Existing comment:
The tower on the right used to be in this location. It's now in the Newseum in downtown DC. It was donated by Checkpoint Charlie Museum.
How East Germans stopped escapes:
For a year after the Berlin Wall was built, escape to the West was as simple as jumping out a second-story window.
Then it got dangerous.
East Germans bricked up the windows. They demolished houses and apartment buildings to make a no man's land of barren earth and barbed wire. They called it the Todesstreifen -- the death strip.
Guards watched from 300 watchtowers, including this one, which was located near the East-West crossing called Checkpoint Charlie. Two guards watched the 110-yard-wide death strip day and night through large windows three stories above the ground.
Their orders: Shoot on sight.
Searchlights scanned no man's land. Anti-tank barriers, including the one here, blocked it. Dogs guarded the fences.
The wall did not discourage Dieter Wohlfahrt. On Dec 9 1961, he decided to help his fiancee's mother make it to the West. The 20-year-old had to cut through three barbed-wire barriers. Wohlfahrt cut easily through the first. Then the guards fired. He never made it to the second.
In all, 246 people died trying to escape from East Germany by crossing the Berlin Wall. |