Toasting a Special Relationship

Coca‑Cola and Berlin

Ritter then stood with an employee at Glienicke Bridge, the place where agents and prisoners were exchanged during the Cold War, in order to personally serve a Coke to visitors from his home town. When a German Democratic Republic (GDR) guard noticed this, he shouted, “Hey, I want one as well!”  

It was a time of rapid, bold decisions. A time of improvised offices at the counters of hotel bars, when unreliable telephone connections caused the temporary return of the telegram.

Ritter did not waste time with questions – he acted. Due to the hard work and swift action of Coke employees like Ritter, in the first week after the fall of the Wall, two million people drank a toast to freedom with a Coke. 

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