The Berlin Wall

After World War II (1939-1945) Berlin, badly damaged during the war, was situated within the German Democratic Republic (GDR; also known as East Germany). The city was subsequently partitioned into East Berlin and West Berlin. The divided city not only symbolized the collapse of the German Empire, of which it had been the capital, but also became a focus of Cold War tensions between the Communist nations led by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the group of Western nations led by the United States.

The Wall was built on 13 August 1961 by the East Germans. It was made possible by Nikita Khrushchev's decision to give responsibility for security in Berlin's Soviet sector to the GDR leader Walter Ulbricht and his Socialist Unity Party (SED) earlier that year. Until then, many East Berliners worked in the west and attended concerts, films etc, returning at night. But the allure of the more prosperous west was too great, so by the summer of 1961 up to 20,000 East Germans a month were leaving the GDR via West Berlin. The GDR built its so-called 'Anti-Fascist Protection Barrier' to keep workers in and the GDR economy from hemorrhaging. It took only hours before concrete and barbed wire kept tens of thousands of people separated from jobs, friends and family members. During the time it stood, more than 100 people died attempting to cross from East to West Berlin.

The Wall stood for more than 28 years, some 165 km of ugly prefab slabs that you could reach out and touch (or paint) on the western side but which was protected by a no-man's-land of barbed wire, land mines, attack dogs and watchtowers in the east. The first victim, who tried to jump into the west from the window of his house, died only a few days after the Wall went up. On 24 August 1961, the first shooting and killing of a runaway by GDR border police occurred. The full extent of the system's cruelty became blatantly apparent on 17 August 1962 when 18-year-old Peter Fechtner was shot during his attempt to flee, then left to bleed to death with the East German police looking on.

Initially, the GDR tried to completely seal itself off from the west, but over time restrictions for travel into East Berlin were loosened. In December 1963, the first West Berliners were allowed to visit friends and family in the east. Nine months later, senior citizens got permission to cross the border into the city's western section. Within a year, the GDR began levying an 'admission fee' - mandatory minimum exchange of German marks into 'Ostmark', its currency. In 1980, this was raised to DM25 per day. But in the end nothing could prevent the collapse of the Wall: on 9 November 1989, thousands of East Berliners streamed into the west - the euphoria was endless. Almost immediately, thousands of people began chiseling off chips of the Wall. Soon after most of it was taken down and, in some cases, sold off to museums and private collectors. However, some stretches still stand, silent symbols not just of an era of division but also of the triumph of freedom and individuality over an oppressive and unjust political system.

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