So what happened after down? How Berlin has

Experts and ex-pats on how the German capital has

On November 9, 1989, the wall came down as the people of Berlin rose up to tear apart the concrete barrier which ran through their city.

The destruction of the Berlin Wall signalled the end of the division between Germans which had been in place since the beginning of the Cold War.

There were jubilant scenes as ordinary people took hammers and picks to what they called The Wall of Shame.

Although the dust may have settled, the reverberations from the fall of the Berlin Wall have echoed into the present day.

Here, we speak to three people about life in Berlin, and in wider Germany, in the three decades following the Fall of the Wall. Artist Margaret Hunter moved to West Berlin in 1985 and lived in the city during the tumultuous months when the city was reunified.

“It was such a surprise when it came down,” said Margaret. “I was back in Scotland because my daughter was getting married.

“My German husband had lived in Berlin since he was 20, he was angry to not be there when it happened. I was painting and he came running down the stairs to tell me. We were back in the city within days.

“We came back to chaotic euphoria. People from the East flooded in and were buying, buying, buying. They didn’t have the luxuries we had. There was happiness, but things quickly became a bit unstable.”

As well as so-called Begrüßungsgeld – “Welcome Money” gifted to East Germans, businesses moved in as state jobs given to those in the East ended.

“At the time there was a lot of talk about whether we took the plaster off quickly or slowly,” added Margaret. “Well, we took it off quickly.

“I had a lot of sympathy for these people from the East. They had no clue. Business people from the West raced over and exploited a lot of them. It was a shame, many of them had grown up in a system and were left politically naïve by it.

“Everyone worked in the East because they had to. But it also meant people didn’t have to put much effort in because there was no drive or ambition or encouragement from anyone.

“And almost immediately a lot of them were made unemployed. I came from Fairlie in North Ayrshire to Berlin and was dazzled by it. I imagine it was similar for the East Berliners. The euphoria people expected with the Western lifestyle just didn’t happen. There was anger.”

Along with other artists, Margaret went on to create a painting on the Wall, which survives in the famous East Side Gallery, an open-air exhibition space in Berlin.