The World: No Man's Land

Few pieces of real estate have ever fitted the definition of no man's land quite so thoroughly as the 21-acre site of Berlin's old Potsdam railroad station. During the war, Allied bombers pounded the place into rubble. In 1945, the ruins became part of the Russian sector of the occupied city and were later included in what is now East Berlin, even though they protruded like a battered thumb into central West Berlin. In 1961, when the Communists built the Wall to close off their portion of the divided city, they did not bother to extend the barrier around the perimeter...

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