The beginning of the construction of the “wall of discord”

On August 13, 1961, the construction of the Berlin Wall, the main symbol of the Cold War and the division of Germany, began.

In the first hour of the night from August 12 to 13 (it was the night from Saturday to Sunday), units of the armed forces of the GDR were pulled up to the border separating East and West Berlin, which for several hours completely blocked all sections of the border located within the city. Then the servicemen, together with representatives of the “military people’s squads”, the people’s and transport police, began to build barbed wire fences that blocked 193 streets, 8 tram tracks, 4 metro lines and some railway lines. In places close to the border, water and gas pipes were welded, electric and telephone cables were cut.

On the morning of the 13th, all the inhabitants of East Berlin, habitually hurrying to the western part of the city on business, stopped and were not allowed through by paramilitary patrols and policemen.

To assess the scale of this event, it should be borne in mind that until this Sunday morning, which divided Berlin in two, through 81 street checkpoints, 13 transitions in the subway and on the city railway, from 300 to 500 thousand people crossed the border between both parts of the city every day. . They were mostly young, “economically active” Germans who, by regularly visiting West Berlin, had the opportunity to compare living conditions in the two Germanys. The result of this comparison was a constantly growing flow of emigration to the West: for example, from January to July 1961 alone, almost 208 thousand people left the GDR; about 10,000 more managed to leave in the first days of August. At meetings of the leaders of the countries participating in the Warsaw Pact (WTO countries), the head of the GDR, Walter Ulbricht, repeatedly expressed concern about the emigration of the population of the GDR through West Berlin and proposed to strengthen the border with barbed wire fences. And, finally, at a meeting of the first secretaries of the ruling communist parties of the Warsaw Pact countries, held from August 3 to 5, 1961 in Moscow, the decision to build the Berlin Wall was made. On August 7, at a closed meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, a specific day for the start of the construction of the wall was determined – August 13.

By August 15, 1961, the entire western zone was surrounded by barbed wire. Then, slightly retreating into the interior of the territory, so as not to violate the Potsdam agreements, they began to build the wall itself from special blocks, which was built by soldiers and construction workers under the protection of the border guards of the GDR. At the same time, the walls of the facades of residential buildings became part of the border fortifications. In mid-September 1961, the length of the barrier wall was already 3 km. However, the installation of protective structures did not end there. On June 19, 1962, the construction of the parallel wall began. Another wall was added to the existing wall, 90 meters behind the first, all the buildings between the walls were demolished, the gap was turned into a control trail. In 1975, the last reconstruction of the wall began. As a result of all these transformations, by 1989 it was a complex set of engineering and technical structures: its total length was 155 km; the front barrier wall reached a height of 3.6 meters. The complex included 302 observation posts, 20 bunkers, 259 guard dogs and other border facilities. The wall was constantly patrolled by special units subordinate to the GDR police. The border guards were armed with small arms, they had trained service dogs, modern tracking equipment, and signal systems at their disposal. In addition, the guards had the right to shoot to kill if the border violators did not stop after warning shots. On the east side of the Berlin Wall adjoined a dead zone half a kilometer wide. On the western side, the wall has become a platform for the work of numerous artists, both professional and homegrown.

As stated on the website “Story. RF”, for the period from 1961 to 1988, 140 citizens of the GDR died while trying to cross the wall (meaning cases that managed to find documentary evidence); over 3 thousand defectors were detained and received prison terms; more than 5 thousand people made successful escapes.

On November 9, 1989, the government of the GDR announced the preparation of new rules for traveling abroad, providing, in particular, the opportunity to stay in West Berlin without special permission, control was removed from border crossings. On the night of November 9-10, 1989, a massive border crossing (more than 1.2 million people) and a spontaneous dismantling of the Berlin Wall structures began. Official dismantling was carried out in January 1990. Part of the Berlin Wall was left as a monument to the futility of any attempt by totalitarian regimes to stop the natural course of history.

Sergei Ishkov.

Photo from the site History.RF