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Before the Berlin Wall:
The story of the Berlin Wall begins with the end of World War II.
In 1945, Berlin was a ruined city. When the Nazis surrendered, the war's victors -- the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union -- divided the conquered capital into four zones.
By 1948, disagreements arose between the capitalist Allies and the communist Soviet Union over how to govern Berlin. On April 1, the Soviet Union blocked routes in and out of East Germany, trapping 2 million West Berliners without food or duel. The Western Allies countered with the Berlin airlift. Hundreds of twin-engine planes kept the city alive, delivering supplies every day for 462 days. The Soviets lifted their foiled blockade in 1949.
In the 1950s, the chasm widened between life in West and East Berlin. In the West, the Allies poured in money for rebuilding; in the East, basics like food and housing were scarce. People began "voting with their feet" fleeing to the West. "I no longer had any reason to stay on in what I had considered my homeland," said Walter Kocher, whose family business had been seized.
After World War II, more than 3 million people left East Germany for a better life in the West. By 1961, the communist government knew it had to stop the exodus.
Building the Wall:
At 2am on Aug 13, 1961, while the city slept, a low barbed-wired barrier was strung between East and West Berlin.
The Iron Curtain has descended on Berlin. Within days, workers cemented concrete blocks into a low wall through the city.
Moscow called it a barrier to Western imperialism. "It pleases me tremendously," said Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. "The working class of Germany has erected a wall so that no wolf can break into the German Democratic Republic again."
The West Germans called it Schandmauer, the "Wall of Shame."
There were four generations of the Berlin Wall, each one bigger, stronger and more repressive.
Hand-mortared bricks gave way to pre-cast concrete blocks, then finally to concrete slabs so heavy only large cranes could move them. Towers, guards and dogs stood watch over a barren no man's land. A large pipe, too thick for a climber to hrip, ran along the top of the wall. "Forbidden zones," some miles wide, were created behind the wall.
The East German government saw the Berlin Wall as a symbol of its superior technology. But as strong as the wall was, it would never be strong enough.
Trying to Escape:
The Berlin Wall didn't stop all East Germans. An estimated 10,000 tried to escape to the West: 5,000 made it.
Some escapes were ingenuous. One woman hid under the hood of a car. Two families floated over the border in a hot-air balloon as big as a four-story house.
Other escapes were just plain hard work. One group took six months in 1964 to dig a 145-yard tunnel, from the cellar of a former West Berlin bakery to an outhouse on the eastern side. They freed 57 East Berliners. The escape ended when East German soldiers sprayed the tunnel with machine-gun fire.
Even soldiers escaped. On Aug 15, 1961, the first member of the People's Army leaped to freedom. After him, about 2,000 soldiers fled to the West.
Of all those who died at the wall, perhaps the best known was 18-year-old bricklayer Peter Fechter. On Aug 17, 1962, he tried to jump the barbed wire near Checkpoint Charlie, a key border crossing between the American and Soviet sectors of Berlin. East German soldiers fired. Fechter fell at the foot of the wall. The East Germans would not allow anyone to help him. He bled to death.
"Murderers," shouted West Berliners.
Fechter, the wall's 50th casualty, became a symbol of all those slain at the Berlin Wall, his death memorialized with wreaths and crosses.
Living with the Wall:
"The wall must go," said West Berlin Willy Brandt. "But until it goes, the city must live."
And so it did.
West Germans held their babies up over the wall for relatives to see. They painted scenes and slogans on the wall, staged political rallies and concerts in front of it, walked hand in hand through its shadow.
Despite the wall, East Germans learned about the West by listening to newscasts from Radio Free Europe, Radio In the American Sector, the British Broadcasting Corporation and West German stations.
There were cracks in the Iron Curtain, tacit signs that Soviet-style society was not working in East Germany.
"As schoolchildren, and later as young adults, we were taught that capitalism exploits," said Thassilo Borchart, a journalist whose work was banned during the communist years. "But the truth is... communism is a religion that glorifies its goals, promising the unpromisable."
Fighting the Wall:
By the 1980s, communism was bankrupt.
In East Germany, wages were low. Homes bombed out during World War II were still unrepaired. Many citizens lived in squalor while communist leaders lived in luxury. Industrial pollution poisoned the air, water and soil.
The Berlin Wall, said East German General Secretary Erich Honecker, "will still exist in 50 and in 100 years, unless the reasons for its existence are eliminated."
But the end was near. The Soviet Union could no longer afford the Cold War -- decades of military, political and economic rivalry with the United States. US resolve was reflected in the remarks of two presidents who visited the wall. In 1963, John F Kennedy delcared: "Ich bin ein Berliner (I am a Berliner)." In 1987, Ronald Reagan demanded: "Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
Earlier in the 1980s, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had introduced glasnost (openness) and perestroika (democratic reform).
Slowly, Eastern Europeans began to test their new freedoms. By the end of the decade, mass protests in Dresden, Leipzig, Potsdam and other East German cities demanded freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom to travel, and the fall of the wall.
"We are the people," they proclaimed.
On Friday, Nov 9, 1989, the people won. That weekend, the East German government opened its borders, allowing its citizens to visit the West. The world watched the euphoria on television.
After 28 years, the Berlin Wall had fallen. |