How Berlin turned into the Graffiti capital of Europe

Enemy's Enemy is a friend. As soon as the common Enemy of United States and Soviet Union was capitulated and Adolf Hitler shot himself or vanished into thin air, second world war ended. But that was not the end of the story. In any case, ironically, end of each story is the beginning of another.

So, right after the end of the second world war, the erstwhile friends saw enemies in each other. United States and Russia faced each other with challenging grimace as advocates of Capitalism and Communism. Began the cold war.

And Europe was split. The eastern block became the chunk in moral and political control of Russia.

How Berlin became the Graffiti capital of Europe

Germany was divided in two parts. East Germany and west Germany. A long insurmountable wall ran between the two.

Your correspondence, touching the eastern wall

Your correspondence visited the same wall. On the western side the wall was accessible to the citizens while the eastern side of the wall was off limit to people. There was an expanse of open land next to the wall in the east side beyond which a river flowed. Countless people tried to escape and was blown up by the mines laid out on the ground. Several sank in the river.

The river where many died sinking while trying to escape east Germany

The eastern side of the wall was not allowed to be touched. Touching it meant crossing the river and the stretch of land.

On the western side of the wall, artists came forward and depicted their feelings of sorrow and anguish against the divide soon after the wall raised it's head. West Germany was a free world. No gunman fired a bullet to an artist running her brush over the surface of the wall.

But the eastern side of the wall remained blank. Trying to reach there meant death.

As soon as the two parts of Germany United in 1990, the eastern part became accessible and there was a frenzy to express the trapped feelings.

Hence the eastern part rapidly filled up with desperate expressions of long pending anger, sorrow and dreams. A true depiction of feelings. GRAFITTI!

It didn't remain restricted on the wall of divide but spread all over Berlin, on every wall. And it is going on even this day.

Berlin became the GRAFITTI CAPITAL of Europe!