In November 1989 the Berlin Wall came tumbling down with shocking speed. In one of my more spontaneous moments,
I found myself on an airplane heading to Germany 48 hours later. I had previously visited the Wall in 1984 and was nearly moved to tears; I didn't want to miss the chance to see it consigned to the dustbin of history when it fell five years later.

Me, standing in front of a giant cross erected in memory of one of the first people shot trying to escape from East Germany. The shooting tower is visible to the left of the picture, an ugly white rectagular building housing two East German sharpshooters.

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A couple shots of signs & graffiti in West Berlin right on the boarder facing the East German guards across the way. The painted red letters read "No Future for Communism". On the right, a sign from a man begging then East German president Honecker to allow his wife and child to leave East Germany to be reunited with him in the West.

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Looking over the Wall from West Berlin. A secondary wall is visible on the other side of what appears to be a well-maintained lawn. In reality, this "death strip" contains mines and tank traps. The omnipresent shooting tower is to the right of center. This photo and the one below were taken in 1984 when the shoot to kill orders were still in effect. Anyone caught inside this forbidden zone was unlikely to make it out alive.

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Another view over the Wall from the west side looking into East Germany. Nearly invisible is an East German guard with high-power binoculars watching me (his head is just peeking above the white body shield, to the left of the other guard).

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I spent an entire day walking for what seemed like miles along the wall, trying to comprehend the magnitude of decades of graffiti and emotions displayed before me.

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Perhaps the most striking piece of artwork I saw on the Wall. The gravity of this masterpiece is matched only by its size; it stretches over the full 10 foot height of the Wall itself.

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For reasons that might forever remain shrouded in mystery, in 1989 East Germany suddenly stopped shooting at people who wanted to flee the country. Perhaps to ward off any policy reversal, West Germans took to the wall with everying from knives to sledgehammers in the days that followed.

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Nearly as fascinating as watching the Wall change was watching the graffiti change as well. Here, with a bold black X, someone has altered the German on this section to change the message from "Welcome to East Berlin" to a more hopeful "Welcome to Berlin".

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A message written in English for the benefit of the outside world.

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Slowly at first, cracks in the wall appear. As they widen, people gather to look through at what's on the other side.

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Bewildered East German guards can only watch as history unfurls in front of them.