Formanek had been in Berlin off and on about a month, going back and forth between East and West, sneaking past grim-faced border guards, covering demonstrations in East Berlin and then going back to the West to send the television stories.

CNN: Remembering the night the Berlin Wall fell

The entire West Side of Berlin - in which I whiled away hours at the famous Literaturhaus restaurant in Charlottenburg - belongs to another era.

BBC: A tale of two Berlins

The once-bustling airport -- it was the site of the 1948 Berlin airlift that brought food to West Berliners after Soviets blockaded the city --closed in 2008 when a new international hub opened on the outskirts of the city.

CNN: Sites of Berlin's industrial past get a second life

West Berlin's shop-window prosperity was bought at the price of gross corruption, as crooks and opportunists competed for the lavish West German subsidies.

ECONOMIST: New history museums

In 1971, a limited telephone service was re-established between East and West Berlin for the first time in 19 years.

CNN: Saturday,

From 1961 to 1989 it was the best-known border crossing between East and West Berlin.

BBC: Bringing the Berlin Wall back to life

Now, by becoming part of the city-state government in Berlin, which straddles east and west, the party is hoping to win acceptance at last as a normal part of Germany's body politic, rather than be dismissed as a regional oddity, doomed to fade away as east and west grow closer together.

ECONOMIST: Germany's ex-communists

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.

ECONOMIST: Berliners see red

The 1909 card of Pittsburgh Pirate shortstop Honus Wagner -- one of only about 50 in existence -- was auctioned off by Goldin Auctions in West Berlin, New Jersey.

CNN: 'Holy Grail' of baseball cards sold for $2.1 million