The Berlin Wall has been down for as long as it once stood: 28 years.

Deutsche Welle cleverly reanimates reality in this excellent 2009 video explaining divided Germany and the various wall formats deployed by the German Democratic Republic to keep its people inside.

The Berlin Wall stood from 1961 to 1989, dividing the city of Berlin. February 5, 2018 marks the date on which the wall has been down for as long as it once stood: 28 years. A short trip back in time exploring the division of East and West Germany.

I never lived in East Germany, but stayed there (mostly in East Berlin) for a month in 1989. Regular readers will have long since concluded that those ghosts won't let me be, and this is true. It's been almost thirty years, and I think about it all the time.

Here's a six-pack of previous posts.

"Life Behind the Berlin Wall" and other documentaries about East Germany, all of them ideal for history obsessives like me.

Two documentaries about Dean Reed (who?) provide long-lost Cold War time capsules.

Another look at East German art, as with Werner Tübke and the Americans back in 1989.

The GDR's Olympic legacy, and "The Rise and Fall of Gerd Bonk, the World Champion of Doping."

Cinema: "The Lives of Others" earns a curmudgeon's ultimate accolades.

Lastly, within this 2015 post, there can be found the links to parts one through four of "Pilsner, Putin and Me," my narrative of East Berlin and East Germany during my time there in the summer of 1989. At some point later this year, the narrative will reappear with digitalized photos as part of my projected 1989 travelogue.

Lenin's head finally is located, and will be displayed in Berlin.