opportunity and to still have the opportunity to travel around the world.

Speaker 1: 6:16

Not everybody is as lucky as I am and that is not lost on me. I have friends that back home that have never been west of the Mississippi, and that's fine. You know it's that for financial reasons or they're just not interested in going other places. No, knock on them. But I would urge anyone if you have the opportunity, break out of your comfort zone, go somewhere, go to a different state. If you're on the East Coast of the United States, go to the West Coast. Go to Colorado, see the Grand Canyon. If you're on the West Coast of the United States, go to Florida. Go to Texas, go to Maine, go to Boston. For folks in the EU, come to the United States. It's really not a bad place, completely different than what you're used to.

Speaker 1: 7:09

Of course you know that by now with the advent of the Internet and streaming and all those good sort of things, but if you have the opportunity, travel is very educational. I know that sounds like a cliche, but it really opens your eyes to other cultures, other cities, other people, other languages. I think I lost count about 12 different languages as I'm walking down the street. And Berlin is obviously a huge tourist draw, don't get me wrong. It's almost like I've almost heard more Italian and Russian and Spanish and English than I have German. The street festivals are up and running, caf are just overflowing and everybody just seems to be having a good time.

Speaker 1: 7:59

But I also think about what would happen if there was an SHTF situation here, another part of the world, or at home. World or at home. I'm screwed if there is a severe SHTF situation in Germany, in Spain, anything to affect air travel back home, or something at home that happened that would affect any incoming aircraft. When I flew out Friday for the fifth or sixth time in the last two or three months, air traffic control ATC at Newark, newark Liberty Airport or whatever the hell they call it, went down and my flight was delayed getting into Newark and my flight was delayed leaving Newark to come to Berlin, and that's just a technical glitch. But can you imagine just how much disruption there would be if there was a significant power loss, if the main power connections, the power cables, were cut to a major airport, to a major city, if something was to happen here, regardless of where you are if you're in Berlin, you're in San Paolo, you're in Moscow can you imagine being there and a significant situation happen that would prohibit you from getting back to your family?

Speaker 1: 9:33

Now I'll go in at a different podcast, the alternative to cellular communications that I have with family members when I'm abroad. And when they're abroad I do have the ability to maintain limited communications with my family, to let them know the plan, to let them know I'm okay, I'm not okay or whatever. It happens to be. All right, folks, thanks for stopping by.

Speaker 1: 10:12

I know this was a bit of a departure from what I normally put up in my podcast, but I thought about it for a few days and the more I walked around Berlin and just like the flood of emotions that I saw when I saw the wall. I knew I was going to find the wall and I knew I was going to go by where Checkpoint Charlie was, but I had no real idea on the flood of emotions that would come back 35 years later. You know when I was, when I was here the first time, and there's a lot of elderly folks walking around and you know no idea where they grew up, no idea if they're from here or from other, they're here on holiday or they're really just out for a walk along the Spree River. But those folks remember what it was like 35 years ago and beyond, and then now they have the freedom to do a lot more than they did back then. All right, folks, thanks so much and, as always, be careful out there, take care of one another and until next time.