Schleusenkrug - back in the days

1954, at the Tiergarten’s main watergate, the Fistler family opened the restaurant and beergarden „Schleusenkrug“ („Schleuse“ means watergate, „Krug“ means jar or pub). Even before WW2, family Fistler ran a kiosk at this very place, selling drinks from a counter and supplying folks on a Sunday’s stroll and passing ship’s passengers with ice and refreshments. In the course of the watergate contstruction’s rebuilding - finally - family Fistler got hold of an actual stone building, piled on top of the original watergate’s house. Behind them long and exhausting negotiations with public authorities. Since the end of the War Berlin’s waterways were under jurisdiction of the German Democratic Republic…

Hard to imagine, but you may say that on this place the Berlin wall splitted East and West horizontally.

In basement floor comrades took care of a smooth shipping traffic, one level above West-Berliners enjoyed the sun, cool beer and hearty German food.