The Berlin Wall

Brief historical overview:

Until August 1961

The border between East and West Berlin is opened and daily half a million people cross the border from one part of the city into the other. Many East Berliners go into the cinema or discos in the West, they even work in the West or they go shopping in the West. Women get the first seamless panty hoses in the West, tropical fruits are only available there.
At the same time the leaders of the Communist parties of the Commecon meet in Moscow from August 3 until August 5, 1961 and they decide to close the open border between East and West Berlin.







August 12/13, 1961
In the afternoon of August 12 at 4 p.m. Walter Ulbricht, the East German leader, signed the commands to close the border. Next Sunday at midnight the army, police and the "Kampfgruppen" began to bolt the city. The wall is built and separates the city into two parts for more than 28 years.
Streets, the railway and the S-Bahn (city railway) are broken, stations of the U-Bahn (underground railway) are closed, even cemeteries are not spared. Nothing is forgotten and the East Germans will not be allowed to free travel to the West until 1989.
November 9, 1989
A press conference is held where the SED government announced that travel restrictions for East Germans had been lifted. In that night people from East Berlin flooded into the western part of the city and hundreds of thousands celebrated throughout the city. Next day Berliners begin to discover the other part of their city.
The Berlin Wall today
The German are thorough people. The Wall was completly removed and there are only a few parts which can still be found. One of the most asked question is: "Where is the Wall?".
Why it was built.

Until 1961 East German citizen were allowed to travel to West Berlin.
Travelling to West Germany became difficult after closing the border between East and West Germany in 1952.
The Wall was erected in 1961 because more than 2.6 million East Germans escaped to West Berlin or West Germany from 1949 to 1961 (total population of East Germany was about 17 million!).

The life in the West was much better than in the East after 1948. West Germany including West Berlin had got financial help through the Marshallplan from the USA. In East Germany a communist system was established and many people had to suffer under repressions of the Communist party.

In May 1952 the open border (Zonengrenze) between East and West Germany was closed by the East German government.
In the years after 1952 it became more difficult and dangerous to escape to the West over this border.
However, the sectorial borders between East and West Berlin were not closed. Many East German citizen went to East Berlin and from there to West Berlin. Once arrived in West Berlin they stayed there or were fled out to West Germany.

East Germany lost too many skilled workers in these years.
Another big problem were the two currencies in Germany and especially in Berlin. West German DM had been exchanged into East German DM at a rate of 1:4 (1 DM West = 4 DM Ost) in West Berlin.
People with West German DM could get goods very cheaply in the Eastern part of Berlin.

The East German government saw no other way to prevent from escaping to the West via Berlin than closing the border between East and West Berlin on August 13, 1961.

Berlin Wall History: Escape Attempts to the West

In 1946, one year after the end of the World War II the Soviet Military administration begun to safeguard the demarcation lines of the Soviet sectors to the West.

Traveling between all sectors of Germany was restricted and an "Interzonenpass" (Inter-zone passport) was required to travel from one sector to another. The Interzonenpass was 30 days valid and travellers had to apply for that pass at the authorities which could refuse the application. Crossing the border between East and West Germany without permission was possible but became more and more dangerous.
Thousands of East German citizen had escaped to the West over the borders between East and West Germany, East Germany and Berlin and within Berlin.

On May 26, 1952 the East German government decided to close the border and to build up a frontier area between East and West Germany and between West Berlin and East Germany.
After May 26, 1952 there was only one quite safe way to escape to the West: Berlin.
Although many border crossing points were closed in Berlin and controls at the border happened, it was quite easy to leave the Eastern sector of Berlin to the Western sector. Many East German citizen went to Berlin, bought a S-Bahn (suburban train) or U-Bahn (subway) ticket and left East Berlin.

On August 13, 1961 the East German government decided to close the 'last gap' in the border to West Berlin and the Berlin Wall was build up.
East German citizen were not allowed to leave the country without permission.
However, during the first days many people could escape through the border but day by day it became more dangerous.
At the beginning people tried to climb over the Wall or the fences, they jumped out of the houses which were in the border area or tunnels were build to escape. During the first days several people lost their live or were killed by the Eastern border guard .
Günter Litwin was the first victim who was shot down by East German border guard in Berlin on August 24, 1961.

171 people were killed or died attempting to escape at the Berlin Wall between August 13, 1961 and November 9, 1989.

Checkpoint Charlie

Ten days after closing the border on August 13, 1961 tourists from abroad, diplomats and the military personnel of the Western Powers were only allowed to enter East Berlin via the crossing point at Berlin Friedrichstrasse.
Soon the US military police opened the third checkpoint at Friedrichstrasse. The other two checkpoints were Helmstedt at the West German-East German border and Dreilinden at the West Berlin and East Germany border. Based on the phonetic alphabet the Helmstedt checkpoint was called Alpha, Dreilinden Checkpoint Bravo and the checkpoint at Friedrichstrasse got the name Charlie.

The main function of the checkpoint was to register and inform members of the Western Military Forces before entering East Berlin. Foreign tourists were also informed but not checked in the West.
The German authorities in West and East Berlin were not allowed to check any members of the Allied Military Forces in Berlin and in Germany.
Checkpoint Charlie was removed on June 22, 1990. The former Allied guardhouses are now located in theAllied Museum.
A copy of the American guardhouse was errected on the original place on August 13, 2000.

The East German watch tower at Checkpoint Charlie was demolished by the property owner Checkpoint Charlie Service Company on December 9, 2000.
A 140 meter long section of the Berlin Wall was
re-erected by the museum on October 31, 2004 and nearby, a field of 1,065 crosses represents all victims of the East German border system.



Bernauer Strasse

It is one of these typical streets which separates two Berlin's districts: Mitte in the East and Wedding in the West. After World War II Mitte became part of the Soviet sector and Wedding of the French sector. Signs marked the sector border but nobody didn't take care of these signs. People could move from one part of the street to the other.
The separation of the city and its streets begun in the early morning of August 13, 1961. East German army and police blocked the streets and houses in the streets and begun to built a wall. From that moment nobody could cross the street. It became unpossible to meet friends, neighbours or relatives who lived on the other site of the street.
In the Bernauer Strasse, district Mitte, the houses' walls were the border to the West and people jumped out of their flats into the West in the first days. But soon the windows were walled up and occupants had to leave their flats. Years later the houses were pulled down.
Today empty areas lend the Eastern part of the street its character.
The empty area is seen on the photograph. Until the mid 60s houses were on this area but were demolished in order to get a manageable border area.

Potsdamer Platz

Berlin's life is pulsating at Potsdamer Platz. Every day thousands of tourists and Berliners visit this area to view the changing and growing of a new city part in the center of Berlin. Cinemas, shops, galeries and restaurants invite consumers to stay here.
However, for more than 28 years the place was dead land in the citie's heart and at night the lamps of the Berlin Wall enlighted the Potsdamer Platz area to prevent East German citizen from escaping to West Berlin.
After opening the border in 1989 the wall was very quickly demolished and only some segments of the backland wall and a watchtower survived.
In 1999, ten years later, the Berlin government demolished most part of the remaining Wall at Potsdamer Platz.

The Fall of the Berlin Wall

The fall of the Berlin Wall had begun with the building of the Wall in 1961.
However it took about three decades until the Wall was torn down.
Several times people in the Communist countries rised up against the Communist system but they failed.
The victims of the uprisings against the Communist dictatorship in Berlin 1953, Budapest 1956 or Prague 1968 will never been forgotten.
In 1989 the first free labor union was founded in the communist Poland. The end of the communist system had begun.
The Soviet Union could control their satellites yet but with the new leader Gorbatshov their politics changed in 1984.
Gorbatshov's reforms, Perestroika and Glasnost should renew the stalinistic system in the Soviet Union but not replace the communist system.
The reforms in the Soviet Union also had its effects on the other communist countries, especially in Poland and Hungary.
On August 23, 1989 Hungary opened the iron curtain to Austria.
Months before East German tourists used their chance to escape to Austria from Hungary and in September 1989 more than 13 000 East German escaped via Hungary within three days. It was the first mass exodus of East Germans after the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961.
Mass demonstrations against the government and the system in East Germany begun at the end of September and took until November 1989.
Erich Honecker, East Germany's head of state, had to resign on October 18, 1989.
The new governement prepared a new law to lift the travel restrictions for East German citizen.
At 06.53 pm on November 9, 1989 a member of the new East German government was asked at a press conference when the new East German travel law comes into force.
He answered: "Well, as far as I can see, ... straightaway, immediately."
Thousands of East Berliners went to the border crossings. At Bornholmer Strasse the people demanded to open the border and at 10.30 pm the border was opened there.
That moment meant the end of the Berlin Wall.
Soon other border crossing points opened the gates to the West
In that night the deadly border was opened by East Germans peacefully.