essay on the berlin wall

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When did the Berlin Wall fall?

What was the “death strip”.

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Why was the Berlin Wall built?

The Berlin Wall was built by the German Democratic Republic during the Cold War to prevent its population from escaping Soviet -controlled East Berlin to West Berlin , which was controlled by the major Western Allies. It divided the city of Berlin into two physically and ideologically contrasting zones.

The border between East and West Germany was opened on November 9, 1989, following anti-government protests in East Germany and the democratization of other eastern and central European states. Sections of the Berlin Wall were subsequently torn down by East German border guard crews and residents of a reunified Berlin.

The “death strip” was the belt of sand- or gravel-covered land between the two main barriers of the Berlin Wall. It was constantly under surveillance by guards in watchtowers, who could shoot anyone they saw trying to escape. Fleeing citizens who initially avoided being detected or shot could be tracked down by following their footprints in the death strip.

Does the Berlin Wall still exist?

Segments of the Berlin Wall still exist in modern Berlin, notably on display at the Topography of Terror museum, the Berlin Wall Memorial, and the East Side Gallery. Pieces and whole segments of the wall are also on display in museums all over the world.

How tall was the Berlin Wall?

The Berlin Wall was actually a system of barriers that included two walls. In the system’s final form, the outer wall, called the Vorderlandmauer, was 11.5–13 feet (3.5–4 metres) tall, and the inner wall, the Hinterlandmauer, was 6.5–10 feet (2–3 metres) tall.

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Berlin Wall , barrier that surrounded West Berlin and prevented access to it from East Berlin and adjacent areas of East Germany during the period from 1961 to 1989. In the years between 1949 and 1961, about 2.5 million East Germans had fled from East to West Germany , including steadily rising numbers of skilled workers, professionals, and intellectuals . Their loss threatened to destroy the economic viability of the East German state. In response, East Germany built a barrier to close off East Germans’ access to West Berlin and hence West Germany. That barrier, the Berlin Wall, was first erected on the night of August 12–13, 1961, as the result of a decree passed on August 12 by the East German Volkskammer (“Peoples’ Chamber”). The original wall, built of barbed wire and cinder blocks, was subsequently replaced by a series of concrete walls (up to 15 feet [5 metres] high) that were topped with barbed wire and guarded with watchtowers, gun emplacements, and mines. By the 1980s that system of walls, electrified fences, and fortifications extended 28 miles (45 km) through Berlin, dividing the two parts of the city, and extended a further 75 miles (120 km) around West Berlin, separating it from the rest of East Germany.

The Berlin Wall came to symbolize the Cold War ’s division of East from West Germany and of eastern from western Europe. About 5,000 East Germans managed to cross the Berlin Wall (by various means) and reach West Berlin safely, while another 5,000 were captured by East German authorities in the attempt and 191 more were killed during the actual crossing of the wall.

East Germany’s hard-line communist leadership was forced from power in October 1989 during the wave of democratization that swept through eastern Europe. On November 9 the East German government opened the country’s borders with West Germany (including West Berlin), and openings were made in the Berlin Wall through which East Germans could travel freely to the West. The wall henceforth ceased to function as a political barrier between East and West Germany.

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The History of Berlin Wall

• Categories: Berlin Germany

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Published: Sep 20, 2018

Words: 1569 | Pages: 3 | 8 min read

Table of contents

Berlin wall essay outline, berlin wall essay example, introduction.

• The significance of the Berlin Wall in dividing East and West Berlin
• The political context of the Allies and Soviets in post-World War II Berlin

The Berlin Wall's Construction and Purpose

• Nikita Khrushchev and Walter Ulbricht's decision to build the Berlin Wall
• The role of the Berlin Wall in preventing East Berliners from fleeing to the West
• Efforts to retain essential workers in East Berlin

The Challenges of Crossing the Berlin Wall

• Description of the physical barriers, including the "Death Strip"
• The desperation of East Berliners and creative methods used to cross
• The impact on families and professional lives due to the wall

The Fall of the Berlin Wall

• Schabowski's announcement and its consequences
• The destruction of the wall by the people
• The broader implications of the Berlin Wall's fall, including the end of the Cold War and reunification of Germany

Consequences and Legacy

• The lasting impact of the Berlin Wall on the people of Berlin
• The role of the wall in shaping the city's landscape
• Reflections on the significance of both the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall

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The Berlin Wall: A Historian‘s Perspective on Its Purpose and Impact

• by history tools
• May 26, 2024

Introduction

The Berlin Wall, a symbol of the Cold War and the division of Germany, stood as a stark reminder of the ideological differences that shaped the latter half of the 20th century. Constructed overnight on August 13, 1961, the wall‘s primary purpose was to stem the tide of East Germans fleeing to the West in search of a better life. In this blog post, we‘ll delve into the historical context and reasons behind the construction of the Berlin Wall, as well as its impact on the city and its people, from a historian‘s perspective.

Historical Context: The Division of Germany and Berlin

The division of Germany and Berlin can be traced back to the aftermath of World War II. At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, the Allied powers (the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union) agreed to divide Germany into occupation zones following its surrender. The subsequent Potsdam Conference in July-August 1945 further solidified these plans, with Berlin, located within the Soviet zone, also divided into four sectors.

As tensions between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union escalated, the differences in their political and economic ideologies became increasingly apparent. In 1948, the Soviet Union imposed a blockade on West Berlin, cutting off all land and water routes to the city. The Western Allies responded with the Berlin Airlift, supplying the city with food and supplies by air for nearly a year until the blockade was lifted in May 1949.

The division of Germany was formalized in 1949 with the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) in the Western-controlled zones and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) in the Soviet zone. The formation of NATO in 1949 and the Warsaw Pact in 1955 further entrenched the Cold War divide between the capitalist West and the communist East.

Life in East and West Germany: A Stark Contrast

The differences in living conditions and political systems between East and West Germany were stark. West Germany experienced rapid economic growth, known as the "Wirtschaftswunder" (economic miracle), thanks to the Marshall Plan and its adoption of a social market economy. Citizens enjoyed a higher standard of living, political freedom, and access to consumer goods.

In contrast, East Germany struggled with a centrally planned economy, resulting in lower productivity, shortages of goods, and a lower quality of life for its citizens. The GDR government maintained strict control over society, employing a vast network of informants (the Stasi) to monitor and suppress political dissent. East Germans faced travel restrictions, limited access to information, and political repression.

These disparities led to a growing number of East Germans fleeing to the West. Between 1949 and 1961, an estimated 3.5 million people, or roughly 20% of the East German population, had left the GDR, with many of them being young, educated, and skilled workers [1]. This brain drain had a significant impact on the East German economy, costing an estimated 22.5 billion Deutsche Marks (equivalent to $6.3 billion in 1961) [2].

The Berlin Crisis and the Construction of the Wall

The ongoing exodus of East Germans through Berlin, which remained the easiest crossing point between East and West, led to a series of events known as the Berlin Crisis of 1961. On June 4, 1961, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev issued an ultimatum to the Western powers, demanding the withdrawal of all armed forces from Berlin within six months and the establishment of a "free city" of West Berlin. Failure to comply, he warned, would result in the Soviet Union signing a separate peace treaty with East Germany and handing over control of access routes to Berlin to the GDR.

U.S. President John F. Kennedy, who had taken office just months earlier, met with Khrushchev in Vienna on June 3-4, 1961. During these tense discussions, Kennedy made it clear that the U.S. would defend West Berlin and its access routes, but he also expressed a willingness to compromise on issues such as the recognition of East Germany and the presence of Western troops in West Berlin. Khrushchev, interpreting Kennedy‘s stance as a sign of weakness, increased pressure on the city in the following weeks [3].

Meanwhile, the East German government, led by Walter Ulbricht, had been planning to seal off the border between East and West Berlin. On August 12, 1961, Ulbricht signed an order to close the border and begin constructing the wall. That night, in an operation codenamed "Rose," East German soldiers and police began erecting barbed wire fences and barriers along the border. Within days, construction of a more permanent concrete wall began, complete with guard towers, landmines, and orders to shoot anyone attempting to escape [4].

The international community reacted with shock and condemnation to the wall‘s construction. U.S. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson visited West Berlin on August 19, 1961, and declared, "We have a solemn obligation to defend this city. The commitment of the United States to the freedom of West Berlin is unshakable" [5]. Despite these strong words, the Western powers ultimately accepted the wall‘s presence, focusing instead on maintaining their access rights to West Berlin.

The Impact and Legacy of the Berlin Wall

The Berlin Wall had a profound impact on the city and its residents. Families and friends were separated, and East Berliners were cut off from the economic opportunities and freedoms of the West. The wall also became a flashpoint for Cold War tensions, with U.S. and Soviet tanks famously facing off at Checkpoint Charlie in October 1961.

Despite the wall‘s formidable presence, many East Germans still attempted to escape. Between 1961 and 1989, an estimated 5,000 people successfully defected, while at least 140 people lost their lives trying to cross the border [6]. The most famous casualty was 18-year-old Peter Fechter, who was shot and left to bleed to death in the "death strip" on August 17, 1962, in full view of Western media and onlookers.

The Berlin Wall remained a symbol of oppression and division until November 9, 1989, when, amid growing protests and a rapidly changing political landscape in Eastern Europe, the East German government announced that citizens could freely travel to the West. Thousands of jubilant East and West Berliners gathered at the wall, chipping away at the concrete with hammers and chisels in a powerful display of unity and the triumph of freedom over tyranny.

The fall of the Berlin Wall paved the way for German reunification, which was formally achieved on October 3, 1990. The reunified Germany has since become a leader in the European Union and a symbol of the continent‘s post-Cold War integration and prosperity.

The Berlin Wall, built to prevent the mass emigration of East Germans to the West and to protect the GDR‘s faltering economy, stood as a powerful symbol of the Cold War divide for nearly three decades. Its construction had a profound impact on the lives of Berliners and served as a stark reminder of the ideological differences that shaped the post-World War II era.

From a historian‘s perspective, the Berlin Wall represents not only the physical division of a city and a nation but also the human cost of political ideology and the struggle for freedom and self-determination. Its legacy serves as a reminder of the importance of unity, cooperation, and the ongoing fight against oppression and division in all its forms.

As we reflect on the history of the Berlin Wall and its impact on the world, we must strive to learn from the past and work towards a future where the ideals of freedom, democracy, and human rights are upheld and protected for all.

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The Cold War

The berlin wall.

In the early hours of August 13th 1961, the government of East Germany ordered the closure of all borders between East and West Berlin. As the sun rose, Berliners were awoken by the sound of trucks, jackhammers and other heavy machinery. Watched by Soviet troops and East German police, workmen began breaking up roads, footpaths and other structures, before laying thousands of metres of temporary but impassable fencing, barricades and barbed wire. They worked for several days, completely surrounding the western zones of Berlin and cutting them off from the city’s eastern sectors. Within three days, almost 200 kilometres of fence line and barbed wire had been erected. The East German government’s official name for the new structure was Die anti-Faschistischer Schutzwall , or the ‘Anti-fascist Protective Wall’. It became known more simply as the Berlin Wall. According to East Germany, the Berlin Wall was erected to keep out Western spies and stop West German profiteers buying up state-subsidised East German goods. In reality, the wall was erected to stop the exodus of skilled labourers and technicians from East to West Berlin.

The erection of the Berlin Wall made headlines around the world. For the Western powers, it was not entirely unexpected. The United States and West Germany immediately went on high alert, in case the events in Berlin were a prelude to a Soviet-backed invasion of the city’s western zones. Six days later, US president John F. Kennedy ordered American reinforcements into West Berlin. More than 1,500 soldiers were transported into the city along East German autobahns (unlike in the Berlin Blockade , access to West Berlin through East German territory was not blocked). To prepare for another Soviet blockade, Kennedy also ordered a contingent of US cargo planes to be sent to West Germany. Some experts considered the Berlin Wall an act of aggression against Berliners in both zones and demanded strong action. Kennedy was more sanguine, suggesting that a wall “is a hell of a lot better than a war”.

As weeks passed, the Berlin Wall became stronger and more sophisticated – and also more deadly. By June 1962, the East Germans had erected a second line of fencing, approximately 100 metres inside the first wall. The area between both fences was called ‘no man’s land’ or the ‘death strip’: under East German regulations, any unauthorised person observed there could be shot without warning. Houses within the ‘death strip’ were seized by the East German government, destroyed and levelled. The area was floodlit and covered with fine gravel that revealed footprints, which prevented people from sneaking across unnoticed. Structures that overhung the ‘death strip’, like balconies or trees, were booby-trapped with nails, spikes or barbed wire. In 1965, following several escape attempts where cars or trucks were used to punch through the fenceline, many sections of the barrier were replaced with pre-fabricated sections of concrete. This 3.4-metre high concrete barrier became the Berlin Wall’s most

Needless to say, crossing the border between the two Berlins became even more restrictive. Prior to the late 1950s, it had been comparatively easy for West Berliners to visit relatives in eastern sectors, using a day pass issued by East German authorities. Travelling in the other direction was more difficult. East Berliners wanting to cross the city had to show a government permit, and these were difficult to obtain. Elderly East Berliners found these permits easier to obtain because their potential defection was not detrimental to East Germany’s economy. Those with business ties or immediate family in the West could be granted permits – though these permits were often denied or revoked without reason. Permit-holders could cross the Berlin Wall at several points, the best known of which was ‘Checkpoint Charlie’ in Friedrichstrasse.

There were, of course, many attempts to cross the wall illegally. Some tried climbing, scampering or abseiling over the wall – however, the fortifications, barbed wire and armed Grepo (border police) made this a dangerous activity. Ramming through the wall or checkpoints in vehicles was a common tactic in the early years of the wall. This tactic was nullified when the East Germans rebuilt all roads approaching the wall as narrow zig-zags, preventing vehicles from accelerating. Others tried tunnelling under the wall or flying over it, using makeshift hot-air balloons, with varying levels of success. Around 230 people died attempting to cross the Berlin Wall. In 1962 Peter Fechter, an 18-year-old East German factory worker, was shot in the hip by a border patrol. Fechter bled to death in the ‘death strip’ while helpless onlookers on both sides watched impotently. Siegfried Noffke, who had been separated from his wife and daughter by the wall, dug a tunnel underneath it, only to be captured and machine-gunned by Stasi agents.

The Berlin Wall became a stark and foreboding symbol of the Cold War. In the West, its presence was exploited as propaganda: the Berlin Wall was evidence that East Germany was a failing state, that thousands of its people did not want to live under communism. US secretary of state Dean Rusk called the Wall “a monument to communist failure” while West German mayor Willy Brandt called it “the wall of shame”. In Washington, there was considerable debate about how the US should respond to the erection of the Berlin Wall. Ever the realist, President Kennedy knew that threats or shows of aggression might provoke confrontation or war. He instead focused his attention on West Berlin, hailing it as a small but determined bastion of freedom, locked inside an imprisoned state. Kennedy visited West Berlin in June 1963 and was greeted by ecstatic crowds, which cheered wildly and showered his motorcade with flowers and confetti. In the Rudolph Wilde Platz (later renamed the John F. Kennedy Platz), the US president told a rapt audience:

“There are many people in the world who really don’t understand, or say they don’t, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin. There are some who say that communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin. And there are some who say in Europe and elsewhere we can work with the Communists. Let them come to Berlin. And there are even a few who say that it is true that communism is an evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress. ‘Lass sie nach Berlin kommen’: let them come to Berlin… Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all men are not free… All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words: ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ (I am a citizen of Berlin).”

The Berlin Wall stood in place for almost 30 years. It remained the most tangible evidence of the Cold War and Iron Curtain separating the Soviet bloc from the West. Western leaders often referred to it as a symbol of Soviet repression. US president Ronald Reagan visited West Berlin in June 1987 and urged his Soviet counterpart, Mikhail Gorbachev , to “ tear down this wall “. It was the people of Berlin themselves who tore it down , during a public demonstration in November 1989.

1. The Berlin Wall was erected by the East German government in 1961. It was constructed to halt the exodus of people, particularly skilled workers, from communist East Berlin.

2. Construction of the Berlin Wall began before dawn on August 13th 1961. Borders were initially closed with fences and barbed wire, then later fortified with large concrete walls

3. The West condemned the Berlin Wall and exploited it as anti-communist propaganda. The wall was evidence, they said, that Soviet communism was failing and East Germany was now a prison state.

4. Over time, the Berlin Wall was heavily fortified, booby-trapped and policed by armed guards. Despite this, many Berliners tried to cross it, and around 230 were killed in the process.

5. The Berlin Wall would stand for almost three decades as a tangible sign of the Iron Curtain and the divisions between the Soviet bloc and the democratic West. The political changes of the late 1980s, the weakening of the East German government and a popular uprising led to the Berlin Wall being torn down in November 1989.

Walter Ulbricht and Nikita Khrushchev discuss closing the Berlin border (August 1961) The Allies protest the closure of borders in Berlin and the Soviets respond (August 1961) Walter Ulbricht to Nikita Khrushchev on outcomes of erecting the Berlin Wall (September 1961) John F. Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech (June 1963) The United States and the Soviet Union exchange diplomatic cables on the Berlin Wall (August 1963) Ronald Reagan: “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” (June 1987) A radio address by Ronald Reagan on the Berlin Wall (August 1987)

Content on this page is © Alpha History 2018. This content may not be republished or distributed without permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use . This page was written by Jennifer Llewellyn, Jim Southey and Steve Thompson. To reference this page, use the following citation: J. Llewellyn et al, “The Berlin Wall”, Alpha History, accessed [today’s date], https://alphahistory.com/coldwar/berlin-wall/.

The Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall

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A Divided Germany and Berlin

Economic differences.

• Mass Emigration From the East

What to Do About West Berlin

The berlin wall goes up, berlin wall size and scope, berlin wall checkpoints, escape attempts and the death line.

• The Berlin Wall's 50th Victim

Communism Dismantled

The fall of the berlin wall.

• B.A., History, University of California at Davis

Erected in the dead of night on August 13, 1961, the Berlin Wall (known as Berliner Mauer in German) was a physical barrier between West Berlin and East Germany that kept disaffected East Germans from fleeing to the West.

When the Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989, its destruction was nearly as instantaneous as its creation. For 28 years, the Berlin Wall had been a symbol of the Cold War and the Iron Curtain between Soviet-led Communism and the democracies of the West. The Berlin Wall's fall was celebrated around the world.

At the end of World War II , the Allied powers divided conquered Germany into four zones. As agreed at the July 1945 Potsdam Conference , each was occupied by either the United States, Great Britain, France, or the Soviet Union . The same was done in Germany's capital city, Berlin. 

The relationship between the Soviet Union and the other Allied powers quickly disintegrated. As a result, the cooperative atmosphere of the occupation of Germany turned competitive and aggressive. One of the best-known incidents was the Berlin Blockade in June 1948 during which the Soviet Union stopped all supplies from reaching West Berlin .

Although an eventual reunification of Germany had been intended, the new relationship between the Allied powers turned Germany into West versus East and democracy versus Communism .

In 1949, this new organization of Germany became official when the three zones occupied by the United States, Great Britain , and France combined to form West Germany (the Federal Republic of Germany, or FRG). The zone occupied by the Soviet Union quickly followed by forming East Germany (the German Democratic Republic, or GDR).

This same division into West and East occurred in Berlin . Since the city of Berlin had been situated entirely within the Soviet Zone of Occupation, West Berlin became an island of democracy within Communist East Germany .

Living conditions in West Germany and East Germany became distinctly different shortly after the war.

With the help and support of its occupying powers, West Germany set up a capitalist society . The economy experienced such rapid growth that it became known as the "economic miracle." With hard work, individuals living in West Germany lived well, bought gadgets and appliances, and traveled as they wished.

Nearly the opposite was true in East Germany. The Soviet Union had viewed their zone as a spoil of war. They pilfered factory equipment and other valuable assets from their zone and shipped them back to the Soviet Union.

When East Germany became its own country in 1949, it was under the direct influence of the Soviet Union, and a Communist society was established. The economy of East Germany dragged and individual freedoms were severely restricted.

Mass Emigration From the East

Outside of Berlin, East Germany had been fortified in 1952. By the late 1950s, many people living in East Germany wanted out. No longer able to stand the repressive living conditions, they decided to head to West Berlin. Although some would be stopped on their way, hundreds of thousands made it across the border.

Once across, these refugees were housed in warehouses and then flown to West Germany. Many of those who escaped were young, trained professionals. By the early 1960s, East Germany was rapidly losing its labor force and population .

Scholars estimate that between 1949 and 1961, nearly 3 million of the GDR's 18 million populace fled East Germany. The government was desperate to stop this mass exodus, and the obvious leak was the easy access East Germans had to West Berlin.

With support from the Soviet Union, several attempts were made to take over the city of West Berlin. Although the Soviet Union even threatened the United States with the use of nuclear weapons over this issue, the U.S. and other Western countries were committed to defending West Berlin.

Desperate to keep its citizens, East Germany knew something needed to be done. Famously, two months before the Berlin Wall appeared, Walter Ulbricht, Head of the State Council of the GDR (1960–1973) said, " Niemand hat die Absicht, eine Mauer zu errichten," which translates to, "No one intends to build a wall."

After this statement, the exodus of East Germans only increased. Over the next two months of 1961, nearly 20,000 people fled to the West.

Rumors spread that something might happen to tighten the border along East and West Berlin. No one was expecting the speed—nor the absoluteness—of the Berlin Wall.

Just after midnight on August 12–13, 1961, trucks with soldiers and construction workers rumbled through East Berlin. While most Berliners were sleeping, these crews began tearing up streets that entered West Berlin. They dug holes for concrete posts and strung barbed wire across the border. Telephone wires between East and West Berlin were also cut and railroad lines were blocked.

Berliners were shocked when they woke up that morning. What had once been a fluid border was now rigid. No longer could East Berliners cross the border for operas , plays, soccer games , or any other activity. Around 50,000 to 70,000 East Berlin commuters could no longer head to West Berlin for well-paying jobs. Families and friends could no longer cross the border to meet loved ones. 

Whichever side of the border one went to sleep during the night of August 12, they were stuck on that side for decades.

The total length of the Berlin Wall was 96 miles (155 kilometers). It cut not only through the center of Berlin but also wrapped around West Berlin, entirely cutting it off from the rest of East Germany.

The wall itself went through four major transformations during its 28-year history. It started as a barbed-wire fence with concrete posts. On August 15 it was quickly replaced with a sturdier, more permanent structure made of concrete blocks and topped with barbed wire. The first two versions of the wall were replaced by a third version in 1965 consisting of concrete supported by steel girders.

The fourth version of the Berlin Wall, constructed from 1975 to 1980, was the most complicated and thorough. It consisted of concrete slabs reaching nearly 12 feet high (3.6 meters) and 4 feet wide (1.2 m). It also had a smooth pipe across the top to hinder anyone from scaling it.

When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, a 300-foot No Man's Land was along the exterior with an additional inner wall. Soldiers patrolled with dogs and a raked ground revealed any footprints. The East Germans also installed anti-vehicle trenches, electric fences, massive light systems, 302 watchtowers, 20 bunkers, and even minefields.

Over the years, propaganda from the East German government would say that the people of East Germany welcomed the Wall. In reality, the oppression they suffered and the potential consequences they faced kept many from speaking out to the contrary.

Although most of the border between East and West consisted of layers of preventative measures, there were little more than a handful of official openings along the Berlin Wall. These checkpoints were for the infrequent use of officials and others with special permission to cross the border.

The most famous was Checkpoint Charlie , located between East and West Berlin at Friedrichstrasse. Checkpoint Charlie was the main access point for Allied personnel and Westerners to cross the border. Soon after the Berlin Wall was built, Checkpoint Charlie became an icon of the Cold War , frequently featured in movies and books.

The Berlin Wall prevented the majority of East Germans from emigrating to the West, but it did not deter everyone. During the history of the Berlin Wall, it is estimated that about 5,000 people made it safely across.

Some early attempts were simple, like throwing a rope over the Berlin Wall and climbing. Others were brash, like ramming a truck or bus into the Berlin Wall and making a run for it. Still, others were suicidal as some people jumped from the upper-story windows of apartment buildings that bordered the Berlin Wall. 

In September 1961, the windows of these buildings were boarded up and the sewers connecting East and West were shut off. Other buildings were torn down to clear space for what would become known as the Todeslinie , the "Death Line" or "Death Strip." This open area allowed a direct line of fire so East German soldiers could carry out  Shiessbefehl , a 1960 order that they were to shoot anyone trying to escape. At least 12 were killed within the first year.

As the Berlin Wall grew stronger and larger, escape attempts became more elaborately planned. Some people dug tunnels from the basements of buildings in East Berlin, under the Berlin Wall, and into West Berlin. Another group saved scraps of cloth and built a hot air balloon to fly over the Wall.

Unfortunately, not all escape attempts were successful. Since the East German guards were allowed to shoot anyone nearing the eastern side without warning, there was always a chance of death in any and all escape plots. At least 140 people died at the Berlin Wall.

The Berlin Wall's 50th Victim

One of the most infamous cases of a failed attempt occurred on August 17, 1962. In the early afternoon, two 18-year-old men ran toward the Wall to scale it. The first of the young men to reach it was successful. The second, Peter Fechter, was not.

As he was about to scale the Wall, a border guard opened fire. Fechter continued to climb but ran out of energy just as he reached the top. He then tumbled back onto the East German side. To the shock of the world, Fechter was left there. The East German guards did not shoot him again nor did they go to his aid.

Fechter shouted in agony for nearly an hour. Once he bled to death, East German guards carried off his body. He became a permanent symbol of the struggle for freedom.

The fall of the Berlin Wall happened nearly as suddenly as its rise. There had been signs that the Communist bloc was weakening, but the East German Communist leaders insisted that East Germany needed a moderate change rather than a drastic revolution. East German citizens did not agree.

Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev (1985–1991) was attempting to save his country and decided to break off from many of its satellites. As Communism began to falter in Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia in 1988 and 1989, new exodus points were opened to East Germans who wanted to flee to the West. 

In East Germany, protests against the government were countered by threats of violence from its leader, Erich Honecker (1971–1989). In October 1989, Honecker was forced to resign after losing support from Gorbachev. He was replaced by Egon Krenz who decided that violence would not solve the country's problems. Krenz also loosened travel restrictions from East Germany.

Suddenly, on the evening of November 9, 1989, East German government official Günter Schabowski blundered by stating in an announcement, "Permanent relocations can be done through all border checkpoints between the GDR [East Germany] into the FRG [West Germany] or West Berlin."

People were in shock. Were the borders really open? East Germans tentatively approached the border and found border guards were letting people cross.

Very quickly, the Berlin Wall was inundated with people from both sides. Some began chipping at the Berlin Wall with hammers and chisels. There was an impromptu and massive celebration along the Berlin Wall, with people hugging, kissing, singing, cheering, and crying.

The Berlin Wall was eventually chipped away into smaller pieces (some the size of a coin and others in big slabs). The pieces have become collectibles and are stored in homes and museums. There is also now a Berlin Wall Memorial at the site on Bernauer Strasse.

After the Berlin Wall fell, East and West Germany reunified into a single German state on October 3, 1990.

Harrison, Hope M. Driving the Soviets up the Wall: Soviet-East German Relations, 1953-1961 . Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011. 

Major, Patrick. “ Walled In: Ordinary East Germans' Responses to 13 August 1961 .” German Politics & Society, vol. 29, no. 2, 2011, pp. 8–22. 

Friedman, Peter. " I was a Reverse Commuter Across the Berlin Wall ." The Wall Street Journal , 8 Nov. 2019.

" Berlin Wall: Facts & Figures ." National Cold War Exhibition , Royal Air Force Museum. 

Rottman, Gordon L. The Berlin Wall and the Intra-German Border 1961–89 . Bloomsbury, 2012. 

" The Wall ." Mauer Museum: Haus am Checkpoint Charlie. 

Hertle, Hans-Hermann and Maria Nooke (eds.). The Victims at the Berlin Wall, 1961–1989. A Biographical Handbook . Berlin: Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam and Stiftung Berliner Mauer, Aug. 2017.

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West Germans scale the Berlin Wall before East German guards as the Cold War barrier came down in November 1989.

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Why the Berlin Wall rose—and how it fell

The ugly symbol of the Cold War was built to keep East Germans from escaping to the West. A decades-long fight to flee brought it down.

For nearly 30 years, Berlin was divided not just by ideology, but by a concrete barrier that snaked through the city, serving as an ugly symbol of the Cold War. Erected in haste and torn down in protest, the Berlin Wall was almost 27 miles long and was protected with barbed wire, attack dogs, and 55,000 landmines. But though the wall stood between 1961 and 1989, it could not survive a massive democratic movement that ended up bringing down the the socialist German Democratic Republic (GDR) and spurring on the Cold War’s end .

The wall had its origins in the end of World War II, when Germany was carved into four pieces and occupied by Allied powers. Although Berlin was located about 90 miles east from the border between the GDR and West Germany and completely surrounded by the Soviet sector, the city was also originally divided into four quarters, but by 1947 was consolidated into east and west zones .

In 1949, the two new Germanies were officially founded. Socialist East Germany was wracked by poverty and convulsed by labor strikes in response to its new political and economic systems. The brain drain and worker shortage that resulted prompted the GDR to close its border with West Germany in 1952, making it much harder for people to cross from “Communist” to “free” Europe. ( Revisit National Geographic' s reporting from West Berlin before the wall fell. )

East Germans began fleeing through the more permeable border between East and West Berlin instead. At one point, 1,700 people a day sought refugee status by crossing from East to West Berlin, and about 3 million GDR citizens went to West Germany through the via West Berlin between 1949 and 1961.

In the wee hours of August 13, 1961, as Berliners slept, the GDR began building fences and barriers to seal off entry points from East Berlin into the western part of the city. The overnight move stunned Germans on both sides of the new border. As GDR soldiers patrolled the demarcation line and laborers began constructing a concrete wall, diplomatic officials and the militaries of both sides engaged in a series of tense standoffs .

The Berlin Wall stretched for almost 27 miles across the city and employed landmines, dogs, and barbed wire to discourage escape attempts. Still, over 5,000 people managed to reach western Europe.

Eventually, East Germany erected 27 miles of concrete wall through the city. The Wall was actually two parallel walls punctuated with guard towers and separated by the “death strip,” which included guard dog runs, landmines, barbed wire, and various obstacles designed to prevent escape. East German soldiers monitored the barriers 24/7, conducted surveillance on West Berlin, and had shoot-to-kill orders should they spot an escapee.

People did try to escape. Initially, they fled from houses right along the Wall; later, those houses were emptied and turned into fortifications for the Wall itself. Others plotted riskier escapes through tunnels, on hot air balloons, and even via train . Between 1961 and 1989, over 5,000 people made successful escapes. Others were not so lucky; at least 140 were killed or died while trying to cross the Wall.

Over the years, the Wall became a grim symbol of the Cold War. By 1989, many East Germans had had enough. They staged a series of mass demonstrations demanding democracy. Meanwhile, the Soviet bloc was destabilized by economic woes and political reforms. ( Meet the forgotten 'wolf children' of World War II. )

Businessman Alfine Fuad shows how he smuggled his family out of East Berlin through Checkpoint Charlie in 1976.

On the night of November 9, 1989, East Berlin party official Günter Schabowski announced upcoming travel reforms in response to the protests, but botched the message so badly it sounded as if the GDR had in fact opened its borders. Thousands of East Berliners flooded toward border crossings along the Wall, where confused guards eventually opened the gates.

As East Berliners pushed through, tens of thousands of West Berliners met them in a massive outpouring of emotion and celebration. As they celebrated with champagne, music, and tears, Berliners began to literally tear down the wall with sledgehammers and chisels. Less than a month later, the GDR collapsed entirely, and in 1990, Germany reunified.

The Soviet Union followed suit, and today the fall of the Berlin Wall is seen as a symbol of the end of the Cold War. Today, a double row of cobblestones marks the place where the wall once stood.

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The Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall         

November 1, 2019

Posted by: David Morris

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The Berlin Wall came down on the evening of November 9, 1989, during a hastily arranged international press conference in East Berlin. Günter Schabowski, an official in East Germany’s ruling Socialist Unity Party, ambled to the podium clutching some papers. Neither he nor the assembled journalists had got much sleep. Both had been preoccupied with the changes convulsing Communist Europe in the wake of Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev’s liberal reforms summarized under the buzzwords Glasnost  (openness) and Perestroika (restructuring). Over the summer, East German tourists in Hungary had already taken advantage of that country’s newly relaxed border controls to evade their country’s ban on travel to the West and poured through the border to Austria. More crowds of East Germans had been gathering at West German embassies in Budapest, Prague, and Warsaw to demand passage to West Germany. By the time Schabowski mounted the podium, nearly 200,000 East Germans had made their way to West Germany by these routes. In East Germany itself, the regime teetered as mass demonstrations demanded Gorbachev-style reforms. This protest movement continued to grow despite the resignation the previous month of Erich Honecker, the leader of East Germany since 1971, and the entire East German Politbüro only the day before. It was clear that East Germany was facing a crisis, but no one in the room that evening could have foreseen the historic drama that was about to unfold.

Schabowski opened the conference, which was broadcast live on East German television, with a dull recounting of a recent Central Committee meeting. About an hour into the proceedings, an Italian journalist named Riccardo Ehrman asked a question about East Germany’s travel ban. Under the circumstances the question might have been expected, but Schabowski seemed caught off guard. He fumbled through his papers, familiarizing himself with their contents on the spot. Other journalists sensed his vulnerability and began to pepper him with questions. Finally, reading haltingly from a paper he said he had just received on his way to the conference, Schabowski seemed to say that East Germans were free to travel via all transit points from East to West Germany, including West Berlin, “ ab sofort ” (effective immediately). Then he adjourned the conference.

Clamoring reporters trailed Schabowski as he left the room. Was the Wall now truly open? Would East German border guards no longer shoot at those attempting to leave, as in the past? Would East German citizens be allowed to return after they left? Within hours such questions were swept aside by the tide of events Schabowski’s comments unleashed. Aided by recent advances in cable and satellite technology, the international media soon broadcast the news, along with scenes of joy at the Berlin Wall as people began to cross it unhindered for the first time in nearly thirty years. Near the streetcar stop of Friedrichstrasse, some in the crowd recognized Ehrman and hoisted him onto their shoulders, proclaiming him the Maueröffner , the man who opened the Wall. In less than a year, East Germany would crumble along with its Wall, and Germany would be reunified.

To understand why the Wall fell it is necessary to understand why it was built. After World War II the victorious allies, known as the Four Powers, set up occupation zones in Germany—the Soviets in the East, the Americans, British, and French in the West. A special status was accorded to Berlin. It was located deep in the Soviet zone, but, like the country as a whole, was administered by the Four Powers. Originally conceived as a provisional arrangement until occupation ended, this division of Germany and Berlin soon solidified as the expedient wartime alliance between the Soviet Union and the Western powers gave way to the ideological and military confrontation of the Cold War. After the founding of two German states in 1949—the Federal Republic of Germany in the West and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in the East—Germany’s erstwhile capital of Berlin became the neuralgic heart of the Cold War, its western half an outpost of freedom while its eastern half languished under the Soviet Union’s repression of freedom in central and eastern Europe.

Unlike their fellow subjects elsewhere in Soviet-dominated Europe, East Germans could look next-door to a free and prosperous counterpart, with a shared culture and language, perhaps even with relatives now separated from them by their country’s division. These affinities and contrasts grew more acute over time as radio and television broadcasts from West Germany reached the East, and divided Berlin was where they were most painfully apparent. Massive migration to the West was the result, especially through West Berlin. In 1960 alone nearly 200,000 East Germans left the GDR for West Germany. This added to the over 2.5 million that had left since the war. As always in such movements, it was mostly the young and the skilled who risked the wrath of the authorities to seek their freedom. The GDR, meant to be a showcase of the Soviet model in the middle of Europe, was being drained of brains and bodies, and East Berlin, the self-styled “capital of the GDR,” was the center of the hemorrhage.

The Wall was East Germany’s answer to this existential threat. On August 13, 1961, at one o’clock in the morning, the boundary between both halves of Berlin and the checkpoints between West Berlin and the surrounding region of Brandenburg were sealed off. At first, rolls of barbed wire were installed, guarded by soldiers of the East German army and police. These were soon replaced by two-meter-high barbed-wire fences. In the densely built-up center of Berlin, windows and doors of buildings bordering the western sector were bricked up as guards prevented residents (and the laboring masons) from escaping. Despite the growing Wall, the number of those attempting to flee to the West continued to climb. Many paid with their lives. On August 23, the Wall claimed the first of over 130 victims in its lifespan. Ida Siekmann lived directly on the sector boundary; her house could only be entered from the West Berlin side. Only days earlier she could cross the street to visit friends and family in the French sector. As the Wall went up, she died after jumping from her third-floor apartment in her attempt to join them.

The Wall met with little more than verbal protest from the Western powers. U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s visit to Berlin in June 1963 and his stirring proclamation, “Ich bin ein Berliner,” could not disguise the West’s accommodation of Soviet and East German actions. This fact was bitterly noted by Germans at the time but demonstrated the modus vivendi of the victorious allies after their failure to agree on a policy for all of Germany. The West would defend its rights in West Germany and West Berlin, but by the same token it would not interfere with Soviet and East German actions in “their” portions of Germany. Thus was Berlin a microcosm of the global Cold War standoff between the superpowers.

By the mid-1970s, the Wall had acquired the mechanized brutality familiar to observers in later years. Entire blocks of houses and other structures were bulldozed to make way for moats, security perimeters, lighting and alarm systems, watchtowers, and dog runs. By the time it finally came down, the Wall was a technologically sophisticated, virtually impenetrable concrete and steel barrier with an elaborate infrastructure, guarded by a special unit of the East German army. Its official designation in East Germany’s Orwellian phrase was “anti-fascist protective barrier.” For the free world, it was a stark monument to the GDR’s illegitimacy and repression.

That such a monstrous structure could crumble overnight after some awkward remarks by a Communist official at a press conference seemed surreal to observers at the time. In retrospect it’s easier to see that the Wall fell because the conditions for the GDR’s survival had already vanished by the time Schabowski made his remarks. Gorbachev had ripped them away when he revoked the so-called Brezhnev doctrine of intervening militarily to quash popular opposition in Moscow’s satellites, as in Budapest in 1956 and Prague in 1968. In his last days in power Honecker hoped Gorbachev would do just that as protests engulfed East Germany and thousands were fleeing the country. Gorbachev refused. In one of the most surreal and ironic moments in recent European history, Gorbachev chose the festivities of the fortieth anniversary of the founding of the GDR in October 1989 to warn Honecker: “Life punishes those who arrive late.” Moscow left its satellites to their own devices; East Germany, as became clear within a month, had none. It had never succeeded in establishing a unique identity sufficient to win the loyalty of its subjects in the constant comparison with its western counterpart. Aside from Communism’s valiant resistance to Nazism in World War II, it had no independent cultural foundation. While West Germany saw itself as the only free representative of the entire German people and anchored the goal of a peaceful and united Germany in its constitution, East Germany’s reason for existence derived solely from the exactitudes of the Cold War and the projection of Soviet power. These existential deficiencies were why the Wall was built in the first place. With Gorbachev’s famous warning, both it and the state it had isolated were doomed.

The fall of the Wall did not entirely end Germany’s division. Germans still speak of a Mauer in den Köpfen, a wall in people’s minds. Thirty years after joining one of the world’s most advanced economies practically overnight, many eastern Germans continue to feel like second-class citizens as they grapple with rapid social and economic change. This sense of alienation has contributed to the growing appeal of populist movements in the region. In the West, many have long resented the billions of euros in subsidies that have flowed to the East since reunification and wonder if it was a good thing after all. These mutual doubts and resentments show that Germans continue to struggle with the trauma of national division and the legacy of the Wall that so brutally reinforced it.

Comments (7)

What caused the fall of the Berlin wall?

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Wish it had more detail on the events leading up to the wall, and the aftermath of it in later years.

What happened to the Berlin wall and germany

Nice post, keep it up. Hope you are well.

Nicely done article and interesting information. Thanks for your hard work on such a topic.

Good content, hope you are well and keep it up.

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The rise and fall of the Berlin Wall and why it matters today.

The Berlin Wall stood for 10,316 days. As of Feb. 5, 2017, it has now been breached for over 10,316 days. From now on, Berlin will live with the memory of the wall for longer than it lived with the wall itself.

For the generations that grew up in a divided Berlin, the fact that the young will not experience such a life must be seen as evidence of the city’s achievement. Still, there is something lost as the hard-won lessons and perspectives of living in the shadow of the wall begin to recede. The editors at America were hard at work, observing and commenting on developments from around the world, throughout the 10,316 days the Berlin Wall stood. And as with most people around the world, for most of that period the editors seldom noted the wall’s existence. It was a fact of life, a physical manifestation of the Cold War and its underlying ideological conflict. But at its rise and then at its fall, America ’s editors took note. Their writings help us understand the continued relevance of the physical symbol of the Iron Curtain.

The wall rises

On June 10, 1961, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev presented President John F. Kennedy with an ultimatum: The Western Allies must leave their zones of occupation in West Berlin or the Soviets would take unilateral action to seize the city. America ’s editors were not impressed, writing in the June 14, 1961, issue: “Anyone who has followed the Berlin question for the past three years knows that the West cannot accept any of the choices offered by the Soviet memorandum. If we do, we throw away the key to the defense of Western Europe and the key to our own security. Khrushchev knows in advance that we must reject his proposals, no matter how often he shouts that West Berlin is like a cancer on his face or a bone in his throat.”

Berlin was indeed a problem for the Soviets. An outpost of freedom behind the Iron Curtain, West Berlin provided not only a ready example of a political alternative for East Germany’s oppressed population but also a practical means of escape. Voting with their feet, millions of East Germans were condemning communism in the clearest terms by using West Berlin as an escape hatch. Khrushchev intended to close the hatch. From now on, Berlin will live with the memory of the wall for longer than it lived with the wall itself. The editors next weighed in on the escalating crisis in the Aug. 12, 1961, issue: “As we start out down this snaky and dangerous road of ‘negotiating’ the Berlin crisis with Khrushchev, the President’s thinking is undoubtedly dominated by considerations as those that follow. We must somehow buy time on Berlin without backing down on our commitments to that city or selling out some other vital interest of the free world. How is this to be accomplished?” For the editors the main consideration was a military one: “Despite the modest buildup we plan for our conventional forces, we are and shall remain overwhelmingly outfaced by the conventional forces of the Soviet Union. True, we have our stockpile of H-bombs, but Khrushchev is convinced that, so long as he fights with conventional weapons, we would never be morally callous enough to push the big nuclear button. Our military position, therefore, is weak. This makes our bargaining position weak.” Yet the editors were clear that despite Soviet pressure, the United States must not back down: “Whatever political ‘accommodations’ we make with the Soviet Union, they must not lead us onto the slippery path of appeasement. Once we set our feet on that road there will be no place left on which to make a stand. This thought must be uppermost in Mr. Kennedy’s mind.”

On Aug. 13, 1961, the day after the issue including that editorial, construction on the Berlin Wall began. In a sense the wall can be said to have prevented a military confrontation, as it represented the Soviets’ giving up any hope of reuniting Berlin under communist control. They would solve their problem of emigration with a border wall instead. Peace would be maintained, but it was the citizens of Berlin that would pay the price. Over the course of the next 10,316 days, at least 140 people would lose their lives as a result of the wall.

By the Oct. 14, 1961, issue, the editors were suggesting that the world need not be so single-mindedly following the events Berlin, writing: “World attention is focused on Berlin these days to the exclusion of almost all else. Yet, as President Kennedy reminded his listeners during his recent UN address, Berlin is not the only place where peace is imperiled. There is an insidious ‘creeping war’ in South Vietnam. Because of its ‘creeping’ character, it may not strike us as a deadly serious affair. Nevertheless, as the President pointed out, aggression is no less real when men are knifed in their homes rather than shot on the battlefield. And aggression anywhere is a threat to all.” At least 140 people would lose their lives as a result of the wall.

The nation’s Cold War attention would indeed soon turn away from Berlin and toward Southeast Asia, driven there by a war that America would at first support . For Berlin, the wall would become a fact of life, occasionally thrust into the spotlight when used a stage by President Kennedy in 1963 or President Reagan in 1987 (or David Bowie in 1987 and Bruce Springsteen in 1988 for that matter) but otherwise an accepted, if resented, part of life for West Berliners. It was among East Berliners that the seeds of the wall’s collapse were being sown.

The wall falls

On Nov. 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall “fell,” as the East German government suddenly allowed its citizens to pass through to the Western side Rarely has such a major development taken the world so completely by surprise. America addressed the momentous implications of in an editorial titled “Glasnost as a verb: to open a wall,” run in the Nov. 25, 1989, issue: “Now that we have all had a chance to pinch ourselves and rub our eyes, the momentous implications of Nov. 9 are coming clear.” The main question the opening of the wall raised was German reunification, which at the time was not a foregone conclusion: “The speed and the force with which the topic of German reunification came rushing to the fore have been breathtaking and inevitable—the speed matched that of the wall’s collapse, and the force came from the wall’s having functioned as a symbol of artificial, enforced division. Not everyone is pleased at that prospect. Margaret Thatcher, whose party and Government have seemed content to live with a divided Ireland (in no rush, at any rate, to solve the “Irish question”), said predictably that any talk of German reunification was much too fast.”

Walls are not a thing of the past. The democratic optimism ushered in by the end of the Cold War has been significantly tempered. Refugees today continue to flee communist regimes such as North Korea, which has built a border that rivals even the Iron Curtain in brutality and efficiency. In Europe, developments such as Brexit, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the construction of a Hungarian border wall have marked the return of hard borders to a Europe that for the past two decades seemed to be moving in the opposite direction. In the United States, the proposal to build a massive border wall has become a major flashpoint in our politics. While building a wall to keep people in certainly reflects worse on a society than building one to keep people out, the idea shares the delusion of the Berlin Wall, which is that force can forever contain human aspirations. The circumstances that led to both the rise and the fall of the Berlin Wall remind us that the instinct of the human animal is always to move, to be free and to seek better, regardless of any divisions of race, class, nationality or creed. Remembering the Berlin Wall, for all its horrors, also represents remembering this enduring and universal truth.

Antonio De Loera-Brust is a Joseph A. O'Hare Fellow at  America .

This whole article is about open borders. The article ends with a non-sequitur, a bait and switch. The horrors of socialism/communism get diverted in the end to allow an endless stream of migrants into societies that are successful because they have a different culture, one amenable to individual freedom.

Maybe the author should be recommending free market capitalism for the countries where the migrants come from. The United States and Western Europe cannot handle them all especially those who are hostile to western civilization of which many are.

Everyone should watch the movie, "The Lives of Others" to see the tragedy that was East Germany.

But maybe there is another alternative. According to the Vatican in the last couple days the United States is a bad place for migrants. They are recommending China as the ideal country to live according to Catholic social principles. I kid you not. From U.K. Catholic Herald.

China is the best implementer of Catholic social doctrine,’ says Vatican bishop

So I suggest thr author investigate how to get the world's migrants to China. This would be in sync with another America editorial by Kenneth Clarke that the United States is a bad place to live. Maybe the wall should be built to protect any migrants who may mistakenly want to come here.

I saw the headline....I saw the author's name and based on his prior articles in America this article's last paragraph was as predictable as the sun rise. What a piece of overwrought nonsense!

In the spirit of this essay, I suggest the author remove the locks from his doors. Better yet, remove his doors.

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‘The Gates in the Wall Stand Open Wide.’ What Happened the Day the Berlin Wall Fell

O n June 12, 1987 — more than 25 years after the Berlin Wall first divided the city’s East and West — U.S. President Ronald Reagan gave a famous speech in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, challenging his Soviet counterpart Mikhail Gorbachev by declaring, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

Only a few years later, on Nov. 9, 1989, it was not Mr. Gorbachev but the German people who finally tore down the barrier. The story of the Berlin Wall is one of division and repression, but also of the yearning for freedom — and the events that led up to its toppling are no exception.

The Wall Rises

Following World War II, at the Yalta and Potsdam peace conferences, it was determined among the war’s victors that Germany’s territories would be split into four “Allied occupation zones.” The eastern part of the country went to the Soviet Union, while the western part went to the United States, Great Britain and eventually France. Berlin, as the capital, would be likewise split.

On May 23, 1949, the three Allied zones became the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) while the former Soviet occupation zone became the German Democratic Republic (GDR) on Oct. 7, 1949.

Because the city of Berlin was located entirely within the Soviet zone of occupation, West Berlin became an island within Communist East Germany. The economy in West Germany, as a result of the help provided by its occupying forces, quickly grew. The opposite occurred in East Germany. Valuable assets were shipped back to the Soviet Union and economic recovery was slow and stagnant. With many East Berliners fleeing that situation, a physical barrier between the two sides of Berlin, known as the Berlin Wall ( die Berliner Mauer ), was built starting in August of 1961. It became an ugly scar on the German landscape and a symbol of division in the country.

In total, at least 171 people were killed attempting to get over, under or around the wall. According to German historian Hans-Hermann Hertle in his work Berlin Wall: Monument of the Cold War , between 1961 and when the wall finally came down in 1989, over 5,000 East Germans successfully managed to cross the border by jumping out of windows of buildings adjacent to the wall or climbing over the barbed wire. Some even attempted to cross in hot air balloons, by ramming through in vehicles at high speeds or by crawling through sewers.

But by 1989, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, was convinced that the Soviet Union needed reform. He instituted disarmament and a winding down of Cold War confrontations in Europe as preconditions to his reforms. Gorbachev was also in favor of a relaxation of censorship of the press and of the central control of economic matters. This new policy of openness had already resulted in contested elections in Poland in May 1989 as well as reforms in Hungary. It was becoming increasingly clear that the Soviet Union was no longer prepared to support hardline Communist regimes in Eastern Europe.

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The Evening of the Fall

It was amid that atmosphere of reform that, on the evening of Nov. 9, 1989, Gunter Schabowski, an East German government official, made a surprising announcement at a press conference .

“Permanent relocations,” he said, “can be done through all border checkpoints between the GDR [East Germany] into the FRG [West Germany] or West Berlin.” This news was set out as an incremental change in policy. But, after reporter Riccardo Ehrman asked when the regulations would take effect, Schabowski replied, “As far as I know, it takes effect immediately, without delay.”

Schabowski’s press conference was the lead story on West Germany’s two main news programs that night, at 7:00 pm and 8:00 pm, with the takeaway being that the Wall, while it still stood, was no longer the firm dividing line it had long been. Since the late 1950s, the two stations broadcast to nearly all of East Germany, and the programs appeared there as well. That night, anchorman Hanns Joachim Friedrichs proclaimed, “This 9 November is a historic day. The GDR has announced that, starting immediately, its borders are open to everyone. The gates in the Wall stand open wide.”

This was all the East German populace needed to hear. Citizens flocked to the border en masse sometime around 9:00 pm and found that, after initial confusion, the border guards were indeed letting people cross. This was a crucial flashpoint in the history between the two sides, as the guards could have easily fired on the crowd. However, according to historian Mary Elise Sarotte in her book The Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall , no one among the East German authorities wanted to take the personal authority of issuing orders leading to the use of lethal force.

By 11:00 pm, Harald Jager, the commander of the Bornholmer Strasse border crossing, let the guards open the checkpoints, allowing people to pass without their identities checked.

To Jager, it was obvious that the five dozen men guarding the border were grossly outnumbered. He repeatedly attempted to contact his superior, Rudi Ziegenhorn, in order to ascertain how to handle the increasingly chaotic situation, as more and more people gathered at the gates. He was unable to get any clear guidance on how to proceed, but a superior in the background called Jager a coward for being unable to handle the situation. After 25 years of loyal service to the regime, according to Sarotte, Jager felt insulted and pushed to his limit.

Jager was instructed by his superiors to let the biggest troublemakers through on a one-way ticket. But many of these so-called troublemakers were students and other young individuals who briefly entered West Berlin and then returned to the checkpoint for re-entry into East Berlin. However, the GDR was serious in its warnings that this was a one-way ticket. Their angry parents began to plead with officials not to keep them separated from their children, and by that point Jager was unwilling to argue on behalf of his superiors. After Jager made an exception for the parents, others demanded the same treatment as well. Having gone that far, it was simply too late. Thousands of people were demanding that the gates be opened. He was facing a momentous decision — open fire on the civilians, or let them through.

At 11:30 pm, Jager phoned his superior and reported his decision: he would open all the remaining gates and allow the crowds to stream across the border.

West Berliners greeted their counterparts with music and champagne. Some citizens began to chip away at the physical barrier with sledgehammers and chisels. The crowd began to chant “Tor auf!”— Open the gate! By midnight, the checkpoints were completely overrun.

Over that weekend, more than 2 million people from East Berlin visited West Berlin to participate in the mass celebration.

The Fallout

Though the “fall” of the Berlin Wall did not mean its complete physical destruction, the consequences of its opening were indeed lasting. Gorbachev agreed on negotiations with the U.S. President George H.W. Bush and West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl to permit the reunification of the two German states, almost completely on West German terms. On a global level, the fall of the Berlin Wall marked the symbolic end of the Cold War, famously prompting the political scientist Francis Fukuyama to declare it the “end of history.”

On Oct. 3, 1990, 11 months after the fall of the Berlin Wall, East and West Germany became one state again. Despite the initial euphoria, the road to recovery for East Germany was long and difficult with economic and social dislocation. And the fallout from the fall continues to this day: citizens were still paying slightly higher taxes than before the merger in order to cover the costs of unification.

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Berlin Wall’s Importance for Germany Essay

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Introduction

Reasons for berlin wall construction, berlin wall construction, effects of berlin wall, flattening of the wall.

The post Second World War was characterized by many political challenges in Europe. In Germany, the government struggled to consolidate its political power through various mechanisms.

In August 1961, “a fence was erected by the German Democratic Republic that is popularly referred to as East Germany” (Rose & Bailey 2004, p.34). The wall demarcated the West Berlin territory from East Germany. Watch towers were also erected strategically at various intervals along the wall with an aim of checking on illegal intrusion or exit from East Germany.

The Eastern Bloc contended that the barrier would save its masses from the fascist influence that was likely to jeopardize the development of socialism in the nation. Ideally, the wall was meant to suppress mass departure of citizens from East Germany after the Second World War. It was also meant to prevent the citizens from supporting fascist ideologies. This historic wall was formally known as the Anti-Fascist Defense Fortification.

Prior to the creation of the Berlin Wall, it is estimated that over three million citizens breached the stringent immigration codes and moved into Western Berlin territory (Tilman 1990, p. 78). From this place, they relocated to other Western European countries. These massive emigrations were proscribed in 1961 upon the creation of the Wall. The ban lasted until 1989 when the wall was flattened and it paved way for the reunification of Germany (Buckley 2004, p. 56).

After World War Two, the war torn Germany was split into four sub territories that were under the control of the Allied forces. The capital of Berlin that acted as the main operation zone of the Allied powers was also partitioned into four territories despite being situated within the Soviet territory.

After one and half years, political rivalries ensued between the occupying forces and the Soviets. One of the key disputes was the failure of the Soviets to accept the reconstruction strategies for revamping the economy and political stability of Germany. “Britain, France, the United States and the Benelux countries later combined the non-Soviet zones of the country into one zone for reconstruction and approved the extension of the Marshall Plan” (Waters 1990, p. 89).

In post 1945, Joseph Stalin governed an amalgamation of countries in the Western Border. He also desired to take control of the weakened Germany that was at that time under the management of the Soviet. Stalin, therefore, informed the leaders of Germany that he was planning to gradually destabilize the British occupation of German territories. According to Stalin, this was the most viable way to get rid of foreign powers and reunite Germany (Tusa 2008, p. 237).

The most important mission of the Leninist Party in the Soviet region was to direct Soviet instructions to both the government machinery and the other alliance parties. Leninist ideologies would eventually be exercised as internal procedures (Pearcy 2009, p.123). The teaching of Marxism ideologies was made mandatory in learning institutions (Morton & Adler 2010, p. 324).

From 1948, Stalin started reacting to the disagreements on how to rebuild the fallen Germany. In this case, he introduced the Berlin Cordon that debarred West Berlin from accessing necessary material supplies including food (Reeves 2011, p. 301). On the other hand, the Allied powers responded to Stalin’s actions by airlifting food and logistics to West Berlin.

The Soviets carried out public crusade in opposition to western strategy change. In late 1948, the members of the Communist Party tried to interfere with the food aids, but over three hundred Berliners picketed in demand for the continuation of the airlifts. Finally, Stalin withdrew the barricade in mid 1949; thus, allowing the hauling of supplies to Berlin (Miller 2008, p. 81).

West Germany embraced a capitalist economy and created a democratic legislative body. These political and economic reforms spurred quick economic growth in Western Germany. The robust economic growth that was witnessed in the western part of Germany attracted the people of Eastern Germany who were eying the better opportunities (Cherny 2009, p. 456).

In the 1950s, the Eastern Bloc also embraced the strategies that the Soviet applied to check on emigration. The restriction posed a great challenge to some countries that had gained economic prosperity in the Eastern Bloc. Before 1952, there was no limitation to frustrate movement of people from the Eastern Bloc to Western Germany.

This freedom of movement was curtailed in April 1952, when Eastern Germany officials held a meeting with Stalin (Soviet leader). “During the discussions, it was proposed that the East Germans should introduce a system of passes so as to stop the free movement of Western agents in the German Democratic Republic” (Childs 2001, p.156).

Stalin supported the idea and encouraged the Eastern Bloc to demarcate their territories by erecting a high rise wall. Therefore, the internal German boundary between East and West was totally cordoned with a fence. However, “the boundary between the Western and Eastern sectors of Berlin remained open, but traffic between the Soviet and Western sectors was somewhat restricted” (Harrison 2003, p.145).

Consequently, Berlin attracted immigrants that were fleeing the Eastern Bloc due to the unbearable living conditions. At first, East Germany would intermittently allow its citizens to visit the Western Bloc, but that freedom was short lived. In 1956, there was a total ban on emigration to West Germany after several citizens deserted East Germany.

The introduction of stringent immigration codes in 1952 led to the blockading of the interior Germany boundary. Therefore, East Germans used the Berlin border as the only gateway point to Western Germany. The German Democratic Republic acted very quickly to contain the exodus of its citizens by introducing more pass laws in late 1957. Individuals that were found crossing over to Berlin without authentic documentation were severely punished.

However, these emigration codes remained ineffective since people could still move to West Berlin by train. Besides, there were no physical barriers that could curb illegal movement of citizens out of East Germany. The Western Border was left open for some time to avoid disrupting connections to East Germany. The construction of an alternative railway that connected Western Berlin began in 1951 and ended in 1961. This led to the complete railing of the West Berlin boundary.

East German lost its industrious residents through massive emigrations; hence, it experienced a severe problem of brain drain. Most of the emigrants were in their formative years and were well trained in various disciplines. This meant that East Germany was left with no technocrats to spur industrial growth in the country.

On the other hand, West Germany gained considerably from the high supply of trained professionals which enabled it to improve its economy. “The brain drain of professionals had become so damaging to the political credibility and economic viability of East Germany that the re-securing of the German Communist frontier was imperative” (Dale 2005, p. 256).

“The East Germany officials authorized the construction of the wall on 12, August 1961 and the German military began securing it immediately” (Gaddis 2005, p. 312). The boundary was slightly erected within the land of East Berlin to avoid trespassing on the West Berlin soil.

During its construction, it was under strict surveillance of the German combat troops who were authorized to shoot any emigrant that made desperate efforts to escape. Additionally, “chain fences, walls, minefields and other obstacles were installed along the length of East Germany’s western borders with the West Germany proper” (Dowty 2009, p. 345).

An extensive no man’s territory was also created to facilitate shooting of fleeing individuals. However, some citizens still used dubious mechanisms to move to other territories. For example, “East Germans successfully defected by a variety of methods: digging long passageways under the wall, waiting for favorable winds and sliding along aerial wires” (Thackeray 2004, p. 52).

The creation of the Berlin Wall had serious implications on the lives of the Germans both in the Eastern and Western Blocs. After the construction of the fence, several individuals that had crossed over to the Western Bloc were completely detached from their families. Berliners that lived in the East, but worked in the West were all rendered jobless because they could not cross the border.

With the erection of the wall, West Berlin was separated; thus, West Berliners staged massive strikes in demand for the flattening of the wall. The Allied forces that had vested interests in post war Germany also encouraged the creation of the wall because they felt that it would thwart the ambitions of Eastern Germany to gain control of the entire Berlin. The wall, therefore, quelled the simmering tension in Germany Blocs which was likely to end in a serious military confrontation.

“The East German government claimed that the Berlin Wall was an anti-fascist protective rampart intended to dissuade aggression from the West” (Wettig 2008, p.189). Eastern German officials also complained that subsidized goods were being smuggled out of the country by West Berliners. The Wall caused extreme anxiety and repression in East Berlin because people were quarantined in their territories; thus, making it impossible for them to transact business.

West Berliners faced the most difficult challenge of gaining access to East German. Between 1961 and 1963, West Berliners were totally banned from entering the East German territory. However, negotiations between the two governments in 1963 led to slight revision of the immigration codes in East Germany.

Thus, West Berliners could visit the country intermittently. An Individual that wanted to travel to East Germany had to seek a visa. “Citizens of other East European countries were generally subjected to the same prohibition of visiting Western countries as East Germans, though the applicable exception varied from country to country” (Pearson 2008, p.318). During the ban, it is estimated that approximately 5,000 individuals desperately tried to jump over the fence and some of them lost their lives.

In late 1989, East Germans increasingly got disillusioned by emigration restrictions. Hence, they staged protests in various parts of East Germany in demand for the flattening of the wall. Most of the individuals that participated in the Peaceful Revolution were willing to defect to the Western Bloc.

The strike worsened in November when the majority of East Germans protested against the Wall. These demonstrations compelled the leaders of East Germany to amend the border laws. One of the amendments that were passed in the late 1989 favored the pulling down of the wall. The tearing down of the wall begun in late 1989, but its official flattening started on 13 th June 1990. However, “the West Germans and West Berliners were allowed visa-free travel starting from 23 December 1989” (Turner 2010, p. 456).

The destruction of the wall sparked-off mixed reactions from foreign powers. Some European countries became very jittery when they learnt that the Germans were planning to come together. In September 1989, “British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher pleaded with the Soviet president not to let the Berlin Wall fall” (Cate 2007, p. 178). Indeed, Britain was comfortable with the division and chaos in Germany because its reunion could cause the altering of the post war territorial demarcations.

They also felt that a unified Germany would destabilize international economy and possibly frustrate the post 1945 initiatives that were meant to restore international peace (Gaddis 2005, p. 249). The Germans saw the flattening of the wall as a great development that would guarantee them both economic and political prosperity which they had been yearning for over two decades.

Buckley, W 2004, The Fall of the Berlin Wall, Wiley, New York.

Cate, C 2007, The Ideas of August: The Berlin Wall Crisis—1961, M. Evans, New York.

Cherny, A 2009, The Candy Bombers: The Untold Story of the Berlin Airlift and America’s Finest Hour, Berkley Trade, Berkley.

Childs, D 2001, The Fall of the GDR, Longman, London.

Dale, G 2005, Popular Protest in East Germany, 1945–1989: Judgements on the Street, Routledge, Routledge.

Dowty, A 2009, Closed Borders: The Contemporary Assault on Freedom of Movement, Yale University Press, New York.

Gaddis, L 2005, The Cold War: A New History, Penguin Press, New York.

Harrison, M 2003, Driving the Soviets Up the Wall: Soviet-East German Relations, 1953–1961, Princenton University Press, New York.

Miller, R 2008, To Save a City: The Berlin Airlift, 1948-1949, Texas A&M University Press, Houston.

Morton, J & Adler, P 2010, American Experience: The Berlin Airlift, Wiley, New York.

Pearcy, A 2009, Berlin Airlift, Swan Hill Press, Berlin.

Pearson, R 2008, The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire, Wiley, Chicago.

Reeves, R 2011, Daring Young Men: The Heroism and Triumph of The Berlin Airlift-June 1948-May 1949, Simon & Schuster, Berlin.

Rose, B & Bailey, A 2004, The Lost Border: The Landscape of the Iron Curtain, Princeton Architectural Press, New York.

Thackeray, F 2004, Events that changed Germany, Greenwood Publishing Group, London.

Tilman, T 1990, The Writings on the Wall: Peace at the Berlin Wall, Prenctice Hall, Ohio.

Turner, A 2010, The Two Germanies Since 1945: East and West, Yale University Press, New York.

Tusa, J 2008, Berlin Airlift, Da Capo Press, Berlin.

Waters, R 1990, Wall: Live in Berlin 1990, Oxford University Press, London.

Wettig, G 2008, Stalin and the Cold War in Europe, Rowman & Littlefield, Berlin.

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IvyPanda. (2018, November 30). Berlin Wall's Importance for Germany. https://ivypanda.com/essays/berlin-wall/

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IvyPanda . (2018) 'Berlin Wall's Importance for Germany'. 30 November.

IvyPanda . 2018. "Berlin Wall's Importance for Germany." November 30, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/berlin-wall/.

1. IvyPanda . "Berlin Wall's Importance for Germany." November 30, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/berlin-wall/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Berlin Wall's Importance for Germany." November 30, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/berlin-wall/.

Ch. 29 The Cold War

The building of the berlin wall, 32.5.4: the building of the berlin wall.

The Berlin Wall was a barrier that divided Germany from 1961 to 1989, aimed at preventing East Germans from fleeing to stop economically disastrous migration of workers.

Learning Objective

Deconstruct Soviet Union’s reasons for building the Berlin Wall

• Berlin was divided between East and West since the end of World War II, with the Western powers occupying the Western portion and the Soviet Union occupying the East.
• After increasing tensions between the Soviets and the Western powers during the first 15 years of the Cold War, the Soviet Union decided to build a physical barrier between East and West Berlin, thereby creating a real counterpoint to the symbolic “Iron Curtain” that had divided East and West since 1945.
• The main purpose of the Wall was to prevent East Germans from fleeing, thus stopping an economically disastrous migration of workers.
• The Berlin Wall was officially referred to as the “Anti-Fascist Protective Wall” by East German authorities, implying that the NATO countries and West Germany in particular were considered “fascists” by East German propaganda.
• With the closing of the East-West sector boundary in Berlin, the vast majority of East Germans could no longer travel or emigrate to West Germany, and Berlin soon went from the easiest place to make an unauthorized crossing between East and West Germany to the most difficult.
• Many families were split, while East Berliners employed in the West were cut off from their jobs.

The Berlin Wall  was a barrier that divided Germany from 1961 to 1989. Constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) starting on August 13, 1961, the Wall completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin until government officials opened it in November 1989. Its demolition officially began on June 13, 1990 and was completed in 1992. The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, which circumscribed a wide area (later known as the “death strip”) that contained anti-vehicle trenches, “fakir beds,” and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc claimed that the Wall was erected to protect its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the “will of the people” in building a socialist state in East Germany. In practice, the Wall prevented the massive emigration and defection that had marked East Germany and the communist Eastern Bloc during the post-World War II period.

The Berlin Wall was officially referred to as the “Anti-Fascist Protective Wall” by GDR authorities, implying that the NATO countries and West Germany in particular were considered “fascists” by GDR propaganda. The West Berlin city government sometimes referred to it as the “Wall of Shame”—a term coined by mayor Willy Brandt—while condemning the Wall’s restriction on freedom of movement. Along with the separate and much longer Inner German border (IGB), which demarcated the border between East and West Germany, it came to symbolize a physical marker of the “Iron Curtain” that separated Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.

Before the Wall’s erection, 3.5 million East Germans circumvented Eastern Bloc emigration restrictions and defected from the GDR, many by crossing over the border from East Berlin into West Berlin. From there, they could travel to West Germany and other Western European countries. Between 1961 and 1989, the Wall prevented almost all such emigration. During this period, around 5,000 people attempted to escape over the Wall, with an estimated death toll ranging from 136 to more than 200 in and around Berlin.

Berlin Wall: Photograph of the Berlin Wall taken from the West side. The Wall was built in 1961 to prevent East Germans from fleeing and stop an economically disastrous migration of workers. It was a symbol of the Cold War, and its fall in 1989 marked the approaching end of the war.

Effects of the Berlin Wall

With the closing of the East-West sector boundary in Berlin, the vast majority of East Germans could no longer travel or emigrate to West Germany. Berlin soon went from the easiest place to make an unauthorized crossing between East and West Germany to the most difficult. Many families were split, and East Berliners employed in the West were cut off from their jobs. West Berlin became an isolated exclave in a hostile land. West Berliners demonstrated against the Wall, led by their Mayor Willy Brandt, who strongly criticized the United States for failing to respond. Allied intelligence agencies had hypothesized about a wall to stop the flood of refugees, but the main candidate for its location was around the perimeter of the city. In 1961, Secretary of State Dean Rusk proclaimed, “The Wall certainly ought not to be a permanent feature of the European landscape. I see no reason why the Soviet Union should think it is … to their advantage in any way to leave there that monument to communist failure.”

United States and UK sources expected the Soviet sector to be sealed off from West Berlin, but were surprised how long they took to do so. They considered the Wall an end to concerns about a GDR/Soviet retaking or capture of the whole of Berlin; the Wall would presumably have been an unnecessary project if such plans were afloat. Thus, they concluded that the possibility of a Soviet military conflict over Berlin had decreased.

The East German government claimed that the Wall was an “anti-fascist protective rampart” intended to dissuade aggression from the West. Another official justification was the activities of Western agents in Eastern Europe. The Eastern German government also claimed that West Berliners were buying state-subsidized goods in East Berlin. East Germans and others greeted such statements with skepticism, as most of the time the border was closed for citizens of East Germany traveling to the West but not for residents of West Berlin travelling East. The construction of the Wall caused considerable hardship to families divided by it. Most people believed that the Wall was mainly a means of preventing the citizens of East Germany from entering or fleeing to West Berlin.

Defection Attempts

During the years of the Wall, around 5,000 people successfully defected to West Berlin. The number of people who died trying to cross the Wall or as a result of the Wall’s existence has been disputed. The most vocal claims by Alexandra Hildebrandt, Director of the Checkpoint Charlie Museum and widow of the Museum’s founder, estimated the death toll to be well above 200.

The East German government issued shooting orders to border guards dealing with defectors, though these are not the same as “shoot to kill” orders. GDR officials denied issuing the latter. In an October 1973 order later discovered by researchers, guards were instructed that people attempting to cross the Wall were criminals and needed to be shot: “Do not hesitate to use your firearm, not even when the border is breached in the company of women and children, which is a tactic the traitors have often used.”

Early successful escapes involved people jumping the initial barbed wire or leaping out of apartment windows along the line, but these ended as the Wall was fortified. East German authorities no longer permitted apartments near the Wall to be occupied, and any building near the Wall had its windows boarded and later bricked up. On August 15, 1961, Conrad Schumann was the first East German border guard to escape by jumping the barbed wire to West Berlin.

On 22 August 1961, Ida Siekmann was the first casualty at the Berlin Wall: she died after she jumped out of her third floor apartment at 48 Bernauer Strasse. The first person to be shot and killed while trying to cross to West Berlin was Günter Litfin, a 24-year-old tailor. He attempted to swim across the Spree Canal to West Germany on August 24, 1961, the same day that East German police received shoot-to-kill orders to prevent anyone from escaping.

East Germans successfully defected by a variety of methods: digging long tunnels under the Wall, waiting for favorable winds and taking a hot air balloon, sliding along aerial wires, flying ultralights and, in one instance, simply driving a sports car at full speed through the basic initial fortifications. When a metal beam was placed at checkpoints to prevent this kind of defection, up to four people (two in the front seats and possibly two in the boot) drove under the bar in a sports car that had been modified to allow the roof and windscreen to come away when it made contact with the beam. They lay flat and kept driving forward. The East Germans then built zig-zagging roads at checkpoints.

Attributions

• “Cold War.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War . Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0 .
• “Berlin Wall.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall . Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0 .
• “Berlinermauer-2.jpg.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War#/media/File:Berlinermauer.jpg . Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0 .
• Boundless World History. Authored by : Boundless. Located at : https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/ . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike

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The Fall of the Berlin Wall in Photos: An Accident of History That Changed The World

The Communist regime was prepared for everything “except candles and prayers.” East Germany’s peaceful 1989 revolution showed that societies that don’t reform, die.

By Katrin Bennhold

BERLIN — When Werner Krätschell, an East German pastor and dissident, heard that the Berlin Wall was open, he did not quite believe it. But he grabbed his daughter and her friend and drove to the nearest checkpoint to see for himself.

It was the night of Nov. 9, 1989. As their yellow Wartburg advanced unimpeded into what had always been an off-limits security zone, Mr. Krätschell rolled down the window and asked a border guard: “Am I dreaming or is this reality?”

“You are dreaming,” the guard replied.

It had long been a dream for East Berliners like Mr. Krätschell to see this towering symbol of unfreedom running like a scar of cement and barbed wire through the heart of their home city ripped open.

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The Berlin Wall

Thierry Noir and The Berlin Wall

The Berlin Wall is perhaps the most famous human artefact in modern world history. Built in 1961 at the height of the Cold War, the Wall symbolised in physical form the ideological and political divide between the Western Bloc and the USSR. 15 years after Winston Churchill’s Iron Curtain speech in Fulton, Missouri, a monolithic and impenetrable barrier that cut across Europe became a reality, situating the city of Berlin at the fulcrum of Cold War antagonisms. 

In 1984,Thierry Noir became the first artist to illegally paint miles of the Berlin Wall. This revolutionary act inspired other artists, and over the next five years the Wall was covered with layers of artwork and images, creating a ‘palimpsest of protest’. As Noir says, painting the Wall made him feel stronger than it. For years, the Wall had stood as an oppressive symbol of a divided world, materialising a history of separation and struggle. Noir’s work subverted this iconic symbol of war into a symbol of hope, granting it a real human significance. 

The extracts below include Noir’s personal recollections of his experiences painting the Berlin Wall in the 1980s and  beyond . 

“This photo was taken in 1986 along Bethaniendamm in Berlin-Kreuzberg.  It was taken by my first wife Gabi Noir.  I was wearing a suit that day that I had found in a bag of old clothes on the street.  At that time West Berliners often left furnishings and clothes on the streets.  It was a recycling process.  During this period I would paint the Wall all day and then travel to the centre of West Berlin to sell canvases in restaurants.  That is how I survived back then.” –  Thierry Noir

Painting the Berlin Wall

“This is me painting in 1985 the Wall along Waldemarstrasse in Berlin-Kreuzberg.  I was painting these dinosaurs to represent a sort of mutation of nature because of the Berlin wall and the wall painting I created were like a mutation of the culture. Where else to find kilometres of painted concrete wall in Europe other than in West Berlin? I used to paint the Berlin Wall every day. That was how all the ideas came to me: not down from the sky, not from the head to the hand but from the hand to the head. From the beginning, with Christophe Bouchet, we used to collect left over paint and materials from the the renovation of the houses in Kreuzberg, for the 750th Anniversary of Berlin in 1987.  We made do with whatever we could find on the streets as we had no money to buy materials.” –  Thierry Noir

Red Dope on Rabbits

“I painted this at Potsdamer Platz in August 1985. It was dedicated to 
the thousands of wild rabbits that used to live on the huge Death Strip 
between the two walls around Potsdamer Platz. Those rabbits were a 
mutation of nature. Where else would you see so many rabbits running 
around freely in the middle of a big city? The only place was in divided 
Berlin Similarly, my paintings on the Berlin Wall were a mutation of 
culture. Where else would you find kilometre upon kilometre of 
continuously painted wall in the middle of a capital city other than in 
divided Berlin. Bartek Konopka later made an Oscar-nominated documentary 
about the wild rabbits of Berlin entitled Rabbit à la Berlin using the story of the death Strip rabbits 
as an allegory for the recent social history of Eastern Europe and its 
people.” – Thierry Noir 

Work Brothers

“This painting is called “The Gebrüder Arbeit (The Work Brothers)”.  It is a homage to the hard toil of painting the Berlin Wall every day. I created this work as a way of answering the questions of passers-by.  Unbelievably, people would sometimes think that I was a spy from France in the employ of the Berlin authorities to make to wall beautiful.  I would tell people that I was not trying to make the Wall beautiful because in fact that was absolutely impossible. 136 persons were killed trying to get across into West Berlin. No matter how many kilograms of paint that I covered the wall with, that fact remains the same.” –  Thierry Noir

Statues of Liberty

“It was the 100th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty in N.Y.C. so I 
found some spray cans and with Christophe Bouchet made a two metre high 
stencil. It was made from a plastic napkin fixed on a wooden frame. On 
the 4th of July, we put up 42 Statues of Liberty on the Wall at 
Checkpoint Charlie. It was well guarded and dangerous to paint here. We 
did not have enough money for more spray paint to finish the entire 
project and paint more the next day. As David Bowie said in his 1982 
song Heroes: ”You can be heroes, just for one day”.” –  Thierry Noir

Making friends with Keith Haring 

“On 23rd October 1986, three months after I had painted the Statues of Liberty, I heard on the radio that Keith Haring was in Berlin to paint the Wall at Checkpoint Charlie. I went there and I saw that my statues were all gone, painted over by a huge amount of yellow paint. I talked with Keith about this and he was embarrassed and apologised to me. He said that: “in New York you can get killed for that”.  He was invited over for just a couple of days and the section of Wall had been preprepared for him with a yellow base that went over the Statues that I had painted.  The yellow colour was very transparent so it was possible to see my Statues through it. I was angry but it was not his fault.  Keith was a great guy and a great artist.”  – Thierry Noir

Wim Wenders Wall Pieces

“This photo was taken in 1986 along the Waldemarstrasse in Kreurzberg. It shows my paintings and the paintings of Kiddy Citny. There were featured in the Wim Wenders film The Wings of Desire. Wim Wenders came back to Germany in 1985 after his success with the 1984 ‘Paris, Texas’. Wenders wanted to make a film in Berlin about angels. I met wit him every two or three days in a nearby restaurant called Meeting Points Restaurant where I used to sell small paintings. Wenders was a patron there. In the beginning of 1987 he decided to start the shoot of “The Wings of Desire” and this part of the Wall along the Waldemarstrasse in Berlin Kreuzberg was an important location for the film. In the film you can see my works and me painting the Wall on a ladder. If you pause the film at this point you will see that part of the wall in front of me.” –  Thierry Noir

Wings Of Desire

“Here is a famous scene from Wings of Desire in which Bruno Ganz, an Angel sees colour for the first time.  On the day of filming, 17th February 1987, it was minus 13 degress.  The scene, which I was also in, was repeated eight times until the director Wim Wenders was satisfied with it. Bruno Ganz would always be in the caravan waiting for the next take. A couple of day before I had painted all the big heads you can see behind in the film. It was just too cold to stop so I would paint for hours each day without a break.” –  Thierry Noir

Elephant Key

“This elephant was one of the earliest paintings that I made on the Berlin Wall. I began to paint outside because I wanted to say that it is good to put art in the streets and not solely in museums and galleries. At the time my influences were taken from many directions. By the Painters: Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro, Fernand Leger, Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Gaston Chaissac, Jean Dubuffet, Alberto Giacometti. By the musicians: David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Kraftwerk, Led Zeppelin and Nina Hagen.  This painting represented for me the key to success – heavy work every day. If you wait at home for inspiration, you can wait very long”  – Thierry Noir

Homage To Duchamp

“This piece was a homage to Marcel Duchamp’s 1917 New York exhibition and the enormous scandal provoked by him in exhibiting a urinal. I put this piece up in April 1984, shortly after starting to paint the Wall. A few days later I also displayed a hand basin.” –  Thierry Noir

Checkpoint Charlie

“It was a unique experience to live in West Berlin in the 1980s surrounded by a wall and in the middle of the GDR. West-Berlin had a special status, because its administration was formally conducted by the Western Allies and there was of course a strong military presence.  There was a also strong cultural scene in the city. West Berlin was the centre of the New Wave movement and everybody I met when I came from France in January 1982 seemed to be an artist.  A little like when I came to Shoreditch, East London in 2013. It was also intriguing to see the American GI’s with a big ghetto blaster on their shoulders, listening to Grand Master Flash or Sugar Hill Gang near the US military base.” – Thierry Noir

Berlin Wall Graffiti 

“This was a protest against the Population Census Boycott. Most of the citizens of Kreuzberg were against the population census of 1985 and the repetition of the heads makes the message stronger. That is why the person painted it there in the middle of my painting.  I was very upset when I saw that in 30 seconds one stupid guy put his name just in the middle of the painting I made in three hours. Then I thought. What shall I do? Shall I sleep in front of the wall? Shall I call the police? In the end  I just decided to repair the painting as quick as it was destroyed and this is what I continued to do.” –  Thierry Noir

Painting in the Death Strip

“Here I am painting on the other side of the Berlin Wall in the Death Strip. The photo was taken by the Associated Press photographer, Hans-Jörg Krauss, who was a war photographer.  It was taken while the Wall was falling down and people had hammered heavily on the wall, making holes in it. These holes were so big in some spots such as near to Checkpoint Charlie or the Reichstag, that it was possible to pass through the holes and paint the other side of the wall. It was great to paint this side after so many years of fear and harassment by the border guards.  With only a spray can or two, I would play cat and mouse for hours with the soldiers. To paint a lot of big heads, one after the other, very quick.  I would always jump back through the hole into West Berlin territory before the border guards could reach me.” –  Thierry Noir

The Berlin Wall Fallen

In 1989, the Wall fell, marking the end of the Cold War. 

“This is a so called Wall Graveyard in 1990 in Berlin Kreuzberg. A pile of blocks from the remnants of the Berlin Wall. These were put into special machines which ground them down and separated the metal bars and the concrete in order to reduce it all down to tons of granulates, perfect to build new roads in the former GDR.” –  Thierry Noir

The East Side Gallery

Sections of the Wall, such as those at Potsdamer Platz, on Bernauer Strasse and on Muhlenstrass were deliberately left as a lasting memorial: the East Side Gallery which is approximately 1,3 km in length. Many artists, including Noir, were invited to paint the Eastern face of these Wall fragments as a visual enactment of reunification.

“The East Side Gallery is located along the river, which crosses Berlin, The Spree. The river itself belonged to East Berlin. The GDR, which was not able to place the wall on the west shore of the river, asked the soldiers to build only one wall but withdrawal the east shore. The guards of the border, to replace the no man’s land, made instead patrols with grey speedboats on the river, 24 hours a day, going very near to the edge of the shore, to show the enemies where the border is.” – Thierry Noir

Sotheby’s sell salvaged Berlin Wall segments in Monaco (1990)

“Here you can see Madame Rizolli with a piece of Berlin Wall that I 
painted. It was purchased at an Auction in Monaco on the 23rd of June 
1990. Soldiers from the GDR came to remove the old Wall pieces one day 
and they were taken to Monaco to be sold. In total my pieces of wall 
sold for $1.5 million and I received none of the money. To this day it 
is still strange to see one of my Wall pieces inside a private house in 
the South of France. This particular piece was made by me in 1985 in the 
Waldemarstrasse. When I painted the Wall I never thought about money, I 
painted the Wall as a protest and because I had to do it.” –  Thierry Noir

520 Madison Avenue, New York City

Many segments of Berlin Wall were auctioned by Sotheby’s at the 1990 Monaco sale including the iconic stretch of Berlin Wall featured in Wings of Desire. 

“These 5 sections of the wall are now in a private courtyard at 520 Madison Avenue in NYC and the ladder I was using is in the permanent collection of the Wende Museum in the USA. What a destiny!”   – Thierry Noir

Commissioned Berlin Wall segments 

Years on from the fall of the Berlin Wall the historical significance of Noir’s ‘one real revolutionary’ act to paint the Wall has been evaluated by scholars and institutions around the World. Many institutions have commissioned Noir to paint Berlin Wall sections as a testament to the current freedoms we enjoy in the world today. This piece was commissioned in 2005 by the The Wende Museum of the Cold War in Los Angeles, USA. 

Thierry Noir Berlin Wall segment at the United Nations 

“This image was taken at Leipzigerplatz (near Potsdamer Platz) in July 
2001. Here you can see the Mayor of Berlin Klaus Wowereit, the President 
of the German Parliament, Wolfgang Thierse and UN Secretary-General Kofi 
Annan. Kofi Annan came to Germany to collect three pieces of the Berlin Wall to put in the garden of the UN Headquarters in New York.” –  Thierry Noir

Thierry Noir and STIK commissioned by Imperial War Museum London 

In 2019 Imperial War Museum London commissioned Noir and UK based artist, and long time Noir collaborator, STIK to paint two original Berlin Wall segments to commemorate the 30th Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, 1989 to 2019. 

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Prologue Magazine

“Tear Down This Wall”

How top advisers opposed reagan's challenge to gorbachev—but lost.

Summer 2007, Vol. 39, No. 2

By Peter Robinson

© 2007 by Peter Robinson  

Ronald Reagan speaking at the Brandenburg Gate on June 12, 1987. (Ronald Reagan Library)

View in National Archives Catalog

     Behind me stands a wall that encircles the free sectors of this city, part of a vast system of barriers that divides the entire continent of Europe. . . . Standing before the Brandenburg Gate, every man is a German, separated from his fellow men. Every man is a Berliner, forced to look upon a scar. . . . As long as this gate is closed, as long as this scar of a wall is permitted to stand, it is not the German question alone that remains open, but the question of freedom for all mankind. . . .     General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate.     Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate!     Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

In April 1987, when I was assigned to write the speech, the celebrations for the 750th anniversary of the founding of Berlin were already under way. Queen Elizabeth had already visited the city. Mikhail Gorbachev was due in a matter of days.

Although the President hadn't been planning to visit Berlin himself, he was going to be in Europe in early June, first visiting Rome, then spending several days in Venice for an economic summit. At the request of the West German government, his schedule was adjusted to permit him to stop in Berlin for a few hours on his way back to the United States from Italy.

I was told only that the President would be speaking at the Berlin Wall, that he was likely to draw an audience of about 10,000, and that, given the setting, he probably ought to talk about foreign policy.

Later that month I spent a day and a half in Berlin with the White House advance team—the logistical experts, Secret Service agents, and press officials who went to the site of every presidential visit to make arrangements. All that I had to do in Berlin was find material. When I met the ranking American diplomat in Berlin, I assumed he would give me some.

A stocky man with thick glasses, the diplomat projected an anxious, distracted air throughout our conversation, as if the very prospect of a visit from Ronald Reagan made him nervous. The diplomat gave me quite specific instructions. Almost all of it was in the negative. He was full of ideas about what the President shouldn't say. The most left-leaning of all West Germans, the diplomat informed me, West Berliners were intellectually and politically sophisticated. The President would therefore have to watch himself. No chest-thumping. No Soviet-bashing. And no inflammatory statements about the Berlin Wall. West Berliners, the diplomat explained, had long ago gotten used to the structure that encircled them.

After I left the diplomat, several members of the advance team and I were given a flight over the city in a U.S. Army helicopter. Although all that remains of the wall these days are paving stones that show where it stood, in 1987 the structure dominated Berlin. Erected in 1961 to stanch the flow of East Germans seeking to escape the Communist system by fleeing to West Berlin, the wall, a dozen feet tall, completely encircled West Berlin. From the air, the wall seemed to separate two different modes of existence.

On one side of the wall lay movement, color, modern architecture, crowded sidewalks, traffic. On the other lay a kind of void. Buildings still exhibited pockmarks from shelling during the war. Cars appeared few and decrepit, pedestrians badly dressed. When he hovered over Spandau Prison, the rambling brick structure in which Rudolf Hess was still being detained, soldiers at East German guard posts beyond the prison stared up at us through binoculars, rifles over their shoulders. The wall itself, which from West Berlin had seemed a simple concrete structure, was revealed from the air as an intricate complex, the East Berlin side lined with guard posts, dog runs, and row upon row of barbed wire. The pilot drew our attention to pits of raked gravel. If an East German guard ever let anybody slip past him to escape to West Berlin, the pilot told us, the guard would find himself forced to explain the footprints to his commanding officer.

A fragment of the Berlin Wall is displayed at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. ( Ronald Reagan Library )

That evening, I broke away from the advance team to join a dozen Berliners for dinner. Our hosts were Dieter and Ingeborg Elz, who had retired to Berlin after Dieter completed his career at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. Although we had never met, we had friends in common, and the Elzes had offered to put on this dinner party to give me a feel for their city. They had invited Berliners of different walks of life and political outlooks—businessmen, academics, students, homemakers.

We chatted for a while about the weather, German wine, and the cost of housing in Berlin. Then I related what the diplomat told me, explaining that after my flight over the city that afternoon I found it difficult to believe. "Is it true?" I asked. "Have you gotten used to the wall?"

The Elzes and their guests glanced at each other uneasily. I thought I had proven myself just the sort of brash, tactless American the diplomat was afraid the President might seem. Then one man raised an arm and pointed. "My sister lives twenty miles in that direction," he said. "I haven't seen her in more than two decades. Do you think I can get used to that?" Another man spoke. Each morning on his way to work, he explained, he walked past a guard tower. Each morning, a soldier gazed down at him through binoculars. "That soldier and I speak the same language. We share the same history. But one of us is a zookeeper and the other is an animal, and I am never certain which is which."

Our hostess broke in. A gracious woman, she had suddenly grown angry. Her face was red. She made a fist with one hand and pounded it into the palm of the other. "If this man Gorbachev is serious with his talk of glasnost and perestroika," she said, "he can prove it. He can get rid of this wall."

Back at the White House I told Tony Dolan, then director of presidential speechwriting, that I intended to adapt Ingeborg Elz's comment, making a call to tear down the Berlin Wall the central passage in the speech. Tony took me across the street from the Old Executive Office Building to the West Wing to sell the idea to the director of communications, Tom Griscom. "The two of you thought you'd have to work real hard to keep me from saying no," Griscom now says. "But when you told me about the trip, particularly this point of learning from some Germans just how much they hated the wall, I thought to myself, 'You know, calling for the wall to be torn down—it might just work.'"

When I sat down to write, I'd like to be able to say, I found myself so inspired that the words simply came to me. It didn't happen that way. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. I couldn't even get that right. In one draft I wrote, "Herr Gorbachev, bring down this wall," using "Herr" because I somehow thought that would please the President's German audience and "bring" because it was the only verb that came to mind. In the next draft I swapped "bring" for "take," writing, "Herr Gorbachev, take down this wall," as if that were some sort of improvement. By the end of the week I'd produced nothing but a first draft even I considered banal. I can still hear the clomp-clomp-clomp of Tony Dolan's cowboy boots as he walked down the hallway from his office to mine to toss that draft onto my desk.

"It's no good," Tony said.

"What's wrong with it?" I replied.

"I just told you. It's no good."

The following week I produced an acceptable draft. It needed work—the section on arms reductions, for instance, still had to be fleshed out—but it set out the main elements of the address, including the challenge to tear down the wall. On Friday, May 15, the speeches for the President's trip to Rome, Venice, and Berlin, including my draft, were forwarded to the President, and on Monday, May 18, the speechwriters joined him in the Oval Office. My speech was the last we discussed. Tom Griscom asked the President for his comments on my draft. The President replied simply that he liked it.

White House speechwriters meet with President Reagan in the Oval Office on May 18, 1987. Peter Robinson is second from the left. (Ronald Reagan Library)

"Mr. President," I said, "I learned on the advance trip that your speech will be heard not only in West Berlin but throughout East Germany." Depending on weather conditions, I explained, radios would be able to pick up the speech as far east as Moscow itself. "Is there anything you'd like to say to people on the other side of the Berlin Wall?"

The President cocked his head and thought. "Well," he replied, "there's that passage about tearing down the wall. That wall has to come down. That's what I'd like to say to them."

I spent a couple of days attempting to improve the speech. I suppose I should admit that at one point I actually took "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" out, replacing it with the challenge, in German, to open the Brandenburg Gate, "Herr Gorbachev, machen Sie dieses Tor auf."

"What did you do that for?" Tony asked.

"You mean you don't get it?" I replied. "Since the audience will be German, the President should deliver his big line in German."

"Peter," Tony said, shaking his head, "when you're writing for the President of the United States, give him his big line in English." Tony put "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" right back in.

With three weeks to go before it was delivered, the speech was circulated to the State Department and the National Security Council. Both attempted to squelch it. The assistant secretary of state for Eastern European affairs challenged the speech by telephone. A senior member of the National Security Council staff protested the speech in memoranda. The ranking American diplomat in Berlin objected to the speech by cable. The draft was naïve. It would raise false hopes. It was clumsy. It was needlessly provocative. State and the NSC submitted their own alternate drafts—my journal records that there were no fewer than seven—including one written by the diplomat in Berlin. In each, the call to tear down the wall was missing.

Now in principle, State and the NSC had no objection to a call for the destruction of the wall. The draft the diplomat in Berlin submitted, for example, contained the line, "One day, this ugly wall will disappear." If the diplomat's line was acceptable, I wondered at first, what was wrong with mine? Then I looked at the diplomat's line once again. "One day?" One day the lion would lie down with the lamb, too, but you wouldn't want to hold your breath. "This ugly wall will disappear?" What did that mean? That the wall would just get up and slink off of its own accord? The wall would disappear only when the Soviets knocked it down or let somebody else knock it down for them, but "this ugly wall will disappear" ignored the question of human agency altogether. What State and the NSC were saying, in effect, was that the President could go ahead and issue a call for the destruction of the wall—but only if he employed language so vague and euphemistic that everybody could see right away he didn't mean it.

The week the President left for Europe, Tom Griscom began summoning me to his office each time State or the NSC submitted a new objection. Each time, Griscom had me tell him why I believed State and the NSC were wrong and the speech, as I'd written it, was right. When I reached Griscom's office on one occasion, I found Colin Powell, then deputy national security adviser, waiting for me. I was a 30-year-old who had never held a full-time job outside speechwriting. Powell was a decorated general. After listening to Powell recite all the arguments against the speech in his accustomed forceful manner, however, I heard myself reciting all the arguments in favor of the speech in an equally forceful manner. I could scarcely believe my own tone of voice. Powell looked a little taken aback himself.

A few days before the President was to leave for Europe, Tom Griscom received a call from the chief of staff, Howard Baker, asking Griscom to step down the hall to his office. "I walked in and it was Senator Baker [Baker had served in the Senate before becoming chief of staff] and the secretary of state—just the two of them." Secretary of State George Shultz now objected to the speech. "He said, 'I really think that line about tearing down the wall is going to be an affront to Mr. Gorbachev,'" Griscom recalls. "I told him the speech would put a marker out there. 'Mr. Secretary,' I said, 'The President has commented on this particular line and he's comfortable with it. And I can promise you that this line will reverberate.' The secretary of state clearly was not happy, but he accepted it. I think that closed the subject."

When the traveling party reached Italy (I remained in Washington), the secretary of state objected to the speech once again, this time to deputy chief of staff Kenneth Duberstein. "Shultz thought the line was too tough on Gorbachev," Duberstein says. On June 5, Duberstein sat the President down in the garden of the estate in which he was staying, briefed him on the objections to the speech, then handed him a copy of the speech, asking him to reread the central passage.

Reagan asked Duberstein's advice. Duberstein replied that he thought the line about tearing down the wall sounded good. "But I told him, 'You're President, so you get to decide.' And then," Duberstein recalls, "he got that wonderful, knowing smile on his face, and he said, 'Let's leave it in.'"

A page from the speaking copy that Reagan used in Berlin, showing the tear down this wall line. (Ronald Reagan Library)

The day the President arrived in Berlin, State and NSC submitted yet another alternate draft. "They were still at it on the very morning of the speech," says Tony Dolan. "I'll never forget it." Yet in the limousine on the way to the Berlin Wall, the President told Duberstein he was determined to deliver the controversial line. Reagan smiled. "The boys at State are going to kill me," he said, "but it's the right thing to do."

Not long ago, Otto Bammel, a retired diplomat, told me what he had witnessed in November 1989, some two-and-a-half years after President Reagan delivered the Brandenburg Gate address. Representing the government of West Germany, Bammel was living with his wife and two sons, both of whom were in their early twenties, in an East Berlin home just a few hundred yards from the wall. During the evening of November 9, as the East German state council met in emergency session—a few days earlier there had been peaceful but massive demonstrations throughout East Berlin—Bammel and his oldest son, Karsten, watched television as an East German official held a press conference.

"It was so boring," Bammel said, "that I finally couldn't take any more. So I said, 'Karsten, you listen to the rest. I'm going into the kitchen for something to eat.' Ten minutes later Karsten came to me and said, 'The official just announced everyone can go through the wall! It's a decision made by the state council!' I didn't believe this could happen. It was an unbelievable event." Certain that his son had somehow misunderstood, Bammel took his wife to the home of a neighbor, where they were expected for dinner.

"When we got back at midnight we saw that our boys were still out," Bammel continued. "And we were surprised that there were so many cars driving within the city, but where the traffic goes and why it was, we did not know. We went to bed. When we got up at seven o'clock the next morning, we saw a piece of paper on our kitchen table from our youngest boy, Jens, telling us, 'I crossed the wall. I jumped over the wall at the Brandenburg Gate with my friends. I took my East Berlin friends with me.'

"I said to my wife, 'Something is wrong.' Without eating we took our bicycles and went to the border. And that was the first time we saw what happened in the night. There were people crossing the border on foot and in cars and on bicycles and motorbikes. It was just overwhelming. Nobody expected it. Nobody had the idea that it could happen. The joy about this event was just overwhelming all other thoughts. This was so joyful and so unbelievable."

There is a school of thought that Ronald Reagan only managed to look good because he had clever writers putting words in his mouth. But Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Bob Dole, and Bill Clinton all had clever writers.

Why was there only one Great Communicator?

Because Ronald Reagan's writers were never attempting to fabricate an image, just to produce work that measured up to the standard Reagan himself had already established. His policies were plain. He had been articulating them for decades—until he became President he wrote most of his material himself.

When I heard Frau Elz say that Gorbachev should get rid of the wall, I knew instantly that the President would have responded to her remark. And when the State Department and National Security Council tried to block my draft by submitting alternate drafts, they weakened their own case. Their speeches were drab. They were bureaucratic. They lacked conviction. The people who wrote them had not stolen, as I had, from Frau Elz—and from Ronald Reagan.

Peter Robinson, an author and former White House speechwriter, is a Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. In 1983 Robinson joined President Ronald Reagan's staff, serving almost five years as speechwriter and special assistant to the President, an experience he recounts in his 2003 book, How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life. Robinson provided the chief executive with more than 300 speeches, including the 1987 Berlin Wall address.

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All the Ways People Escaped Across the Berlin Wall

By: Erin Blakemore

Updated: August 1, 2024 | Original: November 8, 2019

Ida Siekmann had been holed up for days. Nine days earlier, workers had sealed the border to her country by dead of night. Three days earlier, the front entrance to her apartment had been blocked off by police.

She had committed no crime, but Siekmann was in the wrong place at the wrong time: August 1961. Her apartment building was located in what had become East Berlin, while the street, including the sidewalk in front of her building entrance was now part of West Berlin.

Siekmann wanted out, so she took a chance . She shoved her bedding and other possessions out of her window and jumped. She died on the way to the hospital. She had just become the first fatality of the Berlin Wall.

Between 1961 and 1989, thousands of East Germans made risky border crossings. Around 5,000 of them crossed over the Berlin Wall at great personal risk—and their attempts to do so ranged from sneaky to suicidal.

German Democratic Republic officials decided to close the Berlin border for good in 1961, spurred by a spate of defections from refugees who used Berlin’s relatively permeable border to escape East Germany. By August 1961, when officials abruptly sealed the border, up to 1,700 people a day were leaving through Berlin and claiming refugee status once they reached the west. On the night of August 12-13, 1961, workers erected barbed wire and temporary barriers, trapping East Berliners.

As Barriers Intensify, So Do Escape Efforts

At first, people used structures like Siekmann’s apartment building to escape west. These border houses had doors and windows that opened into West Berlin, and people used those buildings to escape. West German emergency personnel and others waited on the west side and helped people as they climbed through windows or jumped off of roofs. Soon, though, East German troops forced residents to move and sealed the apartment buildings along the border.

They soon erected a more permanent barrier through Berlin. The 27-mile-long wall was actually two walls with a no-man’s-land known as the “death strip” in between. Armed with landmines, attack dogs and barbed wire and regularly patrolled by East German troops ready to shoot and kill any would-be escapee, it intimidated most East Berliners into staying put.

But some were determined to leave at any cost. Two days after the wall was built, Conrad Schumann, an East German border guard, was photographed leaping over barbed wire toward freedom. Train engineer Harry Deterling stole a steam train and drove it through the last station in East Berlin, bringing 25 passengers to the west and prompting big changes to the railroad lines. And Wolfgang Engels, an East German soldier who had helped build the barbed-wire fences that initially separated both Berlins, stole a tank and drove it through the wall itself. Despite getting caught in the barbed wire and shot twice, he managed to escape.

Dozens Cross the Border in Tunnels

Tunnels were another daring mode of escape, and people on both sides attempted to dig them. Many were left unfinished when their makers were ratted out; others failed because of difficult conditions. But a few were successful.

In 1962, a group of West German students assisted by an East German refugee received funding from NBC as they built a 131-foot-long tunnel beneath a factory. As part of the deal, NBC planned to broadcast a special about the tunnel and escapees. Twenty-nine people escaped through it before it was discovered. The subsequent NBC News' documentary , "The Tunnel," was originally scheduled to air on October 31, 1962 but the air date was postponed after NBC came under pressure to not escalate tensions with the Soviet Union after the Cuban missile crisis.

Another student-dug tunnel sparked the most successful escape attempt in the wall’s history— 57 people escaped over the two days it was open. The well publicized escapes so shook East Germany’s secret police, the Stasi, that they installed listening devices across the death strip and monitored the ground for tunneling activity 24/7.

The Surprising Human Factors Behind the Fall of the Berlin Wall

First came the botched press conference. Then the actions of an angry, tired secret police officer who thought he had nothing to lose. Soviet reaction wasn't good.

10 Things You May Not Know About the Berlin Wall

More than 5,000 people managed to escape over or under the the iconic Cold War symbol—which is all the more impressive considering the Berlin Wall was actually two walls.

How Long Was the Berlin Wall?

Few symbols better captured the Cold War divide between western Europe and the Soviet bloc than the Berlin Wall, a concrete and barbed wire barrier that divided Germany’s largest city for nearly 30 years. As World War II wound to a close, Germany and Berlin were divided into four zones, each administered by one of […]

Desperation drove creativity as others tried to get over the border. Hartmut Richter swam across the cold Teltow Canal that separated the East German region of Brandenburg from West Berlin. It was a four-hour ordeal—and then he returned again and again to take friends west in his car trunk. Acrobat Horst Klein got over the border on a tightrope ; Ingo and Holger Bethke used a complex zip line , then flew ultralight planes back over the wall to pick up their brother, Egbert.

Deaths at the Berlin Wall

But others weren’t so lucky. According to the Berlin Wall Memorial , 140 people died at the Berlin Wall or were killed there in connection with the border. Another 251 travelers also died during or after passing through border checkpoints. And “unknown numbers of people suffered and died through distress and despair in their personal lives as a consequence of the Berlin Wall being built.”

Ingenuity and desperation drove individuals and small groups to make their escapes, but it would take a massive movement to bring down the wall itself.

In August 1989, the Spitzner family became the last East Germans to escape across the wall. Three months later, massive pro-democracy protests and confusion among East German officials prompted a rush on the border and the wall that had divided Berlin for nearly 30 years. The wall was finally breached on November 9, 1989, and Germany reunited in 1990. 

HISTORY Vault: Declassified: Rise and Fall of the Wall

Mine formerly guarded vaults and archives around the world to reveal untold stories about the brutal life and catastrophic death of the Berlin Wall, a central symbol of the 20th century's longest and deadliest war.

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Listen&Learn: The Berlin Wall

Pre-listening vocabulary.

• Allied Powers: the countries that fought against Nazi Germany in World War II
• region: an area inside a country
• defect: to leave a country for political reasons
• border: the division between two regions
• diplomat: a person who represents their country in negotiations
• checkpoint: a place where people are verified by security
• signify : to show that something is happening

Listening activity

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:17 — 1.2MB)

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Gapfill exercise

Comprehension questions.

See answers below

• The wall was built by the government of a. Russia b. East Germany c. West Germany
• The purpose of the wall was to a. stop people from immigrating to the country b. protect the country from military advances c. stop people from defecting
• The wall came down in a. 1961 b. 1968 c. 1989

Discussion/essay questions

• The Berlin Wall was one structure that represented a major political divide across Europe. Why do you think it is so easy to divide people?

The Berlin Wall was a barrier that separated West Berlin from the rest of East Germany during the Cold War. After World War II, the Allied Powers divided Germany into four regions. The Soviet Union controlled the eastern region, and the United States, Britain, and France controlled the western regions. The communist government of East Germany built the Berlin Wall in 1961 to stop people from defecting. The only people who could cross the border were diplomats, and they had to go through special checkpoints. In 1989, East Germany finally declared that people would be able to cross the border freely . Over 2 million people arrived at the border. Some brought tools to tear the wall down. The fall of the wall came to signify the beginning of the end of the Cold War. 

Answers to comprehension questions

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14 comments

People have different thoughts and opinions regarding everything. They will stand for what they believe. When one belief is contrasted to another, this could lead to division among people.

Yesterday it was so. Today it’s/ russia/ Ukraine People are always fighting for what? an idea an idealism something real and concrete but there is something sure that human that are fighting are miserable and suffer in their mind and their body

Thank you so much for sharing it with us.

I wish ❤️YOU❤️ and 🌹your students🌹 LOVE & Peace in life,

I don’t know about the Berlin Wall until I read your’s passage. It’s very useful for me. Thank you very much

Thank you so much. So informative passage

Excellent! I am very proud of it.

thankyou for this exercise ,its very useful

Thank you so much, It was very useful for me that I understood who built this wall, and when to tear the wall down.

I particularly appreciate these comprehension exercises, thank you; and it’so interesting to remember these great moments of the wall fall just after my visit in West Germany !

v useful.Great

v useful articale,Thank u so much

Thank you very much for your articles. They are very useful for me to continue my education in learning English language.

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