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The Wall and Potsdamer
Platz, 1982
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The Berlin Wall
Anyone attempting to flee from East to West would have to brave an impressive series of obstacles, all under the eyes of armed East German guards in 302 watchtowers:
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a smooth, concrete wall (Hinterlandmauer) nearly 12 feet high; in some places a 10- to 13-foot-high wire-mesh fence substituted for the wall, often fitted with an electronic warning device
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steel stakes planted in the ground, called "Stalin's grass"
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barbed wire entanglements
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20 bunkers scattered along the perimeter
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hundreds of leashed guard dogs running along a rail
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sporadic mines buried under a 20- to 50-foot-wide strip of land covered in sand, which would reveal any footprints left by fugitives
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a 10- to 16-foot-deep ditch to stop vehicles traveling from East to West
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a 10- to 13-foot-wide road for armed patrol vehicles designed to move noiselessly
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a 6-1/2-foot-high electric fence, armed with acoustic or optical alarms
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the "Death Strip" of barren land
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a second wall made up of 6-inch-thick concrete slabs, between 11-1/2 and 13 feet high, topped with an asbestos cement tube to prevent potential escapees from grabbing hold of the top of the wall
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On the night of August 13, 1961, while East and West Berliners slept, the East German military erected a temporary structure that halted the flow of people between the two sides of the city. Once the construction of the 100-mile-long Berlin Wall was completed, anyone attempting to cross from East to West risked being shot on sight. Subway routes stopped abruptly underneath the border; guard towers rose ominously over the barren no man's land that stretched between the two main structures of the Wall. Families were separated with no visitation rights, and some West Berliners born in what was now East Germany would not cross a terrestrial border for fear of being detained as an East German-born citizen. To enter East Berlin, visitors had to go through complex border-crossing procedures, including the exchange of a fixed sum of money into East German currency and sometimes the unexplained retention of passports or other kinds of harassment.
Memorials to fallen escapees, 1982
For East Berliners, the West was a mystery about which they knew very little. With the government promising equal opportunity in housing and employment, many in the East feared the poverty, crime and corruption of the West. For others, the West represented hope for a brighter future, and thousands tried to cross the border - some successfully, others not. Estimates of those attempting to escape report up to 239 killed and 260 injured, with over 3,000 arrested in the border area. In some border areas in the West, white crosses marked the deaths of failed escapees, often marked "Unbekannt" for the unknown person who was killed.
The two halves of Berlin developed each on its own course. As agreed upon after World War II, the West was divided into British, French and American sectors, with military personnel of each country taking up residency among the German citizens. As West Germany rebuilt its cities, West Berlin's war-torn past remained visible only in monuments like the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. Commerce thrived on the Kurfürstendamm (shopping street), and new buildings like the Berliner Philharmonie (concert hall), the Staatsbibliothek (national library) and Neue Nationalgalerie (art museum) revived the cultural life of West Berlin. Artists used the concrete face of the Wall as a canvas for graffiti and politically inspired paintings. Many movements for social and political change, such as the 1960s student revolts and the squatter movement of the 1970s, started in West Berlin before spreading to the rest of the Federal Republic of Germany.
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Brandenburg Gate, 1982 |
The Soviets controlled the East, and at border crossings the tension was often palpable as guards on one side watched guards on the other side in a endless game of who will flinch first. The Brandenburg Gate, once a symbol of Prussian pride, stood alone on the Eastern side of the Wall near the vacant spread of Potsdamer Platz, what was formerly the bustling center of Berlin. Communist government buildings and monuments dominated the former city center, located in East Berlin, amid bullet-ridden neoclassical museums and the rubble of bombed-out churches and synagogues. Despite the lack of resources devoted to rebuilding the city's infrastructure, East Berlin developed into the industrial and political hub of the German Democratic Republic.
In 1987, both East and West Berliners celebrated the 750 anniversary of the city, still separated by the Berlin Wall. No one could have predicted that two years later, the most notorious symbol of the Iron Curtain between Soviet-controlled countries and Western economic markets would collapse in the wake of borders opening in other communist countries such as Hungary. On November 9, 1989, tens of thousands of Berlin residents from East and West alike gathered at the Wall to celebrate the end of an era.
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