In 1961 Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev closed the border between East and West Berlin and ordered the construction of a wall to stop those in the East defecting.

The wall completely encircled West Berlin and came to symbolize the Iron Curtain between Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc.

In 1989 communist governments in Central and Eastern Europe began to crumble. On 9 November, following several weeks of civil unrest, the East German Government announced that their citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin.

Crowds gathered on both the East and West sides of the wall and over the next few weeks it was destroyed by an elated public. The fall of the Berlin Wall paved the way for the reunification of Germany on 3 October, 1990.

Written and presented by native German-speaker Matt Frei, this series delves into the true nature of the Berlin character.

Matt Frei shows us that Berlin’s past is inextricably mixed into its mercurial present, and each place we visit has the past, present and future firmly stamped on it at the same time.