--- title: The Iconic Photo of the Berlin Wall | TIME description: When Anthony Suau's agent sent him to cover the opening of the border between East and West Berlin, he knew it would be the story of a lifetime canonical: https://time.com/video/M0fVY7g3/ og:title: The Iconic Photo of the Berlin Wall og:description: When Anthony Suau's agent sent him to cover the opening of the border between East and West Berlin, he knew it would be the story of a lifetime og:url: https://time.com/video/M0fVY7g3/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/M0fVY7g3/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Iconic Photo of the Berlin Wall twitter:description: When Anthony Suau's agent sent him to cover the opening of the border between East and West Berlin, he knew it would be the story of a lifetime twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/M0fVY7g3/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # The Iconic Photo of the Berlin Wall > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: The Iconic Photo of the Berlin Wall [Watch (HLS stream): The Iconic Photo of the Berlin Wall](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/M0fVY7g3.m3u8) (6:34)  _Published 2009-11-09. When Anthony Suau's agent sent him to cover the opening of the border between East and West Berlin, he knew it would be the story of a lifetime_ --- Jul 27, 2023 1:15 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Berlin Wall Balloon Release](/video/bmcvcnZ3/) ### Berlin Wall Balloon Release [The Words \(and Deeds\) that Brought Down the Berlin Wall](/video/EodIIVXT/) ### The Words (and Deeds) that Brought Down the Berlin Wall [A GPS Tour of the Berlin Wall](/video/46NxmAa2/) ### A GPS Tour of the Berlin Wall --- ## Transcript The Wall, obviously separated East Germany from West Germany, basically was the physical symbol that separated the East from the West at that time, and it was all-- very symbolic as equally as it was am in its physical presence. I had a call on the night of November 9th, from my agent in New York, Howard Chapnick, and he said to me that he had heard that they were opening the border between East and West, and that people were gonna be allowed to cross freely. I hesitated for a moment and he said to me, look this is probably gonna be the biggest story of your lifetime. When I arrived at checkpoint Charlie, people were crying and they were giving them flowers, and food, and many, champagne, and the crowds were just screaming, and it was an amazing situation. I decided to go down the wall in the opposite direction, and I ran into what was the Brandenburg Gate. And, there were people climbing the-- standing on the wall around the gate. It was full of people, and they were blasting music, and they were shooting fireworks, and they were drinking, and it was like a huge party. People at that point started to, to chip at the wall to take souvenirs from the wall. This was one of the first moments when that began to happen, and then in certain areas along the gate you could see people were trying to chisel into the wall to maybe go through the wall, I mean, almost a crazy idea, but they were very serious about going through that wall. And, these guys were really going at the last bits of this wall, and they were gonna-- they were just completely determined to take it down. There were still West Germans on top of the rim of the Brandenburg Gate. At one point, the East Germans decided to remove the people from the top of that gate. And, the East Germans at that point decided to bring out this water cannon, and try and stop the West Germans from reaching the wall. So, we're in the middle of this event where these, these West Germans are trying to reach the wall and they're gonna pull it down with everything that they've got in them, and the East Germans pull up with the water cannon and they start shooting through the molding that has been removed from the-- from the slab of concrete. And they, and as the people bang at the wall with sledge hammers and chisels, the East Germans are shooting at them through the opening in the wall with this really intense water cannon. And, of course there's one picture that I made which is probably the photograph that's been published the most of mine from the Berlin Wall, where there's a man in a black leather jacket really hammering at the wall, and being hit directly with the East German water cannon as it explodes on him. They somehow sprung up a metal cable over the top of the slab, and they all started to pull on it. The slab itself came down. I mean, the thing just pulled it down on itself and all of a sudden you could see straight into East Germany, and they had, you know, they had done it. Within one or two days I heard from a friend about another opening a little bit south of Berlin. About a village that had been separated by the wall. A small town that had been separated by the wall, and they were gonna open it up for the first time in say, 40 years. It was a foggy morning, and we could see the far side of the bridge with all the East Germans. They were lined up with flags, and there was a tractor, and they had flowers. And, on the West side they had tables with bottles of champagne lined up, and flowers, and bananas which were like, kind of symbolic because the West Germans knew the East Germans didn't have very good access to fruit and bananas, so they wanted to give them bananas as they came across into the West. At one point in the morning through this sort of fog they just opened up the border, and the East Germans just came across this bridge. Slowly came across this bridge waving flowers, and flags, and cheering, and then they came together, and it was really imposs-- honestly impossible to describe. It was just something-- I guess you can just see photos as I think it's a-- I think it was the moment for me that defined the whole story of this wall coming down. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"The Iconic Photo of the Berlin Wall","description":"When Anthony Suau's agent sent him to cover the opening of the border between East and West Berlin, he knew it would be the story of a lifetime","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/M0fVY7g3/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2009-11-09T00:00:39.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/M0fVY7g3.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/M0fVY7g3/","duration":"PT6M34S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/M0fVY7g3/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```