The Berlin Wall

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August 13, 1961: Work begins on the Wall under the watchful eyes of West Berlin police. (Keystone) Keystone

September 1961: Several ways remain of fleeing to the West, such as here in Bernauerstrasse. The house is in East Berlin, but the street belongs to West Berlin. (Keystone) Keystone

1971: East German border guards drag back an injured East German shot trying to flee. Between 1961 and 1989 around 5,000 people attempted to escape, resulting in an estimated 100-200 deaths. (Keystone) Keystone

August 17, 1962: Peter Fechter, an 18-year-old bricklayer from East Berlin, becomes one of the Wall's first victims. Fechter was shot trying to cross the Wall in plain view of hundreds of witnesses and fell back into the so-called death-strip on the Eastern side. Despite his screams, he received no medical assistance from either side. He bled to death after about an hour. (AP Photo) Keystone

1988: East German border guards in Potsdam Square monitor a demonstration in West Berlin at which tear gas was fired. (Keystone/EPA/DPA) Keystone

1988: East German border police help occupants of the Lenne Triangle, a squatter camp in West Berlin, "flee" to the East. Leftwing protesters had pitched their tents on the East German territory to prevent the construction of an urban highway. During this occupation the land was exchanged between East and West Berlin authorities and it became "West". West Berlin police immediately began chasing away the protestors, who surprisingly crossed the Berlin Wall into the East. (Keystone/EPA/DPA) Keystone

1986: Former East German border guard Conrad Schumann in front of the famous photo of him defecting to the West on August 15, 1961 aged 19. At that stage of construction, the Berlin Wall was only a low barbed wire fence. Schumann later moved to Bavaria but, suffering from depression, he hanged himself in 1998. (Keystone) Keystone

November 11, 1989: East German border police peer through a fallen part of the Wall. (AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau) Keystone

November 10, 1989: East Germans run towards West Berlin. (Keystone/EPA/DPA) Keystone

People who went at the Wall with hammers in order to collect chunks of rock as souvenirs were known colloquially as Mauerspechte, "Wall woodpeckers". (Keystone/AP Photo/John Gaps III) Keystone

October 1986: American activist John Runnings (1918-2004) climbs onto the Wall and is sentenced by an East German court to 18 months in prison for his troubles. He was released after three months. (Keystone/AP Photo/Str) Keystone

July 21, 1990: British rock band Pink Floyd give a concert based on their 1979 album "The Wall" in front of the German parliament building in Berlin. (AP Photo/Jockel Finck) Keystone

Chunks of wall are still available in Berlin as souvenirs. (Dukas/Polaris) Keystone

Part of the Wall is displayed in New York as a public work of art. (AP Photo/Suzanne Plunkett) Keystone

2009: Russian painter Dmitri Vrubel repaints his 1990 work "Oh Gott, laß mich diese tödliche Liebe überleben" (O God, let me survive this deadly love), depicting the communist leaders Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker kissing. In 1990 a 1.5km stretch of wall was decorated by 118 artists from 21 countries as part of the city's way of remembering the Wall and commemorating its victims. (AP Photo/Maya Hitij) Keystone

Flagstones mark the Wall's route through the middle of Berlin. (Dukas/Polaris)

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Memories of a Cold War symbol.

From August 13, 1961 to November 9, 1989 the Berlin Wall, seen in East Germany as an “anti-Fascist protective barrier”, was part of the inner border that divided Germany. It completely encircled West Berlin, separating it from East Germany, including East Berlin, and was one of the most distinctive and reviled symbols of the Cold War. (Picture editor: Christoph Balsiger, swissinfo.ch)