At the end of World War II, Berlin, which had been the strategic planning center for the Nazi war machine and the massacre of Europe's Jews, had been divided by the four Allied conquerors. The United States, Great Britain and France turned their portions over to a new free West Germany.

The Soviet Union kept its portion as part (and capital) of East Germany. Sometimes the Soviets closed the route to West Germany, but other times West German residents could travel relatively freely back and forth.

That's why postwar West Berlin was full of clandestine representatives of every major country in the world. It was a cloak-and-dagger hangout at the crossroads of Cold War political intrigue.

And that's why the Soviets built the Berlin Wall, as snoopy Westerners were sneaking across the city border into East Berlin, while far more East Germans were escaping out -- as many as 1,000 a day until August 1961, when the Soviets began to build a fortified wall, effectively sealing East Berlin off from West Berlin.

Most of the Cold War sites are gone, but some significant remnants remain, says Richard G. Campbell, an American guide who remembers watching out his West Berlin office window near famed Checkpoint Charlie on Aug. 13, 1961, as East German workmen began pouring concrete.

Since 1989, most of the wall has been carted away and nearby buildings bulldozed, but there are 18 places in Berlin where portions of the wall still stand.

Visitors can rent an audio walking guide that explains details and past events, including where East Germans were killed attempting to escape to freedom in the West. Berlin tour companies offer walking, bike, bus and Trabi explorations. Campbell books three-hour narrated walking tours from the main train station to Checkpoint Charlie.

COLD WAR SITES

Some of central Germany's Cold War sites are an easy day trip, about 100 miles west from Berlin by train. Among these are the Cathedral at Magdeburg, built starting in 1209 and the rallying place for peaceful local protests against the East German government; the Zonengrenz Museum in Helmstedt, where exhibits show how the fortified border grew from a fence with barbed wire in the mid-1940s to a series of walls with motion-activated machine guns and other armaments; and nearby Hoetensleben, where the old border fortifications have been preserved -- a system of fences and no-man's lands. The Soviets built and patrolled the border in what they called ''anti-fascist protection,'' but most of the weapons were pointed east, at their own citizens.

Near Helmstedt is Marienborn, the former highway checkpoint to the road through East German territory into West Berlin. Because most of the east-west traffic flowed through Marienborn, it was known as the ''eye of the needle.'' Vehicle booths and the two-story headquarters building at Marienborn station now are a museum where visitors can get a sense of the old fears and tensions.

In the bad old days, if you were on the West German side, driving east toward Berlin, at Marienborn you handed over your passport, which disappeared into a red pouch and moved indoors on an elaborate series of belts. Upstairs, security officers whipped through picture books and lists of names to see if you were a suspected enemy of East Germany. Meanwhile, some passports were being copied by the Soviets for later use when making fake ones for spies.

If you were traveling west, out of West Berlin and headed for West Germany, police were looking for forbidden photos or sensitive documents or anything that aroused their suspicions.

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