Justice
Say Goodbye to the Costumed Performers at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate
The city is finally enforcing its ban on fake "soldiers" and other colorful characters in its city center. And it's a shame.
Twenty-five years after the Wall fell, soldiers will soon finally be banned from patrolling Berlin's Brandenburg Gate. Fake soldiers, that is.
To cash in on visitors' fascination with Berlin's period of division, street performers in thrift store-bought uniforms have been stomping around in Pariser Platz for years now, posing in tourist photos for tips. Dressed in both German Democratic Republic and U.S. Army uniforms (though the western side of the Brandenburg gate was actually in the British-occupied sector), they unfurl flags and will even provide an old East German visa stamp for a small fee.