By Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-85458-0002 / Junge, Peter Heinz / CC-BY-SA, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5431580
I learned this today. The construction of the Berlin Wall began on the night of Sunday 13th August. A day that is called Barbed Wire Sunday.
At the end of World War 2, the defeated Germany was divided up among the allied powers: America, Britain, France, and Russia. Each power occupied a quarter of the country with the goal of rebuilding the war-torn country. Berlin, the capital city, was completely in the section of Germany occupied by Russia, but it too was divided up among the four allies.
Problems started pretty quickly. The Western powers were interested in reconstructing Germany to make it self-sufficient. They had learned their lesson from the end of World War 1 and they knew the best way of avoiding a World War 3 was by making Germany into a strong democratic country. Russia didn’t share that view. About 34 million Russian soldiers and civilians were killed in World War 2 and Russia wanted revenge. They wanted reparations and they wanted to make a weak Germany that would be more a vassal state than a threat.
The Soviet Union installed a communist government in East Germany. The western powers installed a democratic government in West Germany and encouraged capitalism. The Soviet Union removed resources from East Germany as war reparations. The western powers invested in West Germany as part of the reconstruction program. There was hunger, poverty, and repression in East Germany. There was a high standard of living and hope for the future in West Germany. It didn’t take long for East Germans to start to leave for West Germany. Because Berlin was deep in Soviet territory, it was a good crossing place for people who wanted to leave the East for the West and people started to leave.
The border between East and West Germany was officially closed in 1952. A passport system was introduced by East Germany to stem the number of people leaving the country. This closed most of the borders in the country, but it didn’t close the Berlin border because there was no physical border. People could take a train and be in West Berlin. From there they could travel to West Germany. As it was difficult to cross from anywhere else, the number of people crossing the border in Berlin became a river and by 1961, 3.5 million people, 20% of the population of East Germany had fled to West Germany through Berlin. Most of these people were the young and the well-educated. This couldn’t continue.
On the night of Sunday 13th August, at midnight, the First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (the boss), Walter Ulbricht, gave the order to close the Berlin border. Being as secretive as possible, the police and the East German army arrived at prearranged points through the city. They had concrete, barbed wire, shovels, stone blocks, and other equipment. They ripped up streets so vehicles couldn’t pass, and they made a barbed wire fence that stretched 43 km through the center of Berlin. They also made a barbed wire fence around the 156 km border of Western Berlin, basically enclosing the whole city. That was Barbed Wire Sunday.
Over the coming years, the government replaced the barbed wire fence, through and around the city, with the now famous concrete Berlin Wall. It stretched for 140 km and was 3.6 m high. It had 300 manned look-out towers. A second wall was built inside East Berlin and there was a 100 m space cleared between the two walls. This space was called the “death strip” because people running across this space would be shot by the guards in the watch towers. Still, despite this, 5,000 people escaped across the wall before it fell in 1989. There is no evidence for how many people were killed attempting to flee, but the Checkpoint Charlie Museum says that the figure is over 200.
So, the Berlin Wall started as a barbed wire fence that was put up in one night. It was erected because too many young and educated people were leaving East Germany for the West. West Germany was less oppressive, and the standard of living was higher. East Germany had to put a stop to that, so the wall went up. And this is what I learned today.
Sources
https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/berlin-wall
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/berlin-wall-built
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbed_Wire_Sunday
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Ulbricht#Dismissal_and_death