There are walls and walls. The Great Wall of China, the old Roman (Aurelian) walls, the Western Wall of Jerusalem and then, there is the Berlin Wall. The Berlin Wall came crashing down to celebrations around the world 25 years ago this week.
August 12, 1961 — there was no wall. The notorious Berlin wall came up overnight. While the city slept, East German soldiers and construction workers tore into Berlin streets, dug holes to put up concrete posts and strung barbed wire between East and West Berlin. Phone wires between the sides were snapped. About 60,000 commuters could no longer head to West Berlin; in effect they lost their high-paying jobs. Families and friends were divided as the wall came in between. Life was not the same for Germans from August 13, 1961.
On the other side
The Berlin Wall, called the “Wall of Shame” and “Death Strip”, was a physical representation of the Iron Curtain. The 100-mile long wall had graffiti covering its western side, while the eastern side was bare. Over 100,000 German Democratic Republic (GDR) citizens tried to escape across the wall to West Germany from 1961 to 1989. People even escaped through sewers until the manholes were sealed. More than 135 citizens were shot dead while trying to scale the wall.
Why the wall? It was to keep East Germans from fleeing to the West. It was to separate the three zones controlled by France, Britain and America from the zone controlled by the Soviet Union. Yes, after World War II, Germany was split into four zones each occupied by one of the four Allied powers that defeated the Nazis.
Soon living conditions in West Germany and East became markedly different. The former set up a capitalist society and what followed was “an economic miracle”. Things were not rosy for those living in East Germany under the Communist regime, for, the economy lagged and basic freedoms of the people were curbed.
So many living in East Germany wanted out. When over 2.5 million people had crossed over, East Germany decided to halt the exodus. The easy access was through West Berlin. Hence came the wall.
When Mikhail Gorbachev became the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Soviet Union in 1985, the political situation began to change. The first hole in the Iron Curtain was made when Hungary dismantled its border fence with Austria in May 1989. On November 9 the same year, the Berlin wall came tumbling down. People in droves chipped away small pieces of the wall either as souvenirs or to sell! They were called “wall woodpeckers”.
The demolition of the Wall paved the way for the two Germanys to unite. Willy Brandt, former West German Chancellor, greeted the reunification of his country with the words: “What belongs together, can now grow together.”
Now November 9 is being mooted as a symbol of hope for a world without walls.
Checkpoint Charlie
Despite the Wall, there were a number of checkpoints that allowed passage to and from the two sides. The most well-known is Checkpoint Charlie. The name Charlie came from the letter C in the NATO phonetic alphabet. As this was the most visible checkpoint, it found place in movies such as The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Octopussy . Today it is a big tourist attraction where you can have your photograph taken with actors dressed as Allied military policemen standing in front of the guard house.
