'The Last Tattoo in Berlin', 1992

Poster advertising for the last British Berlin Tattoo, 20-24 October 1992.

The Berlin Tattoo was a major annual event in the calendar of the British Garrison in West Berlin during the Cold War.

It was a huge military music festival, initially held in a packed-out Olympic Stadium that took place over several days. Massed bands drawn from the British Zone and those of the Western Allies, as well as precision marching and display teams, all combined in a festival of military pageantry. The British had been holding military tattoos in their Zone and Berlin since 1947. Despite initial criticism in Parliament about the effort in cost and manpower to not only put on the event, but also to transport soldiers to Berlin for the purpose of performing, the tattoos were seen as delivering real value in terms of training for the soldiers taking part, as well as morale for them and for German civilians. They were not demonstrations of military power or a triumphal parade by a conqueror to the conquered - though those of course had taken place in the aftermath of the war; instead they were a showcase to display skill and professionalism, a spectacle rather than an act of intimidation.

The last British iteration was held in 1992. Yet despite the British Army leaving Berlin in 1994, the Tattoo continues to be held annually in Berlin, a legacy of the British occupation.