You are here : World News – Russian opinion» RUSSIA» No extra US troopers at Checkpoint Charlie: Berlin authorities ban actors over vacationer harassment claims
No extra US troopers at Checkpoint Charlie: Berlin authorities ban actors over vacationer harassment claims
Guests to Berlin hoping to take a snap with actors dressed as American troopers on the iconic Checkpoint Charlie could discover themselves disenchanted, as authorities have banned individuals from posing as Chilly Warfare-era guards.
Checkpoint Charlie, the erstwhile US-controlled crossing level between East and West Berlin, has lengthy been a vacationer hotspot — and a photograph with one of many ‘troopers’ has been on many a bucket checklist.
But, police who posed as vacationers in an undercover operation say the actors have been forcing guests to pay €four ($ four.50) for an image, regardless of claiming that they solely take voluntary donations. Some vacationers have even been verbally abused and adopted after refusing to supply the “donation,” German media stated.
Additionally on rt.com
30yrs & billions of euros later: Germany marks Fall of the Wall, however did reunification carry the promised ‘blossoming landscapes’?
The lads can earn as much as $ 5,000 from the images on a very good day, the Bild newspaper reported. The actors who play the position and who’re employed by the Dance Manufacturing facility company, do not plan to surrender on the profitable gig with no battle, nonetheless.
“I’m confronted with having to let six of my colleagues go,” Tom Luszeit, who heads the Dance Manufacturing facility group advised Bild, including he doesn’t perceive the “sudden determination” to ban the observe. “However we gained’t hand over, we wish to return,” Luszeit stated, denying allegations that vacationers who refuse to pay are harassed.
Berlin’s public order workplace has knowledgeable the company, nonetheless, that its actions are unlawful until they get hold of a allow, which it isn’t planning to situation.
Good. In a metropolis the place vacationer websites are fortunately fairly decentralized, Checkpoint Charlie is the one which feels probably the most overcrowded and Disney-fied: https://t.co/reCqvnB9iR
— Emily Schultheis (@emilyrs) November four, 2019
Checkpoint Charlie was the positioning of a significant Chilly Warfare standoff when US and Soviet tanks confronted off in opposition to one another after a dispute over whether or not East German officers had the authority to examine the paperwork of a US diplomat crossing town to see an opera.
Some Germans haven’t been pleased with the spectacle of Checkpoint Charlie turning into the ‘Disneyland’ of Berlin, nonetheless. In a current interview with the Tagesspiegel newspaper, Burkhard Kieker, the pinnacle of the Go to Berlin tourism company known as the favored web site an “eyesore.”
