Existing comment:
Kings of Freedom
Dennis Kaun, 1990 -- Spray Paint on Concrete
On the night of August 13, 1961 the communist government of East Germany, backed by the Soviet Union, began construction of a barrier to the free movement of Germans from East to West through the city of Berlin. At the time, Berlin was occupied by the four victorious allied powers from World War II: the Soviet Union, United States, Great Britain, and France and movement was relatively unrestricted across allied sectors. By August 1961, as many as 2,000 people a day fled East Germany by simply walking across the Soviet sector into one of the Western sectors; more than two million out of a population of 17 million had fled East Germany from all crossings since 1949. This exodus threatened the survival of the East German government and with it of Soviet influence in Germany. The original barbed wire barrier was rapidly converted to a formidable wall, remains of which stand here. In spite of unspeakable risks, more than 5,000 Germans managed to escape by climbing, jumping, swimming, tunneling, ballooning, etc. Hundreds were killed or otherwise died in the attempt. When completed, the Wall ran for 28 miles through Berlin and 75 miles around the city. The Wall stood for 28 years as a symbol of communist repression and of the cold war in general, moving President John F. Kennedy to conclude his speech in West Berlin of June 26, 1963, "Ich bin ein Berliner!" (I am a Berliner.) On the evening of November 9, 1989, upon the announcement of an easing of travel restrictions from East to West, tens of thousands of East Berliners marched to the Wall: border guards without orders allowed the crowds to pass into West Berlin unhindered. That night, in front of international television, Berliners began to dismantle the Wall physically. Thus a Wall that divided families, friends, an entire nation and, symbolically, an entire world, came down, propelled by the very people the Wall was designed to contain. |