ABSTRACT
The Checkpoint Charlie Museum tried to create a public perception of the former Allied border crossing as a place to commemorate the horror of the Berlin Wall and its victims. Following J. John Lennon and Malcolm Foley's argument, ever since the dedication of the Freedom Memorial, Checkpoint Charlie can also be viewed as a typical postmodern dark-tourism site because fears and doubts associated with modernity are interpreted in such a way that they are deliberately turned into a tourism product. Unlike the research literature reviewed above, which focused on the motives of tourists for visiting dark-tourism sites, the debates in Berlin did not speculate on the reasons tourists visit Checkpoint Charlie. Hildebrandt argued that the presence of tourists was a sign that her interpretation of Checkpoint Charlie as a victim site had been accepted. The eyes of its critics, the emotionally manipulative memorial at Checkpoint Charlie offered no educational message that could legitimize the tourist attraction as a place of learning.
