The Berlin Wall was a physical barrier that was placed along the border of East and West Berlin by the East German Government, the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Construction of the Wall began on August 13th, 1961 and by its completion it stretched over 150 kilometers and completely sealed off the Eastern side of the city from the West. The Wall was built by the GDR to prevent droves of people from leaving the East for the West. Between October 1949 to August 1961 more than 2.7 million people fled the GDR with most of them crossing the border that separated Berlin's East and West sectors. The Berlin Wall was just one single barrier, it consisted of many different sections. There was a Vorderlandmauer (front wall) and a Hinterlandmauer (back wall), an inner track with a patrol path, watchtowers, and barrier fortifications.[1] The section of the Wall that is the focus of this tour is the section on the street Niederkirchnerstraße. A roughly 200-meter-long strip of the border wall is all that remains of the Belin Wall on this street. This section of wall is known as the "Grenzmauer 75 model" as it was the "fourth generation" of the Berlin Wall. This model began replacing earlier versions of the wall in the 1970s. The sections were 3.60 meters high and 1.20 meters wide and was topped off by a smooth asbestos-concrete pipe 40 centimeters in diameter. This new design had a solid base, could stop vehicles from smashing through, and it presented a clean, uniform style towards the West.[2] The Wall was eventually brought down in 1989 and afterwards there were mixed feelings about the last remaining sections of the Wall. Many people wanted in completely torn down and others wanted to take parts of it as souvenirs to either keep or to sell. The result was that many parts of the Wall were defaced or destroyed, but in 1990 this section of the Wall along Niederkirchnerstraße was listed as a historical monument.[3]
[1] Topographie Des Terrors - Berlin Wall Monument.
[2] "Niederkirchnerstraße." Berlin.de. June 15, 2018.
[3] "Berlin Wall - Niederkirchnerstrasse." Berlin Wall - Niederkirchnerstrasse, Berlin City Guide.
This destination is the third and final stop on the Sites of Tension and Conflict in East Berlin tour. Click Here to return to the tour Overview page.
This history of the Berlin Wall is one of unrest and defiance. In the years before its construction, millions of people from the Eastern side of Berlin, and Germany as a whole, sought asylum in the Western half of the city. The German Democratic Republic (GDR) sought to find some way to stop this flood of workers, and especially stop skilled workers, from fleeing the country of East Germany, and the solution that they came up with was the construction of the Berlin Wall. To he Soviets, this seemed like the only way for them to keep the future of their idea for East Berlin alive as by 1961 members of the GDR were warning leaders in Moscow that if something was not done then the GDR would be on the brink of collapse. There were many other problems in East Berlin and East Germany, like a lack of consumer goods for an upset public, and the fact that many people of lived in East Berlin worked in the West controlled area of the city where they made better wages to then come home and buy cheaper products.[1] The solution of the Wall and its creation took many by surprise. The construction of the Wall took place in the middle of the night on August 13th, 1961 while the German people slept. At 1 a.m. East German troops arrived at the border with barbed wire, concrete posts, stone blocks, picks and shovels while the police worked to all passageways they could that led to West Berlin. When the city of Berlin awoke, they were greeted with the sight of blocked off boarder. Because of this thousands of people were separated from families, and it was not long until people began to gather in protest. By 4 p.m. nearly half a million Berliners had gathered along the border on both sides, but to no avail.[2] Over the years there was public opinion about the Wall from East Berliners was not great, although there were some people who enjoyed life in the East. During the period that the Wall stood there was also many attempts by people to escape with hundreds of people dying in their attempts to escape from the East to the West. There were also people like Gunter Grass who helped to smuggle people out of the East, often through underground tunnels that ran beneath the Wall.[3] The Berlin Wall was an attempt by the GDR to keep the people inside its borders so they could move forward with the "socialist" plans for the country, but despite their efforts there was still large amounts of resistance to their ideas and their decisions. Once again in Berlin we can see the kind of tension that was always present in the Soviet controlled areas and the ways in which people tried to fight for or find freedom.
[1] Ross, Corey. "East Germans and the Berlin Wall: Popular Opinion and Social Change before and after the Border Closure of August 1961." 31.
[2] Rodden, John. "'Barbed-Wire Sunday.'" 9-10.
[3] Grass, Günter, and Michael Henry Heim. "1961." 188.
"Berlin Wall - Niederkirchnerstrasse." Berlin Wall - Niederkirchnerstrasse, Berlin City Guide. http://www.cityscouter.com/travelguides/berlin/Berlin-Wall-Niederkirchnerstrasse.html.
Grass, Günter, and Michael Henry Heim. "1961." Grand Street, no. 69 (1999): 186-89.
"Niederkirchnerstraße." Berlin.de. June 15, 2018.
Rodden, John. "'Barbed-Wire Sunday.'" Commonweal 128, no. 14 (August 17, 2001): 9-10.
Ross, Corey. "East Germans and the Berlin Wall: Popular Opinion and Social Change before and after the Border Closure of August 1961." Journal of Contemporary History 39, no. 1 (2004): 25-43.
Topographie Des Terrors - Berlin Wall Monument. https://www.topographie.de/en/the-historic-site/berlin-wall-monument/.
The goal of this tour was to be able to shed light on what was going on within the borders of East Germany, and more specifically East Berlin. The goals and ideals of the Soviet Union and all their satellite states has become common more well known over the years, and the impact that these goals and ideals had on people who lived under them is just as important as how they were carried out. The decision to increase work hours while not increasing wages was the cause of the Berlin Uprising in 1953. The goal of the East German government to cut off contact with the West is what sparked the events at Checkpoint Charlie and was the reason that the Berlin Wall was built. In each of these events we can see a similar pattern of the GDR and the Soviets constantly attempting to exert their control over the people of East Germany, and time and again we can see this causing a rise in tension and unrest within their borders, and in some cases even creating tension on a global scale. But, with this rise in tension we are also able to see how the people reacted to force of the GDR. In 1953 works protested and rioted, not just against their unfair increases in work, but against the government, calling for reunification. The events at Checkpoint Charlie us just how high tensions could rise because of the East's decisions, and the creation of the Berlin Wall showed what lengths people would go to fight back against the pressure of the government, and to what lengths they would go to find freedom.
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