Fifty years ago a face-off between Soviet and US tanks at Checkpoint Charlie threatened to spark a third world war, Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin, October 1961. From that point on, the western allies freely dispatched diplomats and military personnel to attend the opera and theatre in East Berlin. Friday, October 27, 1961. Former border sign at Checkpoint Charlie. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Checkpoints Alpha in Helmstedt and Bravo in Dreilinden were also famous crossings and all three were named for … Priechod bol tiež zvečnený v špionážnych filmoch a knihách. In October 1961, border disputes led to a standoff. The reaction of the US-forces . There had not been a more perilous moment in the Cold War. For several months, the young US president John F. Kennedy has been negotiating with USSR First Secretary Khrushchev, the strongman of the Soviet Union. The Berlin crisis arose from what one may term “objective factors” – the fact that West Berlin was an anomalous Western enclave well to the east of the Iron Curtain, precipitating a clash of concrete interests of the Soviet Union and the West. By now, American officials were deeply alarmed by the potential consequences. On October 22, 1961 U.S. diplomat Allan Lightner attempted to pass through Checkpoint Charlie to attend the opera in East Berlin. Checkpoint Charlie was an important crossing point in the Berlin Wall, which separated East and West Berlin from 1961 to 1989. Opposite of Checkpoint Charlie was the GDR-Border Control Point „Friedrichstrasse“ … I was with my father who was dying of cancer, at the hospital in Baltimore in August 1961 when I saw the news on the TV that a wall was being constructed in Berlin. Meeting with US President John F. Kennedy, Premier Khrushchev reissued the Soviet ultimatum to sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany and thus end the existing four-power agreements guaranteeing American, British, and French rights to access West Berlin and the occupation of East Berlin by Soviet forces. In return for Kennedy's assurance that the west had no designs on East Berlin, the Soviet leader tacitly recognised that allied officials and military personnel would have unimpeded access to the East German capital. In return for Kennedy’s assurance that the west had no designs on East Berlin, the Soviet leader tacitly recognized that allied officials and military personnel would have unimpeded access to the East German capital. They too ground to a halt some 50 meters from the East/West Berlin. The confrontations of armed tanks facing off at Checkpoint Charlie is, however, an excellent illustration of how “subjective factors” such as differing perceptions and beliefs of the two sides also contributed to tension – and could even have precipitated war. The Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie were prominent symbols of the Cold War. ... August 1961 - view from the west. with Observer Posts . The Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie were prominent symbols of the Cold War. General Clay was reminded by Washington that Berlin was not so "vital" an interest to be worth risking a conflict with Moscow. For the first 16 years of Cold War Berlin’s existence, the sector boundary was an invisible border marked only by the occasional painted line. Vor 50 Jahren schrammte die Welt um wenige Meter an einem Atomkrieg vorbei, weil ein US-General die Muskeln spielen und am Checkpoint Charlie Panzer auffahren ließ. At the Vienna summit on 4 June 1961, tensions rose. American tanks face an East German water cannon at Checkpoint Charlie. U.S. tanks facing Soviet Union tanks at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin, 1961. The manoeuvre succeeded, but the East Germans continued to attempt to assert their claim to control western allied officials entering East Berlin. Checkpoint Charlie was first set up in August 1961, when communist East Germany erected the Berlin Wall to prevent its citizens from fleeing to the democratic West. It was only with the building of the Berlin Wall in August 1961 that it became a militarised border. For this reason, the information about the sector borders was printed in the languages of the occupying armies, and not the residents. Undaunted by the damp, dangerous night, Berliners gathered on the narrow side streets opening up onto Checkpoint Charlie. Checkpoint Charlie wasn’t the only crossing point on the Berlin Wall. General Clay, the pugnacious American hero of the 1948-49 Berlin Airlift who had been sent by Washington to deal with the Russians after the erection of the Berlin Wall, ordered that the next American diplomat entering East Berlin was to be escorted by armed US army military police in jeeps. Checkpoint Charlie was a crossing point in the Berlin Wall located at the junction of Friedrichstraße with Zimmerstraße and Mauerstraße, (which for older historical reasons coincidentally means 'Wall Street'). Until the erection of the Berlin Wall, the differences between the sectors of Berlin didn’t matter much to German citizens. While crossing the border at Checkpoint Charlie his car was stopped by East German border guards. Weitere Bedeutungen sind unter Checkpoint Charlie (Begriffsklärung) aufgeführt. Khrushchev had been equally uninterested in risking a battle over Berlin. The world holds its breath: at the end of October, American and Soviet tanks stand face-to-face at the US Checkpoint Charlie on Berlin Friedrichstrasse. Checkpoint Charlie je známy aj vďaka obrázkom z októbra 1961, keď pri povstaní v NDR na priechode stáli oproti sebe tanky americkej a sovietskej armády. East German officials had begun to deny US diplomats the unhindered access to East Berlin that was part of the agreement with Moscow on the postwar occupation of Germany. Alarmed by the apparent threat, Moscow, with the approval of the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, sent an equal number of Russian T55 tanks rumbling to face down the Americans. Standoff at Checkpoint Charlie On 22nd October 1961 the deputy Chief of the US Mission to Berlin Allan Lightner and his wife were heading for a theatre in East Berlin. Photograph: AP. Map of Checkpoint Charlie . However, this time he did so by issuing a deadline of 31 December 1961. When was Checkpoint Charlie built? Checkpoint Charlie was designated as the single crossing point (by foot or by car) for foreigners and members of the Allied forces. By now, American officials were deeply alarmed by the potential consequences. Er verband in der Friedrichstraße zwischen Zimmerstraße und Kochstraße (beim gleichnamigen U-Bahnhof) den sowjetischen mit dem US-amerikanischen Sektor und damit den Ost-Berliner Bezirk Mitte mit dem … English: During the Cold War, Checkpoint Charlie (Checkpoint of the American Sector) was one of the crossing points between West Berlin and East Berlin. Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin. On 22 September 1961, Allied guards began registering members of the American, British and French forces before trips to East Berlin and foreign tourists could find out … President Kennedy approved the opening of a back channel with the Kremlin in order to defuse what had blown up. Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin. There they stood, some 75 metres from the border, noisily racing their engines and sending plumes of black smoke into the night air. At this range, they can easily penetrate each other, so the advantage would be with who could reload faster, which would probably be the 90 mm guns on the Pattons rather than the 100 mm guns on the T55s, but the most important factor would be probably who shot first. What’s interesting is that the sign on the right (first picture) only has German as the fourth language down the list, and in a smaller font than the others. It became the most famous crossing point between East and West Germany. Soon the rest of the Soviet tanks withdrew, followed shortly by reciprocal withdrawal of the U.S. tanks. President Kennedy approved the opening of a back channel with the Kremlin in order to defuse what had blown up. At the height of the Berlin Crisis in 1961 U.S. and Soviet tanks faced each other here. So it went until all the behemoths were withdrawn. What happened at Checkpoint Charlie in 1961? Never one to suffer defeat easily, Clay ordered American M48 tanks to head for Checkpoint Charlie. MORE, I WANT MORE! It was located at the junction of Friedrichstraße with Zimmerstraße and Mauerstraße of the Berlin Wall and located in the city centre of Berlin, Germany. This was the culmination of several days escalation of actions on both sides and the face-off of the Soviet and American tanks, with guns uncovered, the first (and only) such direct confrontation of U.S. and Soviet troops. U.S. tank run amok at night (March 2nd, 1974) >>>> CLICK HERE TO GET TO THE NEXT PAGE . On October 27, after several days of escalating U.S. rebuffs to East German attempts to get American officials to show identification documents before entering East Berlin (thus indirectly acknowledging East German sovereignty, rather than Soviet occupation authority) ten U.S. M-48 tanks took up position at Checkpoint Charlie. The American tanks are M48 Pattons and the Soviet ones are T55s. On the night of October 27, 1961, CBS News reporter Daniel Schorr stood at Checkpoint Charlie, in the divided city of Berlin, and warned his radio audience of the threat of war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union: “ The Cold War took on a new dimension tonight when American and Russian fighting men stood arrayed against each other for the first time in history. 1961 1961 - the east startet building the wall . In den letzten Oktobertagen 1961 bezogen hier an der DDR-Grenzübergangsstelle Checkpoint Charlie amerikanische und sowjetische Panzer Stellung, nachdem am DDR-Grenzposten Angehörige der US-Mission aufgefordert worden waren, sich beim Passieren des alliierten Kontrollpunktes auszuweisen. He was only allowed entry after returning with armed U.S. soldiers. At the time, West Berlin was controlled by the American, British and French forces and East Berlin by the Soviet Union. For 16 hours from the 27 to 28 October 1961, US and Soviet tanks faced each other in divided Berlin and the two superpowers came closer to kicking off a third world war than in any other cold-war confrontation, bar the Cuban missile crisis a year later. Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin, October 1961. The GDR authorities are trying to restrict the allies' freedom of movement. In October 1961, border disputes led to a standoff and for 16 hours the world was at the brink of war while Soviet and American tanks faced each other just 300 feet (100 meters) apart. In August 1961 Washington and its British and French allies had failed to prevent the Russians building the Berlin Wall. As a result, the Soviets pulled back one of their T55s from the eastern side of the border at Friedrichstrasse and minutes later an American M48 also left the scene. Checkpoint Charlie was the crossing point for the allied forces between East Berlin and West Berlin during the Cold War. That meant nothing to Dad, but it had some meaning to me. The East Germans demanded to see his passport, which he insisted only Soviet officials had the right to check. And by October, East German officials had begun to deny US diplomats the unhindered access to East Berlin that was part of the agreement with Moscow on the postwar occupation of Germany. Checkpoint Charlie was the best-known border crossing between East and West Berlin during the Cold War. October 1961: "The world holds its breath: at the end of October, American and Soviet tanks stand face-to-face at the US Checkpoint Charlie on Berlin Friedrichstrasse. Auschwitz Guards: The faces that oversaw a genocide, 1940-1945, Forgotten photographs of a late summer Sunday in Central Park, 1942, Evgeny Stepanovich Kobytev: A soldier's face after four years of war, 1941-1945, Father stares at the hand and foot of his five-year-old, severed as a punishment for failing to make the daily rubber quota, Belgian Congo, 1904, The Kovno Garage Massacre - Lithuanian nationalists clubbing Jewish Lithuanians to death, 1941, Adolf Hitler's eye color in a rare color photo, Samuel Reshevsky, age 8, defeating several chess masters at once in France, 1920. October 27th, 2011 was the 50th anniversary of the American/Soviet showdown at Checkpoint Other Allied checkpoints on the Autobahn to the West were Checkpoint Alpha at Helmstedt and Checkpoint Bravo at Dreilinden. There had not been a more perilous moment in the Cold War. The elaborate routine served to prove that the Four Power status of the city was intact. Panzerkonfrontation Die Panzerkonfrontation am Checkpoint Charlie, durch die der innerstädtische Grenzübergang traurige Berühmtheit erlangte, war neben der Kubakrise das gefährlichste Ereignis während des Kalten Krieges und brachte die Welt an den Rand einer Katastrophe. Opätovné vybudovanie Conference: "From Vienna to Checkpoint Charlie: The Berlin Crisis of 1961" The National Declassification Center at the National Archives, in partnership with the Historical Review Program of the CIA, hosted a one-day conference to mark the anniversary of the Berlin Crisis of 1961. The book "Checkpoint Charlie" refreshed memories about the saddest day of my life. Der Checkpoint Charlie war einer von drei Grenzübergängen, der von den Amerikanern kontrolliert wurde. Alarmed by the apparent threat, Moscow, with the approval of the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, sent an equal number of Russian T55 tanks rumbling to face down the Americans. Er wurde zum bekanntesten Grenzübergang an der Berliner Mauer: Der Checkpoint Charlie. Friday, October 27, 1961. Der Checkpoint Charlie war einer der Berliner Grenzübergänge durch die Berliner Mauer zwischen 1961 und 1990. It was faithfully observed until the Wall fell in November 1989. It is in the Friedrichstadt neighborhood. As a result, the Soviets pulled back one of their T55s from the eastern side of the border at Friedrichstrasse and minutes later an American M48 also left the scene. Undaunted by the damp, dangerous night, … The three powers responded that any unilateral treaty could not affect t… There they stood, some 50 meters from the border, noisily racing their engines and sending plumes of black smoke into the night air. U.S. tanks facing Soviet Union tanks at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin, 1961. Every god damn post on this site is awesome. or 16 hours from the 27 to 28 October 1961, US and Soviet tanks faced each other in divided Berlin and the two superpowers came closer to kicking off a third world war than in any other cold-war confrontation, bar the Cuban missile crisis a year later. Photograph: AP. Checkpoint CHARLIE The events of August 1961 dictated a requirement for a continuous U.S. military presence in the Friedrichstrasse area, where none had been before. On August 1961 Washington and its British and French allies had failed to prevent the Soviets building the Berlin Wall. About Checkpoint Charlie. Die Alliierten hatten ihn im August 1961 nach dem Bau der Mauer am Sektorenübergang Friedrichstraße eingerichtet. Lightner was forced to turn back. Am 27. Checkpoint Charlie . They too ground to a halt some 75 metres from the East/West Berlin border and, as with the US tanks they faced, stayed there for 16 hours.