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On Aug. 13, 1961, Berliners woke up on a Sunday morning to find their city divided by a wall. That day became known as “Barbed Wire Sunday,” marking a peak in the era of the Cold War. It felt like a complete surprise to many, but key moments in the preceding year made clear that something was brewing.

The fall of the Berlin Wall on the evening of Nov. 9, 1989, came as a complete surprise to East and West Germans, and the entire world. How did this historic moment come to be? Interviews describe the events surrounding the fall of the wall, and photographer Dietmar Riemann shares how he decided to leave East Germany in the hope of a better life in the West.