Bernard Larsson grew up in both Sweden and Germany during the Cold War. After studying photography in Munich, Paris became his new base, thanks to a job at fashion magazine Vogue.

These were political times. Tensions between the great powers constantly threatened to trigger a new war. Among the French intellectuals, existentialism and communism were discussed.

Stop the escape

On a warm August day in 1961, Bernard Larsson was reached by world news that the GDR had begun building a wall to stop the mass flight from east to west. About three million East Germans had left the Socialist Worker and Peasant State for a better future in the West. In a few hours, the police, the military and the fighting forces of the workers established a barrier of barbed wire through Berlin.

- I had been interested in real socialism as a social model and could not understand how one could so brutally divide a city in two. I was shaken, says Bernard Larsson in conversation with SVT News.

Bernard traveled quickly to Berlin to see what was going on with his own eyes. Thanks to his Swedish passport he was able to move freely in all parts of the city. He was one of the few photographers who documented the sudden and dramatic brick building. Over one night, family members were separated. Shocked, they stood on either side of the barbed wire, waving handkerchiefs to their relatives.

The photo took the young Swedish photographer from the east side of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Photo: Bernard Larsson

Concern about a new war

Would the Western powers intervene against the brick building? Concern for a new war was very evident. But the wall continued to be erected. It was damned much better than a war, said US President John F. Kennedy.

The Swedish-German photographer was struck by the poverty and ruins especially in the eastern part of the city, sixteen years after the war.

- It was depressing. In the still visible remnants of Nazism, loudspeakers heard promises of happiness and peace in the socialist paradise. The people were frightened and resigned.

He describes a very tense and dangerous situation between East and West with hateful propaganda from both sides. He was arrested by an East German police officer but managed completely. The young photographer continued to document the daily life of the city and its inhabitants. The naked pictures attracted much attention and became his breakthrough.

The magazine Stern recruited him. There he portrayed the 1960s radical student uprising, fascism in Spain and the Prague Spring 1968.

Swedish photographer Bernard Larsson was one of the few who was able to photograph in both east and west when the Berlin Wall was built and shared the city in 1961. Photo: Bernard Larsson

Social movement

For Bernard Larsson, the events led to political sobriety.

He became part of the socially oriented humanist photo movement that developed in France after the war and wanted to build the new Europe. Bernard's new project became television films about the history of social photography.

This year, Bernard Larsson turns 90 and looks back on the dramatic time he spent describing. Thirty years have passed since the wall fell. He is saddened by the growing support for right-wing extremist groups in the East, but still looks bright at what has happened.

- I am very happy that there was a peaceful reunification and that democracy triumphed over the dictatorship, he says.