Tour of East and West Berlin in 1966, including Berlin Wall 

Fascinating. I hitch-hiked to Berlin in 1966, crossing East German to go into West Berlin. I went to visit Gitti Scholz, whom I'd met in London when she was visiting during the summer. I crossed into East Berlin most days, sometimes through Checkpoint Charlie, sometimes by taking the S-bahn to Friedrichstrasse station. I drank in the bar along from the station and met some interesting people there. Modern Berlin has lost its atmosphere completely.

Ich habe in 1966 in Berlin gelebt , so viele gute Erinnerungen . Danke fuer die Tour in die Vergangenheit !

It is amazing how they rebuilt this city.in 15 years. My deepest admiration!

What a treasure. I'm so happy to have found this snippet of filmed history and it's so well done. Thank you for sharing!!

This is HISTORY. Pure and simple. I have always wondered how life used to be those days, and this video put some light into it. Thanks for sharing this!

The landscapes/daily life is my favorite part. Kudos to your dad for his excellent filming.The Music is wonderful too.

thank you,i was born in england but stayed in berlin as a child with my cousins brought back great memories,also thanks to your fathers good camera ability a personnel masterpiece thanks again great movie

i was there in 1960 to 61.and remember a lot of this tour.wow it sure brings back memories.I see the soldiers stand in groups and wonder if I was one of them. thanks for showing this film.it means a lot to me

This is incredible. Thank you so much for sharing this piece of history with the world!

Hi Thomas...excellent video. I was stationed in West Berlin from 1969 to 1971 in the US Army (287th MP Company). We worked the checkpoints and patrolled "the wall". This brought back so many great memories. I believe the "grass mound" at about the 6:47 mark was where Hitler's Bunker was located in East Berlin near Potsdamer Platz. The whole video is great footage. thank you for posting!

This is a treasure! Thank you so much for uploading this and thank you to your father for making this video! I too came back from Berlin at the beginning of September and, needless to say, it looks and feels completely different. The first time I was in Berlin I was a wee toddler in 1986 with my parents. In describing today's Berlin, my mother kept saying how she could not imagine a unified Berlin, since both were so different (we visited both sides). I wanted to see what she was talking of and here's a marvelous example. Thank you so much !

superb document!

I recall Berlin as cold and grey. My oma lived about a mile from templehof airport. The bombed out church was about two miles away from her place. Flying into Berlin and still seeing many bombed out buildings. Good video.

Thank you for posting this! I recently returned from Berlin, so this was so interesting. The music is great also.

This is a truly fascinating and special piece of film. What an amazing find. Well done to your father who was clearly a fine cameraman and knew a good deal about editing too. Judging by the movie showing at the cinema in the Ku'damm, this must have been shot in the early autumn of 1966 (as "Khartoum" was released in September '66 in Germany). Thanks SO much for sharing this wonderful piece of history.

I’m sure I’ve seen footage at 8:53 of the changing of the guard but with SS soldiers during the war, with the exact same movements. The synchronisation of their movements is incredible.

I was there in '66. Thanks for posting. Brings back good as well as scary memories. I'll never forget the East German guards - there was nothing behind their eyes. They terrified me.

Thank you for sharing, I grew up during this period. Joy at seeing demolishing Wall !

Thank you, fantastic footage!

Was stationed there 67 thru 69. The Soviet War Memorial was inside West Berlin just down from the Brandenburg Gate. I did not realize the ceremonial Soviet Troops carried AKs in our zone

In 1966 i was in the US Army stationed in Augsberg,it was a intresting tour.

Sad to me that Berlin had some of the most beautiful architecture in Europe before the war and this film shows a post war Berlin that is stark and cold. Thankful for the film to see a glimpse of life at that time for Berliners. God only knows what those people endured in the last days of the war. It is amazing anyone survived.

I was stationed at Andrews Barracks then. Great memories.

Absolutely fascinating. Thank you so much for this !

Superbe retour en arrière.....

Thomas Many thanks for sharing this lovely well-shot film -it's certainly not tedious and it brings us many very interesting images of Berlin at this time. God bless your father and kind regards to your good self. Tom Duggan

Fantastic footage: thank you for uploading.

Thank you so much for sharing this!

Thank you for sharing!!

Thank you so much for sharing this footage. I am trying to write some things about the world post WW2 and this is a historical document. Thank you, from California.

Great stuff...thanks for sharing.

Im born in 1950 in Berlin so I really enjoyed the trip in memory lane it's great that there are some privat footage exist to have a camera in the 60s were very rare

I was looking for Trabant cars in E Berlin, but cars were similar to W Berlin, just not as many. I had to watch the film twice as I missed the change from east to west. Amazing film! While I've never visited Berlin, I visited Leipzig, Dresden, and Weimar in early 1989 (all in DDR), just weeks before demonstration started in Leipzig. Everything looked beautiful with the exception of cars in the streets as were all that small, compact Trabant. Thank you and your father for the beautiful film.

I really enjoyed this! Your Dad was a good videographer.

Great vídeo. Congrats from Argentina

Phantastisches Zeitdokument!

thanks - this is very nice of you to post -

Fascinating!

I lived in Berlin in 1966. I was there as a 19 year old Mormon Missionary. Many of the images shown in the film I can clearly remember. It was a unique city. Almost weekly we would wake up to machine gun fire as people tried to escape from the east to the west. This video brought back many memories. thank you

Thanks for sharing! I came to Berlin in 1966 to stay here since then. Last take-off in the film was Schönefeld SXF I assume?

I was in East and West Berlin in September 1966. How strange to see it again. I wonder what happened to the people I knew there? Gitti? Heidi? Axel? Are you still around?

Very cool. But at 12:36 it says I punkt Berlin. It just made me smile 🙂🙂

amazing

Thanks to you and your Dad, I get chewed on for not filming people but building and landscapes. There is just something boring about shooting people standing stiffly in front of an important scene that diminishes the shot

Hi Thomas, Great footage. I'd like to talk to you about sourcing and clearing the use of this material in a project I am working on. Thanks

Fascinating. Ku’damm was practically rebuilt by then!

Lived there from 1964 until 1967

Dear Mr Byrne, May I use some seconds of the fantastic footage that was captured by your father in a non-commercial documentary project? It features an artist who was thinking about the time he came to Berlin. I will of course credit you and your father as the source of this great piece of history. Please let me know cheers, Mark

i think its sad and interesting to watch those east german soldiers...its pretty certain that a good number of their fathers would have died in the war, their country (prussia) was pretty much completely destroyed by the soviets...and yet they march..

good job

Was there 3 years,left in june 1966 us army sad place.

While West Berlin was totally rebuilt 21 years after the end of WW2, East Berlin still showed traces of the destruction of war.

Excellent video, historical. I wonder what is the name of the musician and the soundtrack for this video. Thank you.

Thank you for making this available. A bygone era we should not forget.

east Berlin also looks nice

Which part of the video he arrived in the west?

went to East Germany in 1975, Gorlitz, Jena, Magdeburg, Saxon Switzerland beautiful place, Dresden was being rebuilt as it was, Leipzig, and East Berlin , the other mentioned cities were very nice but I`ll admit East Berlin was a bit depressing

brilliant. I see places i recognise from my Time in West Berlin

Is that Milton Friedman at 3:35?

History caught on film.

Damn I wonder how it felt to live in the east side and west

Wish I had been there with ten rolls of Kodachrome film.

was east germany ok? beside the stasis and conformity?

I'm OK with this. Feel free to give me and my father (Robert M. Byrne) credit.

It was a joy! So polar compared to 1945. I am so gratified to see Europe having her growth pains again. The coalitions and friendships forged during this time of economic opportunity will be some of the grreatest alliances ever forged through dlversity. Good thing to come because cool heads will prevail; that is a certainty! We know more and we know better now.

Oso, oso interesgarriak irudiak, eskerrik asko.

Hello Jovem Nerd?

Sopranos theme music should be being played.

Dankeschön super Video

It is 1966 in 2020.

Beautiful but conclusions can not be from 1960. Berlin Wall was built in 1961

Is this for real? 😱

What a treasure. I'm so happy to have found this snippet of filmed history and it's so well done. Thank you for sharing!!

What a treasure. I'm so happy to have found this snippet of filmed history and it's so well done. Thank you for sharing!!