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Revision as of 21:13, 8 March 2003 by Patrick (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) File:Berlin-wall3.jpg Berlin Wall, on November 16, 1989.
After World War II, Berlin was divided into four sectors. The Russians, Americans, British and French each had a portion of the city under their control. The Russian sector was by far the largest and covered most of eastern Berlin - Friedrichshain, Köpenick, Lichtenberg, Mitte, Pankow, Prenzlauer Berg, Treptow, and Weissensee.
From ] the three sectors controlled by the United States, England and France (West-Berlin) formed a part of West Germany that was completely surrounded by East Germany.
Initially the citizens of Berlin were allowed to freely move between all the sectors, but as the Cold War developed movement became restricted; the border between East and West Germany was closed in 1952 and the attractiveness of the Western sectors of Berlin to the citizens of East Germany increased. Around 2.5 million East Germans crossed into the West between 1949 and 1961.
From August 13, 1961, East Berlin, the Berlin Wall prevented the citizens of East Germany from entering West-Berlin and thereby West Germany (East Germany did not control traffic between West-Berlin and the rest of West-Germany). It first consisted of barbed wire, which was later replaced by the actual wall. The wall physically divided the city into West Berlin and East Berlin, the wall completely surrounded West Berlin.
The Wall was over 155 km long. After the initial construction it was regularly improved up to the Fourth Generation wall, begun in 1975. This wall was reinforced concrete, 3.6m high and constructed out of 45,000 separate 1.5m sections at a cost of 16,155,000 East German Marks. The border was also guarded by mesh fencing, signal fencing, anti-vehicle trenches, barbed wire, over 300 watch towers, and thirty bunkers.
At first there was only one crossing point for Westerners, at Friedrichstrasse; the Western powers had two further checkpoints, at Helmstedt on the border between East-Germany and the main part of West-Germany and Dreilinden on the south border of West Berlin. The checkpoints were named phonetically Alpha (Helmstedt), Bravo (Dreilinden), and Charlie (Friedrichstrasse).
During the Wall's existence there were around 5000 successful 'escapes' into West Berlin; 192 people were killed trying to cross and around 200 were seriously injured.
On August 23, 1989, Hungary removed its border restrictions with Austria and in September 1989 more than 13,000 East Germans escaped via Hungary. Mass demonstrations against the government in East Germany begun in November 1989. Erich Honecker resigned on October 18, 1989. The travel restrictions for East Germans were removed by the new government on November 9, 1989, and many people immediately went to the Wall where the border guards opened access points and allowed them through.
On Christmas Day, December 25, 1989 Leonard Bernstein gave a concert in Berlin celebrating the Fall of the Wall.
The destruction of the Berlin Wall was the first step to the reunification of Germany, which finally took place on October 3, 1990.
A great ambivalence has been developing over the last few years in Germany concerning the date of the lifting of travel restrictions also being the date of the Kristallnacht.
See also: Berlin