Memories of The Wall

Saturday marks the 50th anniversary of the building of the Berlin Wall, the wall that was one of the largest physical manifestations of the Cold War, physically splitting Berlin into communist and democratic sides.

The Associated Press has moved a story about photographer Peter Hillebrecht who, in the middle of an August night, got a call that the East Germans had started building it. He raced out and sent the first images of it around the world.

British photojournalist Don McCullin was also there in the days it was being built, but his negatives were lost for decades. Time’s Lightbox blog has now published some of the images from a young and unknown McCulin who went on to become one of the preeminent war photographers of our time.

(Thanks to Greg Mironchuk for the McCullin lede.)