On August 13, 1961, the East German Democratic Republic began cordoning off the Soviet sector in Berlin. All communication between East and West was cut off. In the following weeks the concrete wall began to rise, as can be seen in the above photo taken in Zimmerstrasse in the Kreuzberg neighborhood. Barbed wire crowned the wall to prevent people from climbing over the top.

The division of Berlin also split the world into East and West. The "Iron Curtain" had finally been drawn closed. Spouses, relatives, friends were brutally torn apart from one another. The communists' name for the wall, the "anti-fascist protection barrier," was a misnomer, however, since the barrier's true purpose was not to keep intruders out but to prevent those in the East from fleeing.

A good year after the construction of the Berlin Wall, 18-year-old Peter Fechter tried to climb over it. After reaching the top, GDR soldiers shot him. He fell down on the East Berlin side, where he lay for nearly an hour begging for help in the "death strip." Border patrols eventually picked up the wounded man, who died later in the afternoon. The world was horrified.

US President John F. Kennedy visited Berlin on June 26, 1963, sweeping his gaze across the Wall and the death strip. During his speech, he made the legendary statement: "Ich bin ein Berliner." He stressed that the US would not allow West Berlin to fall in the hands of the Soviet Union.

Between the Brandenburg Gate and Potsdamer Platz, a no-man's-land with various barriers evolved which would define the appearance of the border area during the first decade of the Wall. It was a maze of fencing, barbed wire, heavy-duty vehicles and wooden watchtowers.

The East, with its death strip, but also West Berlin were marked by the Wall, particularly the city districts directly adjacent to the border sectors. In the shadows of the Wall, run-down, abandoned areas and open stretches of land developed and became makeshift parking lots, trash dumps or wild gardens. Children would play there, and artists and activists would use the grounds for activities.

Beginning in 1975, the Wall became much more massive, with the so-called "Grenzmauer" (Border Wall) measuring 3.6 meters (11.8 feet) in height. Here, a group of builders fills in the cracks between the newly installed concrete segments while a crane manages the round elements atop the wall. Border patrols monitor the construction, while a US military policeman watches the spectacle from the West.

The white-washed side of the Wall marks the beginning of the border strip from the East, while St. Thomas Church in the background is located in the West. But surveillance by the Stasi, border patrols and police began far in front of the Wall. A permission slip was required to enter the area.

US President Ronald Reagan visited Berlin in June 1987, giving a speech in front of the Brandenburg Gate on the West Berlin side with the famous words: "Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Tear down this wall!" Some 40,000 people cheered. Over a year before, then-Soviet leader Gorbachev had initiated his policies of "glasnost" (openness) and "perestroika" (restructuring).

It was ultimately those who were locked in whose peaceful struggle for freedom eventually paid off. November 9, 1989 was a day that went down in history: the fall of the Berlin Wall. At least 101 people lost their lives at the Wall trying to escape the GDR between 1961 and 1989. But not a single drop of blood was shed when it finally opened up.

Chris Gueffroy, aged 20, was the last refugee to be shot at the Berlin Wall, nine months before it fell. By 1990 "Wall woodpeckers" had done their work, opening up the Wall bit by bit, with border patrols now letting families pass through.

In June 1990, work got underway to tear down the various elements of the Wall and the accompanying barrier constructions. Remnants of the Wall were broken down and even shredded, and then used for building city streets.

By 2014 very little of the Berlin Wall remained in its original location, and few people knew where it once stood. Maybe that's why the 2014 installation entitled "Lichtgrenze" (Light Border) was so popular. The temporary project by sibling artists Christopher and Marc Bauder featured 6,880 light "balloons" marking a 15.3-kilometer-long (9.5 miles) path where part of the Wall once stood.

The "East Side Gallery" is at 1,316 meters (4,318 feet) the longest stretch of the Berlin Wall remaining. After the Wall opened up, 118 artists from 21 countries painted it in spring 1990. It draws hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. Once it becomes part of the Stiftung Berliner Mauer (Berlin Wall Foundation) as planned, there will also be an information center.

Many of the photos in this gallery are also being shown in a special exhibition presented by the Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer (Berlin Wall Memorial). The show runs from February 6 to August 15, 2018 at the visitor center in the city's Bernauer Street. Many of the photos have never been shown before, and there is one for each year between 1961 and 2018: Berlin — with and without the Wall.

The Berlin Wall divided Berlin for 28 years, two months and 27 days, from August 1961 to November 1989. The Brandenburg Gate had long been the symbol of the division of Germany. Even after the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, there was no passage here. That changed on December 22, 1989. Since then, Berliners have been able to walk unhindered through the landmark of their city again.

The East Side Gallery on the River Spree in Friedrichshain is a 1.3-kilometer-long section of the so-called Hinterland Wall, which artists from all over the world painted in 1990. It was located in front of the death strip and a second wall. The area near the Oberbaumbrücke is a tourist attraction, but several wall elements have already been removed in the course of construction projects.

Nowhere is the former "death strip" as vivid as it is here. An 80-meter-long segment of the Wall, including a guard tower, has been reconstructed. The authentic border fortification complex serves as a central reminder of the division of Germany. It pays homage to the victims who died or were killed at the Berlin Wall.

The Berlin Wall has disappeared almost everywhere in the city. East and West have now grown together. A strip of cobblestones in the city center marks where the Wall used to run.

This border crossing is among the best-known sights in Berlin. Only foreigners and diplomats were allowed to pass through this checkpoint. In October 1961, shortly after the Wall was built, there was a standoff here as armed Soviet and American tanks stood face-to-face. The situation very nearly escalated.

It was a place of tearful farewells. Hundreds of people crossed this border post at Friedrichstrasse station when leaving East Germany for West Berlin. The former departure terminal now serves as a reminder of the forced separation of friends and families. Visitors can walk through an original cubicle where passports were checked and relive the border clearance procedure for themselves.

This former Stasi prison has been a memorial to the victims of communist dictatorship since 1994. Visitors are informed about the detention conditions and interrogation methods in communist East Germany. Former inmates lead the guided tours.

After World War II, this area was used to deposit debris. Rubble from the war was collected to form the Teufelsberg, the highest elevation in West Berlin. During the Cold War, the US National Security Agency used the hill as a listening station. From here, military radio signals from the Warsaw Pact countries could be intercepted, monitored and jammed.

You might imagine that the exchange of captured spies only took place on the silver screen, but this bridge between Berlin and Potsdam was actually the scene of three such operations. Steven Spielberg used this historic place as a setting in his feature film "Bridge of Spies."

This interactive museum right near Potsdamer Platz takes visitors into the world of espionage. Special emphasis is placed on activities in Berlin during the Cold War. Among the more than 300 exhibits is an East German Trabant car with infrared cameras hidden in its doors.

The Berlin Wall Trail follows the path of the former division of the city and covers some 160 kilometers. The Japanese donated some 10,000 cherry trees "to bring peace in the hearts of the people." They were planted in different sections of the former Wall. This avenue is right by Bösebrücke, the first crossing to open on the day the Wall came down.