THE BERLIN WALL
The Berlin Wall was a long barrier separating West Berlin from East Berlin and the surrounding territory of East Germany. The East German authorities called it the antifaschistischer Schutzwall (Anti-Fascist Protection Wall). Its purpose was to restrict access between West Berlin and East Germany.
It first began as barbed wire barrier in 1961, was fortified over the years, and was opened to unrestricted transit on 9 November 1989 and subsequently almost entirely demolished.
 BACKGROUND OF THE BERLIN WALL
Germany's capital, Berlin, was captured by the Soviet army during the last months of World War II. Thereafter, Germany as a country was divided into four occupation "zones", each controlled by one of the four major Allied powers. As the capital, Berlin was also divided by the Allies into four sectors, although Berlin itself was completely surrounded on all sides by the Soviet sector of Germany. Thus the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France each had a portion of both the country and the capital city under their control.
The city was initially governed jointly by a commission of all four occupying armies, with leadership rotating on a monthly basis. As the early phases of the Cold War unfolded, tensions between the Soviets and the western allies escalated. Conflict over a currency reform in 1948 prompted the Berlin Blockade by the Soviet Union and led to the Berlin Airlift by the Western Allies. The Soviets discontinued the blockade the next year.
After 1949, the three sectors controlled by the United States, Britain and France (West Berlin), although nominally still under joint four-power Allied sovereignty, were in effect an exclave of West Germany, completely surrounded by East Germany. West Berlin's precarious position was a key factor in the decision to make Bonn the seat of government of West Germany in preference to either West Berlin or Frankfurt.
Initially the citizens of Berlin were allowed to move freely among all the sectors. However, as the Cold War developed, movement became restricted. The border between East and West Germany proper was closed in 1952, and only in Berlin did the border remain open. The border between East and West Berlin was temporarily sealed on 17 June 1953 during the 17 June Uprising. Around 2.5 million East Germans crossed into the West between 1949 and 1961; after 1952 this happened almost exclusively via West Berlin.
Huge numbers of professional and skilled workers migrated daily, frequently because of lucrative opportunities in the Marshall Plan rebuilding West (one day the entire Mathematics Department of the University of Leipzig defected). Furthermore, many West Berliners travelled into East Berlin to do their shopping at state-subsidized stores, where prices were much lower than in West Berlin. This drain of labour and economic output threatened East Germany with economic collapse. This had ramifications for the whole Communist bloc and particularly the Soviet Union, because East Germany's economy was being subsidized by the Soviet government, and simultaneously, the now-threatened East German production was responsible for all war reparations to Poland and the Soviet Union.
CONSTRUCTION OF THE WALL
The impetus for the creation of the Berlin Wall came from East German leader Walter Ulbricht, approved by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev but with conditions imposed. Ulbricht's proposal for a second air blockade was refused, and the construction of a barrier was permitted only if it were composed at first of barbed wire. If the Allies challenged the barbed-wire barrier, the East Germans were to fall back and were not to fire first under any circumstances.
Construction of 45 km (28 miles) around the three western sectors began on Sunday 13 August 1961 in East Berlin. That morning the zonal boundary had been sealed by East German troops. The barrier was built by East German troops and workers, not directly involving the Soviets. It was built a little way inside East German territory to ensure that it did not encroach on West Berlin at any point; if one stood next to the West Berlin side of the barrier (and later the Wall), one was actually standing on East Berlin soil.
Some streets along which the barrier ran were torn up to make them impassable to most vehicles and a barbed-wire fence was erected, which was later built up into the full-scale Wall. It physically divided the city and completely surrounded West Berlin. During the construction of the Wall, NVA and KdA soldiers stood in front of it with orders to shoot anyone who attempted to defect.
Many families were split, many East Berliners were cut off from their jobs and opportunitistic chances of a financially better life, and West Berlin became an isolated enclave 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.
But John F. Kennedy had accepted in a speech on 25 July 1961 that it could only really hope to defend West Berliners and West Germans: to attempt to stand up for East Germans would only result in an embarrassing climbdown. Accordingly, the administration made polite protests, at length, via "the usual channels", but without fervour, even though it was a violation of the postwar Four Powers Agreements, which gave the United Kingdom, France and the United States a say over the administration of the whole of Berlin. Indeed, a few months after the barbed wire went up, the U.S. government would inform the Soviet government that it accepted the Wall as "a fact of international life" and would not challenge it by force.
But it was clear both that West German morale needed more and that there was a serious potential threat to the viability of West Berlin. And if West Berlin fell, after all the efforts of the Berlin Airlift, how could any of America's allies rely on her? On the other hand, in the face of any serious Soviet threat, an enclave like West Berlin could not be defended except with nuclear weapons. So it was vitally important for the Americans to show the Soviets that they could push their luck no further.
Accordingly General Lucius D. Clay, who was deeply respected by Berliners after commanding the American effort during the Berlin Airlift (1948-49) and was known to have a firm attitude towards the Soviets, was sent to Berlin with ambassadorial rank (as JFK's special advisor). He and Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson arrived at Tempelhof Airport on the afternoon of Saturday 19 August. They arrived in a city defended by what would soon be known as the "Berlin Brigade", which then consisted of the 2nd and 3rd Battle Groups of the 6th Infantry, with Company F, 40th Armor. The battle groups were pentatomic, with 1362 officers and men each. On 16 August, Kennedy had given the order for them to be reinforced. Early on 19 August, the 1st Battle Group, 18th Infantry (commanded by Col. Glover S. Johns Jr.) was alerted.
On Sunday morning, lead elements in a column of 491 vehicles and trailers carrying 1500 men, divided into five march units, left the Helmstedt-Marienborn checkpoint at 0634. At Marienborn, the Soviet checkpoint next to Helmstedt on the West German/East German border, U.S. personnel were counted by guards. The column was 160 km (~100 miles) long, and covered 177 km (~110 miles) from Marienborn to Berlin in full battle gear, with VoPos (East German traffic police) watching from beside trees next to the autobahn all the way along. The front of the convoy arrived at the outskirts of Berlin just before noon, to be met by Clay and Johnson, before parading through the streets of Berlin to an adoring crowd. At 0400 on Monday, 21 August, Lyndon Johnson left a visibly reassured West Berlin in the hands of Gen. Frederick O. Hartel and his brigade, now of 4224 officers and men. Every three months for the next three and a half years, a new American battalion was rotated into West Berlin-by autobahn, to demonstrate Allied rights.
The East German government claimed that the Wall was an "anti-fascist protection barrier", intended to dissuade aggression from the West. However, this position was viewed with scepticism even in East Germany; its construction had caused considerable hardship to families divided by the Wall, and the Western view that the Wall was a means of preventing the citizens of East Germany from entering West Berlin was widely seen as being the truth.
Additionally, the whole length of the border between East and West Germany was closed with chain-fences, walls, minefields and other installations (see GDR border system).
THE FALL OF THE WALL
On August 23, 1989, Hungary removed its border restrictions with Austria, and in September more than 13,000 East Germans escaped through Hungary. Mass demonstrations against the government in East Germany began in the autumn of 1989. The leader of East Germany, Erich Honecker, resigned on October 18, 1989. He was briefly replaced by a successor, Egon Krenz, a few days later.
The new Krenz government decided to allow East Berliners to apply for visas to travel to West Germany. However, Gunter Schabowski, the East German Minister of Propaganda, had been on vacation prior to this decision and hadn't been fully updated on all the protesting or this particular decision. Shortly before a press conference on November 9 in 1989, he was simply handed a note with the new travel regulation and no further instructions how to handle it. He decided to read them out loud at the end of the conference, which turned out to be a huge mistake.
The note said that East Berliners would be allowed to cross the border with proper permission. The regulations were to take effect the following day, as they had only been completed a few hours ago and the border guards would have to be properly instructed first. The note was therefore not to be published until next morning, but nobody had informed Schabowski (nor was the information on the note itself). At a crucial point of the conference he was asked when the regulations would come into action. He didn't really know so he just assumed it would be the same day based according to the wording of the note and so replied "As far as I know effective immediately, right now".
Tens of thousands of people immediately went to the checkpoints in the Wall and demanded entry into West Berlin. They quickly became a major crowd control problem for the surprised and overwhelmed border guards. Many hectic telephone calls with the guards' superiors ensued while still more people kept converging on the major crossing points. It became clear that there was no way to hold back the huge crowd of East German citizens short of dispatching the army to kill them all, as the vastly outnumbered border guards had only been equipped for another day of regular duty. The masses could also not be convinced to turn back or calm down - they had heard of Mr. Schabowski's statement, and they wanted it to be acted upon.
The only way to have held the crowds back would have been through the use of massive lethal force, but this would have meant massacring the country's own citizens in huge numbers - which the guards and authorities were simply not willing to do. In face of the escalating crowd safety situation, the guards eventually just yielded, opening the access points and allowing people through with (at most) minimal identity verification checks. The ecstatic East Berliners were soon greeted by jubilant West Berliners on the other side in a celebratory, party atmosphere. November 9 is thus considered the date the Wall fell. In the days and weeks that followed, people began arriving at the wall with sledgehammers and physically demolishing it, section by section.
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Remnant of the Berlin Wall near Potsdamer Platz, June 2003
The Berlin Wall in 1986
HOW THE WALL WORKED:
The Wall was over 155 km (96 miles) long. In June 1962 work started on a second parallel fence up to 91 meters (100 yards) further in, with houses in between the fences torn down and their inhabitants relocated. An empty No Man's Land was created between the two barriers, which became widely known as the "death strip". It was paved with raked gravel, making it easy to spot footprints left by escapees; it offered no cover; it was mined and booby-trapped with tripwires; and, most importantly, it offered a clear field of fire to the watching guards.
Over the years, the Wall went through four distinct phases:
• Basic wire fence (1961)
- Improved wire fence (1962-1965)
- Concrete wall (1965-1975)
- Grenzmauer 75 (Border Wall 75) (1975-1989)
The "fourth generation wall", known officially as "Stutzwandelement UL 12.11"(Retaining wall element UL 12.11), was the final and most sophisticated version of the Wall. Begun in 1975, it was constructed from 45,000 separate sections of reinforced concrete, each 3.6 m (12 ft) high and 1.5 m (5 ft) wide, and cost 16,155,000 East German Marks. The top of the wall was lined with a smooth pipe, intended to make it more difficult for escapers to scale it. It was reinforced by mesh fencing, signal fencing, anti-vehicle trenches, barbed wire, over 300 watchtowers, and thirty bunkers. This version of the Wall is the one most commonly seen in photographs, and surviving fragments of Wall in Berlin and elsewhere around the world are generally pieces of the fourth-generation Wall.
Although Allied military personnel, officials and diplomats were still able to pass into East Berlin following the construction of the Wall - free passage of such people was a requirement of the post-war Four Powers Agreements - the West Berliners were initially subject to very severe restrictions. All of the crossing points were closed to West Berliners between August 26, 1961 and December 17, 1963, and it was not until September 1971 that travel restrictions were eased following a Four Powers Agreement on transit issues. Passage in and out of West Berlin was limited to a total of twelve crossing points on the Wall, though all but two of these were reserved for Germans. The only land route into Berlin that was accessible to Westerners was via the Berlin-Helmstedt autobahn, which entered Berlin at Dreilinden in south-western Berlin and crossed East German territory to reach the town of Helmstadt on the West Germany/East Germany border. A crossing at Friedrichstrasse in central Berlin gave Westerners their only access between West and East Berlin.
The three crossing points were named phonetically: Alpha (Helmstedt), Bravo (Dreilinden), and, most famously, Checkpoint Charlie (Friedrichstrasse).
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