I cycled on a nice spring day in May (2025) to explore the memorial site to the German-German border some 13 km from the Checkpoint Alpha memorial at Marienborn.
Together with Jonny Whitlam, I will be guided a special Cold War cycling tour on Saturday, the 26th of July, 2025.
It’s a lovely day out, including riding through Checkpoint Bravo, the Bridge of Spies, and other Cold War sites. On the tour we also take our time to alllow for Bratwurst, icecream, and beer breaks 🙂
to book your place on the tour, go on the following link on Jonny’s site:
https://www.whitlams-berlin-tours.com/berlin-potsdam-cold-war-nature-bike-tour
It’s a beautiful spring day. Uh and I cycle today to the village of Hutton Leven uh where there is a large memorial site uh to the German German border roughly 13 km away from the memorial site to uh checkpoint Alpha. Over here uh one can view a little bit what was uh a part of the protective strip that the GDR created in May 1952. a strip of 500 meters wide along the border where thousands of uh East German citizens were evacuated. So, it will be nearly impossible to to escape to try to cross the border. Let’s cycle a little bit further and I’ll show you parts of the memorial site. Those who stayed to live in Hoodlim used to live in great loneliness and great isolation. Uh they were given special permits for or or their family members would would be given special permits to visit only on occasions uh of weddings and funerals. Sometimes when I guide the Cold War tour in Berlin, I’m I get a question if there were landmines along the Berlin wall. And the answer is no. Uh in this case, however, the answer is uh often yes. It wasn’t just landmines, as you can see, all kinds of other uh ways of barricading the wall. Um the land would be plowed regularly uh and of course patrolled uh very often. Here’s an example of one of the guard towers that you can see. It would be virtually impossible to cross in this section. If you want to join uh myself and uh Johnny Whitlam, if you’re interested in history of the Cold War and you want to spend a lovely day out uh with Johnny and myself, uh we’re running, don’t forget, we’re running a special cycling tour uh on Saturday, uh July 26 or 26th of July, depends how you would like to say it. Um in a couple of months time, there are some spots left. Uh, I will link up of course uh uh Johnny’s website where you can book tickets for the tour. Um, keep watching, ride safe. See you soon.