A US Army military policeman in field gray uniform, white belt, and steel helmet directs vehicle traffic with outstretched arms at the main gate of the American headquarters in Berlin. He stands on a black-and-white striped platform in front of a white metal gate with metal spikes, a guardhouse, and a marbled wall bearing an English-language sign of the United States Army. The scene documents the everyday Allied military presence in the western part of the divided city in 1955. The US headquarters was a visible symbol of American occupation authority and at the same time an expression of Western security claims during the Cold War. The careful surveillance and maintained appearance of the entrance area conveyed order and institutional strength in a city that still bore signs of wartime destruction.