The freemasons?
The RNLI
Stasi
Thanks for the replies, gents. This has been most enlightening
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And? If E Germans had gone North or South of Berlin they’d still have to go West to get to W Germany. The point is that W Berlin wasn’t contiguous with W Germany.
So you can’t go West by going North or South? Thanks Michael Palin
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Deutschland 83 has a cracking playlist. Never watched the following years.
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Well you’d sort of have to turn left, or right, at some stage. 
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Have you ever been to Berlin? Fucking great spot. Great food. Great night life. And unbelievable history
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86 was terrible. 89 was passable.
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I only found out a few years ago about West Berlin being a West German enclave rather than actually being the border point
If I remember rightly, what really started the domino effect of 1989 was Hungary opening their border. East Germans started coming down through Czechoslovakia, into Hungary and over the border into Austria.
What I’m sort of not sure about is what Yugoslavia’s position was before this. It was a nominally communist country, but outside the Warsaw Pact (Tito did his own thing) and open to westerners for tourism.
Could you have travelled from say, East Germany down through Czechoslovakia and Hungary into Yugoslavia, and then into Italy or Greece?
I was in Berlin in 1990, when it was still technically divided. I was there the day of the Pink Floyd “The Wall” concert. I was not at the concert. I think I may have seen it in the distance from the TV tower.
It’s a bit annoying that I was not at the concert, looking back on it.
The old yarn about East German athletes winning T&F medals at all events bar pole vaulting comes to mind
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Ah, stop lads, I’m surprised at ye.
With no online forums then, what stopped you going?
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Lonely hearts letters
Yes, this was covered in last night’s doc. A more left leader premier took power in Hungary and the border fence into Austria was ripped up. As you say many East German’s opted for this route to flee.