During the Cold War, Point Alpha was one of the most important US observation bases on West Germany's border with East Germany, a place where the free world faced the Iron Curtain of the communist world. Today, this former base is no longer a potential flashpoint for World War III. It has been transformed into a memorial, a place were East and West can meet and remember the extremely dangerous time between 1947 and 1989, and the decades-long suffering of a subjugated population.