In no other European capital are past, present and future so close together as in Berlin. In no other metropolis are visible monuments of historical guilt, atonement and a new political beginning so clearly tangible as in Berlin. And in no other city do you encounter German history from the German Empire to the Weimar Republic, Nazi dictatorship, the SED state, the construction of the Wall and reunification as directly as in Berlin.

In 1989, hundreds of thousands of people in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) demonstrated in the streets and demanded the government to be replaced. The slogan "We are the people!" became the motto of the peaceful revolution in the GDR. The democratic change was initiated by GDR citizens who tried to emigrate to the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) via the embassies of the Federal Republic in East Berlin, Hungary and Prague in order to escape from "real existing socialism". This mass exodus ultimately led to the fall of the Wall, the dissolution of the GDR and the reunification of the two German states.