The guardhouse at center of Cold War is recreated in Berlin as a reminder of the divisive wall that was built 39 years ago. Two German men, wear period U. S. uniforms at the unveiling.

By: M. Schreiber, AP

BERLIN - The guardhouse went up again at Berlin's infamous Checkpoint Charlie and parts of the 'Berlin Wall also will be rebuilt at the border crossing where Cold War powers formerly faced off just yards apart.

But Berlin isn't about to become a divided city again.  This time, the guards wearing U.S. and British military uniforms were Germans in costume, participating in the unveiling Sunday of a guardhouse rebuilt to serve as a reminder to future generations of the barrier that divided a country, Europe and the world.

"Our duty is to maintain and salvage what was once here," said Rainer Hildebrandt, head of the Museum at Checkpoint Charlie and a leading force behind preserving the memory of the scar that ran through Berlin.

It was exactly 39 years ago on Sunday that construction began on the Wall. East German leaders called it an "Anti-Fascist Protection Barrier," although the real goal of the Wall was to stop thousands of their citizens from leaving.

Before the Wall went up, people could travel freely, across Berlin and many who lived in one part of the city worked in the other. That all changed after Aug. 13, 1961, when East German soldiers began stringing lengths of barbed wire and building barriers across the city.

Checkpoint Charlie - the third checkpoint in the city after Alpha and Bravo - got its first guardhouse Sept. 22, 1961. In the months that followed, both the United States and Soviet Union stationed tanks there on what became the front line in the Cold War.  The checkpoint was known for its trademark "You are leaving the American sector" sign.

Those tanks wouldn´t move until after Nov. 9, 1989 - when East Germans streamed across the border after the government lifted travel restrictions that had been in place for more than 28 years.

After it fell, Berliners were more than eager to tear down all signs of the Wall.  Thousands of tourists chipped pieces away, and much of the Wall was ground up and used to make roads. The previous guardhouse at Checkpoint Charlie was removed June 22, 1990, as diplomats from the Allied powers looked on. Now, more than 1 0 years after the Wall fell, there have been efforts to try and preserve the memory of the most visible manifestation of the Iron Curtain.

In addition to the new white, wooden guardhouse in an island in the road at Checkpoint Charlie, the museum hopes to restore elements of the entire barrier system - which included the no man's land between the Wall’s two sides.

Restoration work also has begun across town on one of the largest remaining strips of the Wall, the so-called East Side Gallery, where artists after 1989 decorated what was once the untouchable eastern side of the barrier with pictorial odes to peace.

Major Nigel Dunkley, the British military attaché who spoke at the guardhouse dedication, remembered the hard stares he received from East German border officers and the cameras that watched his every move when passing through the border.