The photograph shows the main gate of US headquarters in Berlin-Dahlem in 1955. Behind a white metal grille fence, a broad access avenue opens onto a representative administrative building, above which the American flag flies. Two guard soldiers control entry; a first-generation VW transporter—a period-typical German vehicle in service to the US forces—is just passing through the gate. The symmetrical gate structure with its massive stone pillars and flanking building wings lends the entrance a distinctly representative character. The subject exemplifies the sustained military presence of the Western Allies in the divided city and the institutional everyday reality of the Cold War in West Berlin.