Checkpoint Charlie (or " Checkpoint C ") was the best-known Berlin
Wall crossing point between East Berlin and West Berlin during the Cold War
(1947–1991), as named by the Western Allies.
East German leader Walter Ulbricht agitated and maneuvered to get the Soviet
Union's permission to construct the Berlin Wall in 1961 to stop emigration and
defection westward through the Border system, preventing escape across the
city sector border from East Berlin into West Berlin. Checkpoint Charlie
became a symbol of the Cold War, representing the separation of East and West.
Soviet and American tanks briefly faced each other at the location during the
Berlin Crisis of 1961. On 26 June 1963, U.S. President John F.