Berlin Wall: Day of parity between its construction and fall
Klaus Krämer ad
February 5, 2018
"Circle day" — that's how some Germans refer to February 5, 2018. It's the day when the Wall has been gone for as long as it stood. DW's Klaus Krämer shares his recollections of Germany's division and reunification.
The border between West and East Berlin at Potsdamer PlatzImage: picture-alliance/Dieter Klar
Advertisement
The Berlin Wall: 28 years up, 28 years fallen
From 1961 to 1989 the Berlin Wall divided a city and the world. February 5, 2018 marks the date on which the Wall will have been down for as long as it once stood: 28 years, 2 months and 27 days, to be exact.
Image: picture-alliance/W.Kumm
1961: The Wall goes up
On August 13, 1961, the East German Democratic Republic began cordoning off the Soviet sector in Berlin. All communication between East and West was cut off. In the following weeks the concrete wall began to rise, as can be seen in the above photo taken in Zimmerstrasse in the Kreuzberg neighborhood. Barbed wire crowned the wall to prevent people from climbing over the top.
Image: Stiftung Berliner Mauer/M. R. Ernst
1962: An icon behind barbed wire
The division of Berlin also split the world into East and West. The "Iron Curtain" had finally been drawn closed. Spouses, relatives, friends were brutally torn apart from one another. The communists' name for the wall, the "anti-fascist protection barrier," was a misnomer, however, since the barrier's true purpose was not to keep intruders out but to prevent those in the East from fleeing.
Image: Stiftung Berliner Mauer
1962: Early victim at the Wall
A good year after the construction of the Berlin Wall, 18-year-old Peter Fechter tried to climb over it. After reaching the top, GDR soldiers shot him. He fell down on the East Berlin side, where he lay for nearly an hour begging for help in the "death strip." Border patrols eventually picked up the wounded man, who died later in the afternoon. The world was horrified.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
1963: A symbol of hope
US President John F. Kennedy visited Berlin on June 26, 1963, sweeping his gaze across the Wall and the death strip. During his speech, he made the legendary statement: "Ich bin ein Berliner." He stressed that the US would not allow West Berlin to fall in the hands of the Soviet Union.
Image: picture-alliance/Heinz-Jürgen Goettert
1965: Deadly no-man's-land
Between the Brandenburg Gate and Potsdamer Platz, a no-man's-land with various barriers evolved which would define the appearance of the border area during the first decade of the Wall. It was a maze of fencing, barbed wire, heavy-duty vehicles and wooden watchtowers.
Image: Stiftung Berliner Mauer/W. Rupprecht
1973: Scared stiff on both sides
The East, with its death strip, but also West Berlin were marked by the Wall, particularly the city districts directly adjacent to the border sectors. In the shadows of the Wall, run-down, abandoned areas and open stretches of land developed and became makeshift parking lots, trash dumps or wild gardens. Children would play there, and artists and activists would use the grounds for activities.
Image: Stiftung Berliner Mauer/W. Schubert
1976: A new kind of Wall
Beginning in 1975, the Wall became much more massive, with the so-called "Grenzmauer" (Border Wall) measuring 3.6 meters (11.8 feet) in height. Here, a group of builders fills in the cracks between the newly installed concrete segments while a crane manages the round elements atop the wall. Border patrols monitor the construction, while a US military policeman watches the spectacle from the West.
Image: Stiftung Berliner Mauer/E. Kasperski
1984: White-washed monster
The white-washed side of the Wall marks the beginning of the border strip from the East, while St. Thomas Church in the background is located in the West. But surveillance by the Stasi, border patrols and police began far in front of the Wall. A permission slip was required to enter the area.
Image: Stiftung Berliner Mauer/M. Schuhhardt
1987: Clear demand
US President Ronald Reagan visited Berlin in June 1987, giving a speech in front of the Brandenburg Gate on the West Berlin side with the famous words: "Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Tear down this wall!" Some 40,000 people cheered. Over a year before, then-Soviet leader Gorbachev had initiated his policies of "glasnost" (openness) and "perestroika" (restructuring).
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
1989: An image of Freedom that went around the world
It was ultimately those who were locked in whose peaceful struggle for freedom eventually paid off. November 9, 1989 was a day that went down in history: the fall of the Berlin Wall. At least 101 people lost their lives at the Wall trying to escape the GDR between 1961 and 1989. But not a single drop of blood was shed when it finally opened up.
Image: picture-alliance/W.Kumm
1990: The work of the "Wall woodpeckers"
Chris Gueffroy, aged 20, was the last refugee to be shot at the Berlin Wall, nine months before it fell. By 1990 "Wall woodpeckers" had done their work, opening up the Wall bit by bit, with border patrols now letting families pass through.
Image: Stiftung Berliner Mauer/E. Kasperski
1991: Transformation
In June 1990, work got underway to tear down the various elements of the Wall and the accompanying barrier constructions. Remnants of the Wall were broken down and even shredded, and then used for building city streets.
Image: Stiftung Berliner Mauer/H. P. Guba
2014: Light shines where darkness once stood
By 2014 very little of the Berlin Wall remained in its original location, and few people knew where it once stood. Maybe that's why the 2014 installation entitled "Lichtgrenze" (Light Border) was so popular. The temporary project by sibling artists Christopher and Marc Bauder featured 6,880 light "balloons" marking a 15.3-kilometer-long (9.5 miles) path where part of the Wall once stood.
Image: Stiftung Berliner Mauer
2018: East Side Gallery as a monument
The "East Side Gallery" is at 1,316 meters (4,318 feet) the longest stretch of the Berlin Wall remaining. After the Wall opened up, 118 artists from 21 countries painted it in spring 1990. It draws hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. Once it becomes part of the Stiftung Berliner Mauer (Berlin Wall Foundation) as planned, there will also be an information center.
Image: Stiftung Berliner Mauer
2018: 'Berlin with and without the Wall'
Many of the photos in this gallery are also being shown in a special exhibition presented by the Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer (Berlin Wall Memorial). The show runs from February 6 to August 15, 2018 at the visitor center in the city's Bernauer Street. Many of the photos have never been shown before, and there is one for each year between 1961 and 2018: Berlin — with and without the Wall.
15 images1 | 15
It almost seems unfathomable that precisely 10,315 days have passed since the Berlin Wall came down. Just as many days as the Wall, constructed in 1961, once separated a city, a nation and somehow the entire world. In my mind, the duration of the Wall's existence seems to have been so much longer.
I must admit that when the Wall was built I was still so small that I probably slept through this major, and tragic, historical event. But one thing I still remember is the stern expression on my parents' faces whenever they talked about the fate of East German refugees desperately trying to cross the border, especially those who were killed.
Our home in the Rhineland in the western part of the former West Germany was very far away from the divided city of Berlin. Nonetheless, the brutal and ugly construction of concrete and barbed wire that destroyed the lives and hopes of so many people also touched us in the west.
During my school years, the Wall seemed somewhat closer to me. When we went on a school trip to West Berlin, I was already familiar with the city's history. We visited the opera, various museums and Berlin's famous shopping mile, the Ku'damm; but nothing affected us like the Wall that mercilessly separated Germany.
The city of West Berlin seemed like an isolated island to us. The views from visitor platforms across the Wall at lots of wire and watchtowers, as well as the frightening gaze of border soldiers staring at us through field glasses, were deeply entrenched in our minds. It was a highly tense atmosphere that couldn't possibly get any worse — or so I thought back then.
The border between West and East Berlin at Potsdamer PlatzImage: picture-alliance/Dieter Klar
Border security
Six years later I changed my mind. Now aged 21, I was sitting on a train from Cologne to Moscow where the Olympic Games were to take place. But to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, all Western countries apart from Britain decided to boycott the event. For us visitors, things didn't look too rosy.
To put it mildly, the boycott had a negative impact on the mood of East German border guards — although we wondered whether it was possible to further enrage these already grim looking guys. We had to endure harsh controls at various checkpoints. Coldly staring at us, the border guards commanded us in very sharp and threatening tones. We had to open our suitcases several times so they could examine every single item. Suspected of hiding something, we even had to peel bananas.
Checkpoint Charlie at nightImage: ullstein - Schraps
As it was already dark when the train reached Berlin, the border was illuminated by blazing searchlights that would foil any attempt to flee. We felt particularly threatened at the sight of watchdogs on long leashes that barked aggressively at passing trains. I'll never forget the armed soldiers menacingly marching up and down the platform at Friedrichstrasse station, or lurking half-hidden in their surveillance cabins under the roof.
I wondered how all this must have felt like for normal citizens or, even worse, dissidents, who were forced to live in this surveillance state. It was an experience that shaped my views of the Wall, as well as the communist state entrenching itself behind it.
Constructed for eternity
As the years passed, my interest in East-West relations and the separation of Germany never faded. The number of attempts to escape from the iron fence mounted. Although most attempts came to a fatal end, I celebrated any successes. But against all odds, the German Democratic Republic continued to exist and was apparently in good shape.
People queuing up at the socalled 'Tränenpalast,' the palace of tears, the border crossing at FriedrichstrasseImage: ullstein - Mrotzkowski
Only in late April 1989 did I visit Berlin once again. As an editor at a radio station, I had the opportunity to join other journalists on an information trip during which we talked to political representatives of the Berlin Senate about the current situation. We also enjoyed being shown around by an old city guide who took us to all kinds of historical sites including some to which tourists didn't normally have access.
I'll never forget the pale face of a young blonde border guard who controlled my passport at the border at Friedrichstrasse. I also remember the peculiar East Berlin stench caused by two-stroke engine exhaust fumes and coal heating, as well as the lethargic facial expression of the inhabitants. A final look at the Wall towards the end of our trip made me realize that it had been constructed with the intention of making it last for eternity.
'Freedom cannot be divided' it reads on this placard during a Monday demonstration in Leipzig in 1989Image: picture alliance/Kimmo Mantyla
Overcome by candles and prayers
But events were fortunately to prove me wrong. At this point, the intended eternity was only to last for another six months. By then, this horrible construction called the Berlin Wall had faded into history — together with its guards. The breath of freedom and the wind of change had torn it down. This incredible historical event that almost nobody had thought possible filled me with joy.
What's most remarkable about the fall of the Berlin Wall and the ensuing reunification of Germany was the fact that it wasn't brought about by force but a peaceful revolution.
"We has calculated for everything," said Horst Sindermann, a representative of East Germany's communist SED party, "except burning candles and prayers. They disarmed us."
So it remains a miracle that this revolution took place without a single shot being fired.
Hopefully this fact won't be forgotten in the course of the next 10,315 days.
