The Bruderkuss at the East Side Gallery
Along Mühlenstraße, on the East Side Gallery between Ostbahnhof and Warschauer Straße, stands one of Berlin’s most recognisable murals. Painted in 1990 by Dmitri Vrubel, it reproduces a 1979 press photograph of Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker in a fraternal diplomatic kiss.
"Mein Gott, hilf mir, diese tödliche Liebe zu überleben"
The German caption is part of the work. Vrubel added it to turn a staged political embrace into a sharp, ironic statement about power and dependency. The original photo was taken on 7 October 1979 by French photographer Régis Bossu during the GDR’s 30th anniversary ceremonies.
The painting is large and public. It runs on a surviving stretch of the Wall beside the Spree and faces the river. Because it sits outdoors on a long, continuous gallery of murals, the image reads at street level rather than in a white‑cube frame. That scale and placement helped it become a fixed image in Berlin’s visual memory.
Visitors and locals alike pause here. The mural functions as history and as a visual shorthand: it refers to Cold War ritual, to East–Soviet relations, and to the way politics stage intimacy. It has also been adopted broadly as an emblem in discussions about the city’s openness and memorial culture.
See it
- Location: East Side Gallery, Mühlenstraße (Spree side), Friedrichshain.
- When it was made: painted by Vrubel in 1990; photograph dated 7 October 1979.
- Practical: the gallery is outdoors and free to see; best visited on foot along the river.
