More than a quarter of a century has passed since the fall of the infamous Berlin Wall. Willy Brand, one of the Chancellors of Germany, called this structure the “wall of shame.” The concrete fence became a symbol of the split of Germany into separate states and the Cold War - a time of confrontation between two superpowers: the USSR and the USA.
The unconditional surrender of the Third Reich after World War II entailed the redivision of the world into new spheres of influence. Strengthening the USSR's position in Eastern Europe aroused the fears of the countries of the Western camp, to which the idea of dividing the defeated power belonged. In February 1945, participants Yalta Conference(America, England, France and the USSR) determined the post-war status of Germany: the allies agreed on the dismemberment of the country. The issue of delimiting the four occupation zones was finally resolved during negotiations in Potsdam on July 17-08, 1945.
Four years later, in May 1949, a new state appeared on the world map - the Federal Republic of Germany, and six months later - the GDR. The nearly 1,400 km long border ran from Bavaria in the south to Baltic Sea in the north. It cut through the landscapes, settlements and lives of millions of people. Berlin also turned out to be bipolar, while remaining a free zone. Residents moved without problems between the two parts of the divided city.
Walter Ulbricht, the first person of the GDR, was interested in stopping the increasing outflow of citizens (especially valuable specialists) to the west. He repeatedly wrote to Khrushchev about the need to strengthen control on the border with Germany. The impetus for the construction of the fence was the political conflict of 1961. Its participants - the USSR and the USA - claimed undivided ownership of the city. The Vienna negotiations, the topic of which was the status of Berlin, were unsuccessful, and the Soviet leadership approved the GDR proposal to strengthen border control.
History of construction
On the night of August 13, 1961, barbed wire appeared in the eastern part of the city. Next, armed troops blocked transport arteries and installed barriers. By August 15, the entire border line was cordoned off. The first blocks appeared. Creating a reinforced concrete structure, builders blocked streets, bricked up the windows of nearby houses, cut wires and welded pipes. The wall knew no barriers - it passed through metro stations, tram lines, railway crossings and the Spree River.
The Brandenburg Gate, located along the way, was fenced on all sides, making the main symbol of Berlin inaccessible to both Western and Eastern residents of the city. From 1962 to 1978, the building was completed and re-equipped. Each time the wall acquired more and more sinister outlines.
What was
The Berlin Wall is a 3.60 m high engineering structure consisting of reinforced concrete segments. The top of the fence was covered with iron pipes installed in 1975, which prevented anyone from clinging to the edge of the fortification with their hands. At the same time, to enhance protection, anti-tank hedgehogs and barrier tapes with spikes, popularly nicknamed “Stalin’s lawn,” were installed at the foot of the structure. Several areas were supplemented with live barbed wire.
By the end of the 70s, in some areas on the eastern side, a metal mesh with signal flares was strengthened. It was separated from the wall by an earthen ditch, called the “death strip.” This area was guarded by dogs and illuminated by powerful floodlights. An illegal attempt to move to the western part of the city was punishable by imprisonment or death.
The total length of the structure was 155 km, of which Berlin accounted for 44.75 km. The “Shameful Wall” crossed 192 streets, 3 highways and 44 railway lines. Along the entire length there were 20 bunkers, 302 towers and 259 posts guarded by guard dogs. The defense fortification was patrolled by 10 thousand armed soldiers, who were ordered to shoot to kill if necessary.
Border crossing
The odious construction divided the city and cut off relatives and friends from each other. Only pensioners had the right to cross the border. Nevertheless, reckless refugees tried to find loopholes through which they could leave the “socialist paradise.” According to various sources, between 136 and 206 East Berliners died trying to escape, most of them within five years of the construction of the fence.
The first killed was Günter Litfin, shot dead in August 1961 by GDR border guards while trying to get into West Berlin along the Spree River. In 1966, 40 shots killed two children. They were 10 and 13 years old. The last two victims were Winfried Freudenberg, who crashed on March 8, 1989, while flying over a wall in a homemade hot air balloon, and Chris Gueffroy, who died in a hail of bullets while trying to cross the border in February of the same year.
Fall and destruction
Mikhail Gorbachev, who came to power, began to modernize the state and government apparatus. Under the slogans "Glasnost" and "Perestroika" he reformed the Soviet Union. The leadership of the GDR lost the support of the USSR and could no longer stop its citizens trying to leave the country. Socialist Hungary, followed by Czechoslovakia, liberalized the border regime. Residents of East Germany filled these states, wanting to get to Germany through them. The Berlin Wall was no longer necessary.
In fact, the beginning of the fall of the wall was the evening of November 9, 1989. At a live press conference dedicated to the authorities’ decision to open checkpoints, the question was asked when this resolution would come into force. In response, Schabowski, a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Socialist Party of Germany, uttered the famous words: “This will happen, as far as I know, ... now, immediately.”
Berliners watching the performance on TV were speechless. When the initial shock wore off, people from both sides of the border rushed to the hated fence. The border guards did not hold back their pressure. The reunion that had been dreamed of for 28 years took place. The demolition of the Berlin Wall began on June 13, 1990 at Bernauer Strasse. But even before this moment, the townspeople had broken many of its fragments, taking away pieces of concrete as souvenirs.
Those of you who want to include a visit to the infamous landmark in your excursion program will be interested in information that the guidebooks do not contain. So, the Berlin Wall: facts and figures.
- On October 27, 1961, a confrontation between American and Soviet troops occurred at a checkpoint on Friedrichstrasse - 30 battle tanks collided at the border.
- On June 11, 1964, French President Charles de Gaulle informed the USSR Ambassador about the possibility of starting nuclear war in the event of a new military conflict in Berlin.
- Despite enhanced security measures, in the period between 1961-1989. 5,000 townspeople managed to get over the fence. Taking advantage of their official position, 1,300 GDR soldiers also crossed the border.
- After the opening of the passage, West Berliners showed generosity to the East German border guards - bars near the wall gave out free beer.
- Today some of the segments of the concrete monster can be found in different parts light, for example, at CIA headquarters and the Vatican.
- The construction and protection of the border fence became a great economic burden for the GDR. The cost was more than 400 million marks (200 million euros). Ironically, the “anti-capitalist stronghold” led to the collapse of the socialist country.
- On November 9, 2014, on the day of the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, 7,000 glowing rubber balls were installed along the entire perimeter of the former border, which soared into the sky at exactly 19:00.
Berlin Wall today
Currently, all that remains of the structure, which aroused hatred and fear among people for 28 years, are only small fragments and a double line of paving stones, snaking like a long snake through the city. To ensure that the memory of the victims remains forever in the hearts of people, the Berlin authorities have opened several museums and memorial centers located next to the remains of the wall.
Memorial on Bernauerstrasse
“Window of Memory” is the name of the memorial, created to familiarize contemporaries with the tragic events associated with the split of the capital. It is dedicated to people living in the eastern part and trying to get to the western part by jumping from the windows of houses and falling to their deaths. The monument is a rusty iron composition containing photographs of the dead.
Nearby there is an area of gray concrete and border strip, a tower, the Chapel of Peace, built on the site of a bombed Gothic temple, a library, a museum and an observation deck. You can get to the memorial by metro (line U8). Stop Bernauerstrasse.
Topography of terror
This place is a reminder of the countless tragedies caused by the Nazi regime. The museum is located on the territory of the headquarters of one of the leaders of the SS - Reichsführer Himmler. Now in a pavilion with an area of 800 m2, visitors can look at photographs and documents introducing genocide and other crimes of fascism. Nearby, in the open air, are the ruins of Gestapo barracks and basements, and part of the Berlin Wall.
Address: Niederkirchnerstrasse 8. You can get here by S-Bahn (city train). Line U2 to Anhalter Bahnhof.
Checkpoint Charlie
At the former border checkpoint for diplomats and officials, where a conflict took place in 1961 - a confrontation between Soviet and American tank divisions, today there is a museum of the Berlin Wall. Among the exhibits - unique photos and the devices with which the East Germans moved to the west side: scuba gear, hang gliders and hot air balloons. Near the museum there is a model of a guard booth with “soldiers” standing nearby dressed in American military uniform that time. “Border guards” willingly take pictures with everyone.
After the end of World War II, Berlin was occupied by four countries: the USA, Great Britain, France and the USSR. And since after the victory over the common enemy, the confrontation between the USSR and the NATO bloc began to grow with new strength, then soon Germany, and Berlin in particular, was divided into two camps: the socialist GDR (German Democratic Republic) and the democratic West Germany (Federal Republic of Germany). Thus Berlin became bipolar. It is worth noting that until 1961, movement between the two states was practically free and thrifty Germans managed to get free Soviet education in the GDR, but work in the western part of the country.
The lack of a clear physical border between the zones led to frequent conflicts, smuggling of goods and a massive outflow of specialists to Germany. In the period from January 1 to August 13, 1961 alone, 207 thousand specialists left the GDR. The authorities claimed that the annual economic damage from this amounted to 2.5 billion marks.
The construction of the Berlin Wall was preceded by a serious aggravation of the political situation around Berlin, since both parties to the conflict (NATO and the USSR) laid claim to the city as part of the newly formed states. In August 1960, the GDR government introduced restrictions on visits by German citizens to East Berlin, citing the need to stop them from conducting “Western propaganda.” In response, all trade relations between Germany and the GDR were severed, and both parties to the conflict and their allies began to increase their military presence in the region.
In the context of the aggravation of the situation around Berlin, the leaders of the GDR and the USSR held an emergency meeting at which they decided to close the border. On August 13, 1961, construction of the wall began. In the first hour of the night, troops were brought up to the border area between West and East Berlin, and for several hours they completely blocked all sections of the border located within the city. By August 15, the entire western zone was surrounded by barbed wire, and the actual construction of the wall began. On the same day, four Berlin metro lines and some city lines were closed. railway. Potsdamer Platz was also closed, as it was located in the border area. Many buildings and residential buildings adjacent to the future border were evicted. The windows facing West Berlin were blocked with bricks, and later during reconstruction the walls were completely demolished.
Construction and renovation of the wall continued from 1962 to 1975. By 1975, it acquired its final form, becoming a complex engineering structure called Grenzmauer-75. The wall consisted of concrete segments 3.60 m high, equipped on top with almost insurmountable cylindrical barriers. If necessary, the wall could be increased in height. In addition to the wall itself, new watchtowers and buildings for border guards were erected, the number of street lighting facilities was increased, and a complex system barriers. On the East Berlin side there was a special restricted area along the wall with warning signs; after the wall there were rows of anti-tank hedgehogs, or a strip dotted with metal spikes, nicknamed “Stalin’s lawn,” followed by a metal mesh with barbed wire and signal flares.
When an attempt was made to break through or overcome this grid, signal flares went off, notifying the GDR border guards of the violation. Next was the road along which border guard patrols moved, after which there was a regularly leveled wide strip of sand to detect traces, followed by the wall described above, separating West Berlin. Towards the end of the 80s, there were also plans to install video cameras, motion sensors and even weapons with a remote control system.
By the way, the wall was not insurmountable; only according to official information, in the period from August 13, 1961 to November 9, 1989, there were 5,075 successful escapes to West Berlin or Germany, including 574 cases of desertion.
The GDR authorities practiced the release of their subjects for money. From 1964 to 1989, they released 249 thousand people to the West, including 34 thousand political prisoners, receiving $2.7 billion from Germany for this.
There were no casualties, according to the GDR government, 125 people died while trying to cross the Berlin Wall, and more than 3,000 were detained. The last perpetrator to die was Chris Gueffroy, who was killed while trying to illegally cross the border on February 6, 1989.
On June 12, 1987, US President Ronald Reagan, delivering a speech at the Brandenburg Gate in honor of the 750th anniversary of Berlin, called on the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Mikhail Gorbachev to demolish the Wall, thereby symbolizing the desire of the Soviet leadership for change. Gorbachev heeded Reagan's request... 2 years later.
At 19:34 on November 9, 1989, the mayor of East Berlin, Günther Schabowski, announced on live television the authorities’ decision to open the checkpoint. When asked by a shocked journalist when it would come into force, he answered: “Immediately.”
Over the next three days, more than 3 million people visited the West. The Berlin Wall still stood, but only as a symbol of the recent past. It was broken, painted with numerous graffiti, drawings and inscriptions; Berliners and visitors to the city tried to take away pieces of the once powerful structure as souvenirs. In October 1990, the lands of the former GDR entered the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Berlin Wall was demolished within a few months. It was decided to preserve only small parts of it as a monument for subsequent generations.
November 9, 1989 went down in German history as the day the Berlin Wall fell. Today's politicians view the “abolition” of the GDR as the first step towards the collapse of the USSR. It is symbolic that both the fall of the wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union occurred through the fault of Mikhail Gorbachev and his team of “reformers.”
Author Olga Usem, Ph.D. M.Sc., expert analyst in the field of marketing, business and history of Russia, author of more than ten scientific articles(including in English), head of the society “Schizophrenia is not a sentence”, editor-in-chief of the scientific and political newspaper website.
- The very fact that in just one night on August 13, 1961, not a mental, but the most material barrier of concrete and iron divided, as if for some unprecedented experiment, a seemingly ordinary European city, will shock the imagination of people for a long time, and serves the object of analysis not only by political scientists, but also by cultural scientists, sociologists, researchers of architecture and urban studies.
In fact, Berlin is not an ordinary European city at all, but a lair of the real evil - Nazism. It is not surprising that a wall appeared in the city of evil. It was built by the winners. . Only 16 years have passed since the Nazis killed 28 million people. Nobody was going to stand on ceremony with the Germans.
However, by that time the West had forgotten why the USSR took part of Germany into its zone of influence.
The United States and the part of the "Third Reich" Germany occupied by them unleashed a Cold War against the Soviet Union. That's why one fine day a concrete barrier appeared in Berlin. The wall was supposed to remind the world that the Soviet Union has not forgotten its losses in the Great Patriotic War, is not ready to forgive the Germans for the death of 28 million people and will not allow the Germans to unite!
Who built the Berlin Wall and why?
The wall was the initiative and property of the socialist bloc and was built to combat smugglers and border violators. GDR schoolchildren called the wall " barrier against fascist and capitalist aggression».
An additional reason to close the border was that since its formation in 1949, the GDR was rapidly losing its young population: it was more profitable to receive free education in the GDR and work in Germany. Which, by the way, speaks of the high level of education in the Soviet bloc. True, it is worth admitting:
- There was an unspoken competition between the socialist economy of the East and the market economy of the West, and the GDR gradually lost it. During the 1950s, about 3 million East Germans moved to the West.
Subsequently, it was thanks to the wall and strict border that the Federal Republic of Germany seemed more attractive to the residents of eastern Germany, what it really was . And maybe that’s why they were so eager to go there.
The greater the disappointment, and therefore there were famous stories the return of people of socialist education back to the GDR.
How did the wall grow overnight?
From August 13 to 15, 1961, West Berlin was covered with a low mesh of barbed wire - this was the first wall. Since August 13 was a Sunday, many Berliners learned about the wall only on August 14, when they were not allowed to work in another sector - this increased the effect of surprise. It is quite clear that the Germans in general were more sympathetic to the Americans, the “brothers of the Aryan nation.” They perceived Soviet power partly as an occupation. Indeed, at that time, even in the GDR there were many supporters of Nazism. Even in modern Germany, 15-20% of people profess anti-Semitic views.
As a result, after the appearance of the wire, more than 200 border guards fled to the West in the first days. Then, soldiers began to be recruited into the border troops from remote regions of the GDR, avoiding putting fellow countrymen on the same guard, so that there would be no conspiracies. At the same time, the construction of the main grid began - from hollow blocks. However, the block wall could be rammed even by the most fragile cars, which many citizens owned, so the blocks were soon replaced with durable concrete slabs.
What did the wall look like from the eastern side?
In 1975, the wall acquired its final form. Those GDR citizens who managed to jump over the concrete fence were not very lucky. The fact is that they saw only the outer fortification from the city and thought that only one wall separated them from the Western part. In fact, the violators did not end up in the West, but in the strip of the usual border between states, habitually equipped with towers, mined, patrolled by cars and shepherd dogs: there was still 100 meters left until wall No. 2, the main one, which, in turn, was seen by the West Germans. As expected, everything on top was covered with barbed wire. Checkpoints into West Berlin were installed in the outer wall.
Smugglers undermined the wall, jumped over poles and flew over in homemade airships and airplanes. Then the border guards blocked off the Spree with underwater gratings and installed sensors in the ground to listen to whether criminals were digging tunnels in houses adjacent to the wall. It was 28 years of relentless technological progress.
What did the Berlin Wall look like from the western side?
- In the West, you could approach a wall, touch it, and even leave graffiti on it, which various hooligans willingly took advantage of.
True, it was unsafe: when building the wall, the GDR authorities cut corners in some places, reserving the right to patrol the territory that remained in the West. So the border guard could drag a captured person who liked to dirty walls through the open doors in the wall and punish him for damaging GDR property. The German burghers knew this and were generally afraid to approach the wall. Housing near the wall was cheap, and mainly emigrants and declassed elements settled there. After November 9, 1989, everything turned upside down: the outskirts of West Berlin found themselves in the very center of the united city.
Could residents of West Berlin travel to East Berlin?
Citizens of not only West Berlin, but the Federal Republic of Germany and any Western Bloc country were relatively free to go on a day trip to East Berlin. An eyewitness, a philologist who speaks excellent Russian and who spent his student years in West Berlin in the 1980s, puts forward his hypothesis:
“The secret of such loyalty, to some extent, lay in a one-day visa: it cost 25 Western marks - sensitive money at that time, and for the leadership of the GDR it was good business. In addition, according to the laws of the GDR, visitors were required to change a certain amount of Western marks at the border, but they could not change it back. If you leave the Soviet sector, hand over your money at customs.”
Robert took American tourists on a tour to East Berlin. Moreover, the purpose of the cultural trip was not only to “look at the GDR” - in the eastern part there remained the Dome Cathedral, the Island of Museums and other monuments of German heritage.
Westerners were wary of such tourism and carried out surveillance on those who visited East Berlin too often . Robert himself went to bookstores in the GDR: he bought dictionaries and books on Russian studies - luxuriously published, they cost a penny.
- “Thanks to these Russian books, when I was returning home, I was once taken to a box and interrogated for a long time: it was unpleasant and could have ended badly for me,” Robert recalls.
But the main purpose of the visit to the East was to meet relatives: the wall separated families. We had to return before two o'clock in the morning. At the crossing on Friedrichstrasse, in a building known as the “Palace of Tears,” residents of West and East Berlin said goodbye at night. It is worth noting that despite the victims of the Second World War (28 million people), the USSR authorities did not prevent the Germans from visiting their relatives. The Germans were treated humanely.
Could residents of East Berlin travel to West Berlin?
GDR citizens were released into West Berlin after verification. Upon retirement, any citizen of the GDR received the right to travel to the West. In a socialist state, it was important to keep the workforce on its territory, but pensioners were not eager to go to the West. There, according to the laws of Germany, Eastern pensioners received free treatment. In addition, after crossing the border, every citizen of the GDR had the right to “welcome money” - 100 marks. Taking this money from the bank, pensioners bought food and took it to the East.
How did the GDR cooperate with the Federal Republic of Germany?
The wall divided not only the streets - it cut through the waters of the Spree, as well as the metro and sewerage. Lines B-6 and B-8 of the Berlin metro began and ended in West Berlin, and in the middle there were stations that belonged to East Berlin. The train passed all these stations without stopping, except for Friedrichstrasse - there was a stop here. At this station there was a stall with alcoholic drinks, which was popular among residents of West Berlin: they went for cheap drinks - and even without visas.
Once a year he took away political criminals - agents of the West - from the GDR. For the ransom of one Western agent in the East, they took from 40 to 150 thousand marks, depending on the importance of the criminal. Most often, the GDR handed over to the West criminals, whom Western propaganda called “political prisoners.”
“I lived next to one in West Berlin,” says Robert. - He said that he stabbed his wife to death in the East and promised that the same would happen to us.
Didn’t work anywhere, by nightfall he was drinking with friends and rowdy. He terrorized the house for three years, until we got him evicted through complaints.”
Today he also calls criminals and terrorists “political prisoners”. One can recall at least the same terrorist Oleg Sentsov, who was pardoned by Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
The flow of citizens in the other direction was slightly less. However, in the GDR from Germany to different years Many people of socialist convictions deliberately moved to live. Among them are playwright Bertolt Brecht and the father of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a Lutheran pastor. Of course, there were quite a lot of such cases.
Why did the Berlin Wall collapse overnight?
Of course, it all started long before the night the wall fell. And not in East Berlin, whose population had a fairly calm and comfortable life:
- The GDR was the most developed power of the socialist bloc.
Agents of the West did the job. They came to Leipzig from all over the country. Activists of the so-called “peaceful revolution” of 1989 Oliver Klos moved to Leipzig from Dresden in 1982 and, despite his atheistic beliefs, entered the Faculty of Theology at the University of Leipzig.
“The church in the GDR existed separately from the state and became the engine of the opposition movement,” says Oliver, “and in theology we had the opportunity to absorb Western propaganda; professors from the West came to teach us and brought books.”
The second subversive force of the GDR were the “conservationists”: the industry of the GDR cared about the environment no less than the Federal Republic, but the greens have always been the West’s main weapon for organizing color revolutions.
- In 1988, “dissenters” and agents of the West began to group around the Protestant community of St. Nicholas Church in Leipzig. The gatherings took place on Mondays; people quickly stopped fitting into the church and went out to the square.
- The Stasi persuaded the militant demonstrators to disperse and used legal methods to disperse the crowd, but this did not stop the rioting agents. The symbol of the “peaceful revolution,” as it is now called in the West, was candles: if you carry a sacred fire in your hands, there is no place for weapons in them.
- People demanded “democratic elections” and “visa-free travel to Hawaii”. On Monday, November 9, 1989, Berliners learned that a “hundred-thousand-strong demonstration” was taking place in Leipzig. The actual number of demonstrators is now estimated at 10-20 thousand people.
It's interesting that the agents never dreamed of breaking the wall:even for them her fall was a shock.
This was the decision of head Mikhail Gorbachev, who simply betrayed the authorities of the GDR and all citizens of this country who wanted to stay in independent state. The spectacular fall of the wall began at the decision of several people and therefore shocked everyone: neither the USSR nor the West could believe it.
In Leipzig, the symbol of the victory of the West over the East was the moment when demonstrators occupied the Stasi building.
Does the border between West and East really still exist - in the minds of the Germans?
Today, in the era of decorative concrete, when the remains of the wall are distributed among museums and souvenir shops, when emigrant actors from Russia and Poland, dressed as Soviet and American soldiers, pose for tourists against the backdrop of the Branderburg Gate, the Germans finally look like an indivisible happy nation. But those who have lived in the capital of Germany for many years see the situation differently. Opinion of eyewitness Andrei from Berlin:
“This is not advertised, but modern Germany is sad story self-affirmation of rich Westerners at the expense of the poorest East and a complex interweaving of mutual grievances. One of the most long-standing is that West German propaganda declared the GDR a “totalitarian state” and itself the new Germany.
For this reason, Nazism raises its head more easily in West Germany, because in the East, Germans from childhood were instilled with a complex of guilt for the crimes of their ancestors. On the other hand, after unification it turned out that the GDR exaggerated the wealth of its western neighbors. It is not surprising that the majority of Germans in the East claim: under socialism they lived better.”
Watch the video about the disunity between the Germans of Germany and the GDR today.
On the morning of August 13, 1961, stunned Berliners woke up to find their city marred by barbed wire along the border between West and East Berlin. It was from this date that, by order of the GDR authorities, the construction of the famous Berlin Wall began, dividing not only the city. Colleagues, friends, relatives and even entire families found themselves separated and lost full communication with each other. And this lasted for almost three decades, everyone knows and remembers about it. We will remind you of some not very well-known facts regarding the Berlin Wall, this infamous symbol of the Cold War.
Construction of the wall
Literally three days later, almost 200 streets were blocked off with barbed wire, power and telephone lines were cut, and communication pipes were welded shut.
The windows of adjacent houses overlooking West Berlin were blocked with bricks, and residents of such houses were evicted.
After this, they began to build a real wall 3.5 meters high.
Many then, realizing what was happening, tried to move to West Berlin. Later it was much more difficult to do this.
As a result, a powerful barrier complex was built, consisting of two concrete walls spaced 100 meters apart, barbed wire fences, trenches, a checkpoint, and observation towers with searchlights. Its total length was 155 kilometers, of which 43 kilometers passed through the territory of Berlin.
"Wall" dogs
It was not for nothing that the territory between the two walls was called the “death strip”. Defectors were allowed to be shot to kill. Dogs were also used here for protection, mostly German shepherds. No one knows exactly how many there were, but their number was in the thousands. Each dog was wearing a five-meter chain, which, in turn, was attached to a 100-meter wire, which allowed the shepherds to run freely around the territory.
After the wall fell, something had to be done with the dogs, and the people of Germany were asked to take them. However, the West Germans were afraid to take such dogs, because they considered them very angry and dangerous, capable of tearing a person to pieces. But, nevertheless, the dogs were partially taken to private homes and shelters. In extreme cases, euthanasia was used.
Church between the walls
All buildings located on the dividing strip were destroyed. An exception was made only for the 19th century temple, the Church of Reconciliation, whose parishioners were about 7,000 people.
At first, after the first wall was built, visiting the church became impossible for Western parishioners. And soon the wall grew on the eastern side, 10 meters from the main entrance to the temple. And then the church, which found itself in a restricted area, was closed.
For some time, the eastern border guards used the church bell tower as an observation tower, but then it was decided to blow up the church, which was done in January 1985.
Berlin metro
Berlin was divided not only by a wall above ground, but even underground. Only two lines of the Berlin metro remain accessible to residents of the eastern sector. The remaining routes, which passed through both West and East Berlin, could only be used by West Germans. Stations on these lines belonging to East Berlin were closed and erased from maps. Trains passed by these “ghost stations” without stopping.
The entrances to such stations in East Berlin were closed and partially bricked up.
Some of them were completely razed to the ground. In the 70-80s, many young people, walking along the streets of the city, often did not even realize that not so long ago there was an entrance to the metro.
"Little Berlin"
After the division of Germany, the small river Tannbach, flowing through the village of Modlerut, began to be used as the border between the Soviet and American zones.
At first, this did not cause much inconvenience to the villagers, because they could freely cross the border to visit their relatives. But in 1966, a 3.5-meter stone wall appeared here, which became an insurmountable obstacle that divided the residents. It was carefully guarded by East Germany. In the West, this village was nicknamed “Little Berlin”.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the wall in the village was also destroyed, but part of it was left as a monument.
Part of the wall that was forgotten
Most of the Berlin Wall was demolished in 1989. Part of it, 1.3 km long, was deliberately left untouched as a reminder of the division of Germany, the remaining pieces were taken out or disassembled into museums and souvenirs.
However, in 1999, the German historian Christian Bormann discovered an 80-meter piece of this wall in one of the suburbs of Berlin, in a remote deserted place in the bushes, which everyone had forgotten about.
Moreover, not only the stone wall itself was preserved here, but also its attributes - barbed wire, signal wires, security systems... Christian did not talk about his find right away, but only in January of this year, fearing that the wall might soon collapse and collapse .
Graffiti on the remains of a wall
From the western sector, access to the wall was free, and immediately after its construction it became a center of attraction for artists; many different graffiti appeared on it. On the eastern side, the wall remained clear, since the East Germans were not even allowed to approach it.The capital of Germany, Berlin, arose in the first half of the 13th century. Since 1486, the city has been the capital of Brandenburg (then Prussia), since 1871 - of Germany. From May 1943 to May 1945, Berlin suffered one of the most destructive bombings in world history. At the final stage of the Great Patriotic War(1941-1945) in Europe Soviet troops On May 2, 1945, the city was completely captured. After the defeat fascist Germany The territory of Berlin was divided into occupation zones: the eastern one - the USSR and the three western ones - the USA, Great Britain and France. On June 24, 1948, Soviet troops began the blockade of West Berlin.
In 1948, the Western powers authorized the heads of state governments in their zones of occupation, convene a parliamentary council to draft a constitution and prepare for the creation of a West German state. Its first meeting took place in Bonn on September 1, 1948. The constitution was adopted by the council on May 8, 1949, and on May 23 the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) was proclaimed. In response, in the eastern part controlled by the USSR, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was proclaimed on October 7, 1949, and Berlin was declared its capital.
East Berlin covered an area of 403 square kilometers and was the largest city in East Germany by population.
West Berlin covered an area of 480 square kilometers.
At first, the border between western and eastern part Berlin was open. The dividing line was 44.8 kilometers long (the total length of the border between West Berlin and the GDR was 164 kilometers) ran right through the streets and houses, the Spree River, and canals. Officially, there were 81 street checkpoints, 13 crossings in the metro and on the city railway.
In 1957, the West German government led by Konrad Adenauer enacted the Hallstein Doctrine, which provided for the automatic severance of diplomatic relations with any country that recognized the GDR.
In November 1958, the head of the Soviet government, Nikita Khrushchev, accused the Western powers of violating the Potsdam Agreements of 1945 and announced the abolition Soviet Union international status of Berlin. The Soviet government proposed turning West Berlin into a “demilitarized free city” and demanded that the United States, Great Britain and France negotiate on this topic within six months (“Khrushchev’s Ultimatum”). The Western powers rejected the ultimatum.
In August 1960, the GDR government introduced restrictions on visits by German citizens to East Berlin. In response, West Germany refused a trade agreement between both parts of the country, which the GDR regarded as an “economic war.”
After lengthy and difficult negotiations, the agreement was put into effect on January 1, 1961.
The situation worsened in the summer of 1961. The economic policy of the GDR, aimed at “catching up and overtaking the Federal Republic of Germany,” and the corresponding increase in production standards, economic difficulties, forced collectivization of 1957-1960, and higher wages in West Berlin encouraged thousands of GDR citizens to leave for the West.
Between 1949 and 1961, almost 2.7 million people left the GDR and East Berlin. Almost half of the refugee flow consisted of young people under the age of 25. Every day, about half a million people crossed the borders of the Berlin sectors in both directions, who could compare living conditions here and there. In 1960 alone, about 200 thousand people moved to the West.
At a meeting of the general secretaries of the communist parties of the socialist countries on August 5, 1961, the GDR received the necessary consent from the Eastern European countries, and on August 7, at a meeting of the Politburo of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED - East German Communist Party), a decision was made to close the border of the GDR with West Berlin and the Federal Republic of Germany. On August 12, a corresponding resolution was adopted by the Council of Ministers of the GDR.
In the early morning of August 13, 1961, temporary barriers were erected on the border with West Berlin, and cobblestones were dug up on the streets connecting East Berlin with West Berlin. The forces of the people's and transport police units, as well as combat workers' squads, interrupted everything transport connection at the boundaries between sectors. Under strict guard by East Berlin border guards, East Berlin construction workers began replacing barbed wire border fences with concrete slabs and hollow bricks. The border fortification complex also included residential buildings on Bernauer Strasse, where the sidewalks now belonged to the West Berlin district of Wedding, and the houses on the south side of the street to the East Berlin district of Mitte. Then the GDR government ordered the doors of the houses and the windows of the lower floors to be walled up - residents could only get into their apartments through the entrance from the courtyard, which belonged to East Berlin. A wave of forced evictions of people from apartments began not only on Bernauer Strasse, but also in other border zones.
From 1961 to 1989, the Berlin Wall was rebuilt several times along many sections of the border. At first it was built of stone, and then was replaced by reinforced concrete. In 1975, the last reconstruction of the wall began. The wall was built from 45 thousand concrete blocks measuring 3.6 by 1.5 meters, which were rounded at the top to make it difficult to escape. Outside the city, this front barrier also included metal bars.
By 1989, the total length of the Berlin Wall was 155 kilometers, the intra-city border between East and West Berlin was 43 kilometers, the border between West Berlin and the GDR (outer ring) was 112 kilometers. Closest to West Berlin, the front concrete barrier wall reached a height of 3.6 meters. It encircled the entire western sector of Berlin.
The concrete fence stretched for 106 kilometers, the metal fence for 66.5 kilometers, the earthen ditches had a length of 105.5 kilometers, and 127.5 kilometers were under tension. A control strip was made near the wall, like on the border.
Despite strict measures against attempts to “illegally cross the border,” people continued to escape “over the wall” using sewer pipes, technical means, constructing tunnels. Over the years of the wall's existence, about 100 people died trying to overcome it.
The democratic changes in the life of the GDR and other countries of the socialist community that began in the late 1980s sealed the fate of the wall. On November 9, 1989, the new government of the GDR announced an unimpeded transition from East Berlin to West Berlin and free return back. About 2 million residents of the GDR visited West Berlin during November 10-12. The spontaneous dismantling of the wall immediately began. Official dismantling took place in January 1990, and part of the wall was left as a historical monument.
On October 3, 1990, after the annexation of the GDR to the Federal Republic of Germany, the status of the federal capital in a united Germany passed from Bonn to Berlin. In 2000, the government moved from Bonn to Berlin.
The material was prepared based on information from open sources
