50 years ago began the erection of the Berlin Wall

 

The division of Germany into East and West lives, even 50 years after the Wall yet.

The "anti-fascist protective wall", the GDR Prevent the population from leaving the country. 

It is a Sunday in mid-summer: On 13 August 1961 at 00.00 clock lock the security forces of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), the border between West and East Berlin and begin to build makeshift barricades. Stunned citizens see how the western district will soon be formally backed out: The "Berlin Wall" is constructed, which significantly through 1989 determined the city today and cut the German capital into two parts.

The Berlin- Question then simmered for years between the Soviet Union and the Western powers, which at that time facing each other straight in the Cold War. An enclave of the Western powers in the middle of a Warsaw- Pact Moscow State long been a thorn in the eye. The Soviet Union thus tries to question West Berlin a demilitarized "free city" to transform their supply is entirely dependent on the GDR - but the Western powers refuse to withdraw.

In 1961, urging the GDR State Walter Ulbricht the Soviet State and party leader Nikita Khrushchev, however, because of very specific problems to early action: The economy is in the Federal Republic of Germany on course for success - It's that time of "economic miracle" - That the GDR can compete in any way. It always has stronger effects on population movements: in 1960 alone, 200,000 people leave East Germany for the West - mostly young, educated workforce, 1949-1961, there are a total of 2.7 million people do. Some historians even speak of a situation where the threat of immediate economic and social "breakdown" of East Germany.

Thus the East German leadership with the permission of Moscow decides to a clearance: On 12 August the Council of Ministers of the GDR "to eliminate the hostile activities of the vengeful and militaristic forces of West Germany and West Berlin," the introduction of border barriers around West Berlin. The GDR Citizens, it is now permitted only with a "special certificate" to enter the western part of Berlin. Ironically, Ulbricht had only two months earlier, in an international press conference in East Berlin, on the question of a West German journalist to even says: "Nobody has the intention to erect a wall."

Despite the horror, the Bonn government and the West Berlin Senate on the middle raised in the city "barrier wall of a concentration camp" (the former mayor Willy Brandt), take the Western powers no steps to the wall was built to halt, because of Berlin wants to risk eventually no nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union . The SPD Politicians Brandt leads his future, against the communist countries conciliatory "Ostpolitik" as Chancellor of Germany (1969 - 1974) back to its former impressions of the actions of Western powers.

Although the wall after presentation of the GDR Propaganda is an "anti-fascist protective wall" be used, their construction is already clear that they should in fact prevent their own people from leaving the country. The term "Berlin Wall" hidden truth in a complex security system that has been increasingly expanded over the years and expanded. In most places it was built in the 1975 final shape to a double-wall Stacheldrahtzug or, in the space between the guard towers, alarm wires, lighting systems, hid a ditch attempts to cross by car or dog runs.

Despite this almost insurmountable obstacle to try to account for almost 30 years since the Berlin Wall, some 5,000 people to get to the other side. Approximately 100 - 200 (the figures vary widely) died there. As the first man who was shot at the Berlin Wall, is on 24 August 1961 killed 24 - Günter Litfin years, from the night as the last casualties of the 5th to 6 February 1989 shot 20 - year-old Chris Gueffroy.

The end of the Berlin Wall came just as fast as their construction: end of 1989, the GDR Leadership in the wake of the mass exodus of East Germans wishing to leave Hungary and the West German embassy in Prague to the West and the growing anti-government mass demonstrations in the country with an exit option for DDR Citizens without any formality. When the Politburo member Guenter Schabowski the regulation on 9 November 1989 in an international press conference introducing said the scheduled vesting period on a really uninformed official, kick it "immediately, without delay" in force.

In the following night began DDR Citizens en masse, the border crossings to West To besiege Berlin, eventually opening the border through the uncertain and the current system is not sufficiently informed led border troops. The pictures on the wall celebrating and cheering people went around the world. A little later the Berlin Wall was history.

 

 

 

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