Further Media
The border guards were given more and more freedom: from December 1989, Burkhard Strelow was allowed to visit West Berlin in his free time. Like all East Germans arriving in the West, he received a one-off payment in West German currency. In a store called “Market,” he spent this so-called "welcome money" on a pair of red Doc Martens boots, which were his pride and joy as a punk.
However, his first encounters with the West Berlin punk community, which he experienced on the streets and at concerts, were a disappointing experience for him: “It was a different definition of punk. And I viewed that with a sense of dispassion. [...] It was somehow a time of great disillusionment."