query: when did the east berlin wall go up

pos: Berlin Wall Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (, ) was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. Constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany), starting on 13 August 1961, the Wall cut off (by land) West Berlin from virtually all of surrounding East Germany and East Berlin until government officials opened it in November 1989. Its demolition officially began on 13 June 1990 and finished in 1992. The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, accompanied by a wide area (later known as the "death strip") that contained anti-vehicle trenches, "fakir

pos: Berlin Wall graffiti art Berlin Wall graffiti art The Berlin Wall was constructed in 1961 to separate West Berlin and East Berlin during the Cold War. All the differences between the countries made it a perfect place for people to express their opinions, especially on their preferences and dislikes. In the 1980s, the wall was reconstructed and made 14 feet tall. Graffiting on the wall became popular for artists from all over the world and a place where tourists would go and admire the artwork. The West Berlin side of the wall had artwork completely covering the wall, while the East Berlin side was

pos: Voßstraße in the "Führerbunker", a little further north, on 30 April 1945. From 7 October 1949, Voßstrasse was located in East Berlin, which did little to develop the Potsdamer Platz area as it was in the sensitive border zone, along which the Berlin Wall would eventually divide the city. By 1956 there was only one surviving building in the entire length of Voßstrasse - part of the German Reich Railway Co. offices (Voßstrasse 33). When the Berlin Wall went up in August 1961, much of Voßstraße became stranded in no-man's-land. Today, there is still little of note along the street, although

pos: Bernauer Straße it one of the first of the new Berlin Wall border crossings created after the fall of the wall. The Bernauer Straße subway station, which became a ghost station when the Berlin Wall came up in 1961, resumed operations on 12 April 1990. However, only the northern entrance onto Bernauer Straße was opened while the other entrances which led to East Berlin remained closed until 1 July 1990. On that day, there were no longer any border checkpoints between East and West Berlin with the customs and monetary union between West and East Germany. The dismantling of this stretch of

pos: Berlin Oranienburger Straße station drainage and repair the station reopened for traffic on 16 November 1947. During the Uprising of 1953 in East Germany and East Berlin the S-Bahn, operated by the eastern Deutsche Reichsbahn, interrupted traffic between 17 June until 9 July 1953. From 13 August 1961, the day the Berlin Wall went up, trains did not stop in the station, because it was located in East Berlin, with the operating line, however, connected northern and southern areas of West Berlin. So the Reichsbahn continued the operation of the line, but trains only stopped in those stations with entrances from West Berlin. So

pos: Berlin Nordbahnhof by the GDR authorities on 18 May 1952 and finally demolished in 1962. The adjacent S-Bahn station remained under the name of "Nordbahnhof". During the Uprising of 1953 in East Germany and East Berlin the S-Bahn, operated by the eastern Deutsche Reichsbahn, interrupted traffic between 17 June and 9 July 1953. Between 13 August 1961, the day the Berlin Wall went up, and 1 September 1990 trains did not stop at the station, because it was located in East Berlin. Nevertheless, the Reichsbahn continued to operate the line to connect the stations in the northern and southern areas of West

pos: History of Berlin and the rest of East Germany, as a response to massive numbers of East German citizens fleeing into West Berlin as a way to escape. The wall was built overnight with no warning. This separated families for as long as the wall was up. The East German government called the Wall the "anti-fascist protection wall". The tensions between east and west were exacerbated by a tank standoff at Checkpoint Charlie on 27 October 1961. West Berlin was now a de facto part of West Germany, but with a unique legal status, while East Berlin was a de facto part of

pos: Heinrich-Heine-Straße (Berlin U-Bahn) June that year. Mitte was within the Soviet zone which became East Berlin; the station was renamed Heinrich-Heine-Straße on 31 August 1960 following a decision by the Berlin "Magistrat" on 22 July to rename the street. After the construction of the Berlin wall a year later, on 13 August 1961, U-Bahn trains on Lines C and D ( and ) no longer stopped in East Berlin and Heinrich-Heine-Straße became one of the ghost stations. The entrances were blocked up and the stairwell enclosures removed so that they were no longer visible. Use did not resume until German reunification almost 30

pos: Dorit Schmiel a soldier. Schmiel and her older brother were raised by her mother and step-father in the East Berlin district of Pankow. By the time Schmiel was 20 years-old, she had moved in with her fiancé, Detlef Teuchert, and worked as a seamstress in a state-run manufacturing company in Pankow. Ever since she was a child, she traveled regularly to West Berlin to visit relatives, go shopping, watch movies, or go dancing. On 13 August 1961, East German authorities abruptly sealed off of the sector border, and began construction of the Berlin Wall. The subsequent loss of freedom to visit the

pos: Berlin Potsdamer Bahnhof of Berlin and the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 (see below). The building of the Berlin Wall had a further impact. The now-derelict site of the station would have required two or more kilometres of wall to surround an unused area of 8.5-hectares. The East German regime decided to leave the site of the Potsdamer Bahnhof outside of the wall, although it remained formally and legally part of the Soviet Sector until 21 December 1971, when East Germany were paid DM 31 million for this piece of land as part of a wider land swap. By contrast, the

pos: Berlin Wall and to pass it on to the coming generations as a reminder to stand up for freedom and democracy to ensure that such injustice may never happen again," entreated Mayor Wowereit. "It has been shown once again: Freedom is invincible at the end. No wall can permanently withstand the desire for freedom", proclaimed President Wulff." Notes Bibliography Further reading Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (, ) was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. Constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany), starting on 13 August 1961, the Wall cut off (by

pos: Berlin Anhalter Bahnhof offer for the bricks. The terminus did not vanish entirely, however, as the centre portion of the façade was allowed to remain standing. When the Berlin Wall was erected on 13 August 1961, it had a profound effect on rail services in and around the city, and on the S-Bahn and U-Bahn in particular. Essentially both were divided into two systems, with lines being physically severed where they crossed the border between East Berlin and West Berlin. In most cases trains on either side would simply run as far as the last stop before the border and then reverse back.

pos: History of Germany World War II was ending, Stalin assigned him the job of designing the postwar German system that would centralize all power in the Communist Party. Ulbricht became deputy prime minister in 1949 and secretary (chief executive) of the Socialist Unity (Communist) party in 1950. Some 2.6 million people had fled East Germany by 1961 when he built the Berlin Wall to stop them — shooting those who attempted it. What the GDR called the "Anti-Fascist Protective Wall" was a major embarrassment for the program during the Cold War, but it did stabilize East Germany and postpone its collapse. Ulbricht lost

pos: West of the Wall West of the Wall "West of the Wall" is a 1962 song written by Wayne Shanklin, which was recorded as a single by Toni Fisher. The song tells of the sadness of lovers separated by the Berlin Wall which divided Germany into East and West at the time, and expresses the hope that the wall will soon fall. The Berlin Wall had been constructed in 1961, and in fact did not fall until 1989. The song was a Top 40 hit for Toni Fisher in the United States, where it reached #37 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 in July 1962.

pos: West Berlin demand could be met by tapping into electricity supplies from neighbouring areas, but in West Berlin this was not an option and for certain users the lights would go out. In 1952 West Berliners were restricted entry to East Germany proper by means of a hard-to-obtain East German permit. Free entry to East Berlin remained possible until 1961 and the building of the Wall. Berlin's underground (Untergrundbahn, U-Bahn) and Berlin's S-Bahn (a metropolitan public transit network), rebuilt after the war, continued to span all occupation sectors. Many people lived in one half of the city and had family, friends, and

pos: Berlin Wall cross the Wall were criminals and needed to be shot: "Do not hesitate to use your firearm, not even when the border is breached in the company of women and children, which is a tactic the traitors have often used". Early successful escapes involved people jumping the initial barbed wire or leaping out of apartment windows along the line, but these ended as the Wall was fortified. East German authorities no longer permitted apartments near the Wall to be occupied, and any building near the Wall had its windows boarded and later bricked up. On 15 August 1961, Conrad Schumann

pos: Berlin Wall Berlin. The National Security Agency was the only American intelligence agency that was aware that East Germany was to take action to deal with the brain drain problem. On 9 August 1961, the NSA intercepted an advance warning information of the Socialist Unity Party's plan to close the intra-Berlin border between East and West Berlin completely for foot traffic. The interagency intelligence Berlin Watch Committee assessed that this intercept "might be the first step in a plan to close the border." This warning did not reach U.S. President John F. Kennedy until noon on 13 August 1961, while he was

pos: Berlin Wall graffiti art such as Potsdamer Platz, the East Side Gallery, and Bernauer Straße; many segments are now exhibited in other countries; see List of Berlin Wall segments. Berlin Wall graffiti art The Berlin Wall was constructed in 1961 to separate West Berlin and East Berlin during the Cold War. All the differences between the countries made it a perfect place for people to express their opinions, especially on their preferences and dislikes. In the 1980s, the wall was reconstructed and made 14 feet tall. Graffiting on the wall became popular for artists from all over the world and a place where tourists

pos: Berlin Wollankstraße station 1945. On 19 July 1945 the electric train service resumed. From 1945 the station was situated next to the border between East and West Berlin, on the east side, in Berlin's Pankow district. In 1961 the Berlin Wall was built just to the east of the station. The station remained in service within the West Berlin S-Bahn system, and could only be reached by passengers from the adjacent West Berlin locality of Gesundbrunnen (then part of Wedding borough). The entrances to the east remained bricked up until 1989. Nevertheless, during this period, the station was staffed and controlled by East

pos: Regine Hildebrandt to spot) political border between East Berlin and West Berlin, and afforded Regine a ring-side seat in the cold wall drama until September 1961 when the family were forcibly relocated in connection with the building of the Berlin Wall. In October 1961 she co-founded and joined the at Berlin's (Protestant) Cathedral, which now flourished under the musical direction of a man called Herbert Hildebrand. From 1959-64, she studied biology at the Humboldt University in East Berlin. She had never joined the Free German Youth (FDJ/"Freie Deutsche Jugend"), which was in effect the youth wing of the young country's ruling SED

pos: 3rd Infantry Division (United States) August 1961, a few days after the Berlin Wall was erected, a reinforced company from the 7th Infantry Regiment (a unit of the 3rd Infantry Division) in full battle gear, was ordered to travel along the Autobahn (a major highway) from Aschaffenburg in Bavaria to West Berlin. This was to assert the right of US forces to travel unhindered from West Germany across the western part of East Germany to West Berlin. After the Berlin Wall was built, it was not known if the East German forces would attempt to impede or restrict the movement of US troops when crossing

pos: Tear down this wall! Tear down this wall! "Tear down this wall!" is a line from a speech made by U.S. President Ronald Reagan in West Berlin on Friday, June 12, 1987, calling for the leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, to open up the barrier which had divided West and East Berlin since 1961. Peter Robinson, the White House speechwriter who drafted the address, said its most famous line was inspired by a conversation with Ingeborg Elz of West Berlin who had mentioned it in a conversation with him. The "tear down this wall" speech was not the first time Reagan had

pos: Berlin Hauptbahnhof near the border with East Berlin. It was the final stop in West Berlin; the next station, Berlin Friedrichstraße, was in the Soviet zone, although it served as a stop on the West Berlin S- and U-Bahn systems; these parts of the station were sealed off and inaccessible to East Berliners. The S-Bahn, like the mainlines leading to West Berlin, was run by the East German railway, the Deutsche Reichsbahn. The 1961 construction of the Berlin Wall further isolated the station, and led to a boycott of the S-Bahn in West Berlin that lasted until the 1980s, when operation of

pos: Bundesgrenzschutz travel between East and West Germany was not yet restricted by the Berlin Wall (1961). There was no German Army in 1951; it had been abolished in 1945 on the surrender of the Third Reich and the authorities of Allied-occupied Germany did not authorize a German Army until 1955. When German nationals could move freely from the DDR to the BRD in Berlin, people attempting to cross illegally elsewhere were likely to be either commercial smugglers or espionage agents carrying contraband (e.g., radio transmitters.). Occupation authorities judged this could be better policed by a permanent force of Germans who knew

pos: Mural by English artist, private John Frederick Brill. In 1961 East Germany began to erect a wall between East and West Berlin, which became famous as the Berlin Wall. While on the East Berlin side painting was not allowed, artists painted on the Western side of the Wall from the 80s until the fall of the Wall in 1989. Many unknown and known artists such as Thierry Noir and Keith Haring painted on the Wall, the "World's longest canvas". The sometimes detailed artwork were often painted over within hours or days. On the Western side the Wall was not protected, so

pos: Nikita Khrushchev East German leader Walter Ulbricht to begin construction of what became known as the Berlin Wall, which would surround West Berlin. Construction preparations were made in great secrecy, and the border was sealed off in the early hours of Sunday, 13 August 1961, when most East German workers who earned hard currency by working in West Berlin would be at their homes. The wall was a propaganda disaster, and marked the end of Khrushchev's attempts to conclude a peace treaty among the Four Powers and the two German states. That treaty would not be signed until September 1990, as an

pos: Tear down this wall! land a knockout blow on the Soviet regime, nor was he engaging in mere political theater. He was instead doing something else on that damp day in Berlin 20 years [before Mann's article] – he was helping to set the terms for the end of the cold war." Tear down this wall! "Tear down this wall!" is a line from a speech made by U.S. President Ronald Reagan in West Berlin on Friday, June 12, 1987, calling for the leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, to open up the barrier which had divided West and East Berlin since 1961.

pos: History of Berlin for a unified Germany. Loshitzky depicts the role of the Berlin Wall as a symbol of the Cold War, détente, and the collapse of the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe. She divides the history of the Wall into six major stages: the erection of the Wall (1961); the period of the "geography of fear" from the Cold War; the period of détente; the short period of glasnost and perestroika; the fall of the Wall (1989); and after the Wall. On August 13, 1961 the Communist East German government started to build a wall, physically separating West Berlin from East Berlin

pos: West Berlin to enter East Germany by S-Bahn. With the construction of the Berlin Wall on 13 August 1961, any remaining railway traffic between West Berlin and its East German suburbs ended. Rail traffic between East and West Berlin was sharply reduced and restricted to a small number of checkpoints under GDR control. East Berliners and East Germans were then unable to freely enter and leave West Berlin. However, international visitors could obtain visas for East Berlin upon crossing one of the checkpoints at the Wall. Following the policy of détente of the "Federal Government" under Chancellor Willy Brandt, West Berliners could

pos: Walter Ulbricht in words, though East German laborer Kurt Wismach did so effectively by shouting for free elections during one of Ulbricht's speeches. When Khrushchev approved the building of a wall as a means to resolve this situation, Ulbricht threw himself into the project with abandon. Delegating different tasks in the process while maintaining overall supervision and careful control of the project, Ulbricht managed to keep secret the purchase of vast amounts of building materials, including barbed wire, concrete pillars, timber, and mesh wire. On 13 August 1961, work began on what was to become the Berlin Wall, only two months after

pos: German Green Belt of West German, British and US guards and soldiers. Despite the extensiveness of the Inner Border, it was the Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer) that would serve as the famous and infamous representation of the "Iron Curtain" and the Cold War. The Berlin Wall was a barrier that divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989, constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off (by land) West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin until it was opened in November 1989. In practice, the Wall served to prevent the massive

pos: Berlin Wall exchange rate of 1:1. It was forbidden to export East German currency from the East, but money not spent could be left at the border for possible future visits. Tourists crossing from the west had to also pay for a visa, which cost DM 5; West Berliners did not have to pay this. West Berliners initially could not visit East Berlin or East Germany at all – all crossing points were closed to them between 26 August 1961 and 17 December 1963. In 1963, negotiations between East and West resulted in a limited possibility for visits during the Christmas season

pos: Consequences of Nazism attention by Danish doctors who were afraid that rendering aid to the children of the former enemy would be seen as an unpatriotic act. Many children died of easily treatable ailments. As a consequence "more German refugees died in Danish camps, "than Danes did during the entire war."" During the Cold War, it was difficult for West Germans to visit East German relatives and friends and impossible vice versa. For East Germans, especially after the building of the Berlin Wall on 13 August 1961 and until Hungary opened up its border to the West in the late 1980s, thus allowing

pos: Hertha BSC the district of Pankow and attending his first home match as a young boy in 1954 he became an instant supporter. He continued to attend home matches at the stadium, but with the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, this became impossible. Despite this, he did not give up. By this time, Hertha played at the Stadion am Gesundbrunnen, nicknamed "Die Plumpe". The stadium was located close enough to the Berlin wall for the sounds from the stadium to be heard over the wall. Thus, Klopfleisch and other supporters gathered behind the wall to listen to the home matches.

pos: Alt-Hohenschönhausen of Alt-Hohenschönhausen took part in the mass uprising which spread throughout the country. Like most of the country, the district saw a reduction in its population up until 1961 when the Berlin Wall was built. In the 1970s the district was expanded with the construction of new high-rise apartment buildings. Thanks to the secretive nature of the prison in Hohenschönhausen, a large part of the district where the facility was located was left blank on official maps. After Die Wende in 1989, East and West Berlin merged to form the federal state of Berlin in 1990. On 1 January 2001

pos: Berlin Friedrichstraße station stopped S-Bahn transport between 17 June and 9 July 1953. When the East German government erected the Berlin Wall on 13 August 1961, it also severed the U-Bahn, S-Bahn and long distance train connections that criss-crossed through Berlin. The district of Berlin Mitte, where the Friedrichstrasse station is located, was surrounded in the northerly, westerly and southerly directions by Western Sectors: For the S-Bahn at the Friedrichstrasse station, the next station to the west was across the wall in West Berlin, to the north were three more stops in the Soviet sector and only two to the south. The situation

pos: Potsdam Griebnitzsee station transit trains). Until the construction of the Berlin Wall on 13 August 1961 and from 1990, travel was permitted between West Berlin and East Germany on the Berlin S-Bahn. As of 1952, travel across the border was allowed only with permission and banned for residents of West Berlin. From 1953 to 1958 (when the Berlin outer ring was completed), there were through trains ("Durchläuferzüge") between Potsdam and East Berlin that ran through West Berlin without stopping. Since the station was near the border with West Berlin, it was heavily secured and guarded. This included the monitoring of the access routes

pos: History of the Berlin S-Bahn History of the Berlin S-Bahn The Berlin S-Bahn began on 8 August 1924 with the first section from Stettiner Vorortbahnhof to Bernau using steam locomotives. On 13 August 1961 it was broken up when the Berlin Wall was built, resulting in two sections: the eastern part and the western part. The western part experienced a massive strike which resulted in closure of several stations, after declining use. Attempts were made to reopen at various times but in the end, only three lines were finally opened after the strike. Since 9 November 1989, when the Berlin Wall was opened, the Berlin

pos: U2 (Berlin U-Bahn) in the heart of the government district. When East Berlin fell under communist administration after the Second World War, the Wilhelmplatz square as well as the station were renamed on 18 August 1950 to Thälmannplatz, after the communist leader Ernst Thälmann. With the erection of the Berlin Wall from 13 August 1961, the line ceased to run between East and West Berlin and the station became the terminus of the line in East Berlin. Because the square was overbuilt by a housing estate and the Czechoslovakian Embassy, on 15 April 1986 the station and corresponding street (Wilhelmstraße) was renamed Otto-Grotewohl-Straße,

pos: Killing of Peter Fechter school at the age of 14, and graduated as a bricklayer. After World War II had ended, Weißensee was located in the Soviet occupation zone of Berlin when the city was divided during the Allied Occupation, with the Soviet zone later becoming East Berlin in East Germany. Fechter's eldest sister had married and now lived in West Berlin, where she was regularly visited by her parents and siblings. On 13 August 1961, the East German authorities abruptly closed the border and began construction of the Berlin Wall, effectively separating Fechter and his family from his sister in West Berlin. Fechter's

pos: Checkpoint Charlie Checkpoint Charlie Checkpoint Charlie (or "Checkpoint C") was the name given by the Western Allies to the best-known Berlin Wall crossing point between East Berlin and West Berlin during the Cold War (1947–1991). East German leader Walter Ulbricht agitated and maneuvered to get the Soviet Union's permission to construct the Berlin Wall in 1961 to stop Eastern Bloc emigration and defection westward through the Soviet border system, preventing escape across the city sector border from communist East Berlin into West Berlin. Checkpoint Charlie became a symbol of the Cold War, representing the separation of East and West. Soviet and American

pos: Leipzig Trade Fair erection of the Berlin Wall. In August 1961, Willy Brandt (then Mayor of Berlin) called for an international boycott of the fair and a host of other East German functions in response to the Wall going up, which illustrates how the Leipzig Trade Fair was of great importance to the Cold War struggles over the legitimacy and recognition of the East German state. In 1996, a new trade fair ground was opened. The Congress Centre Leipzig was also opened, built after designs by Gerkan, Marg and Partners. The old trade fair ground is used for shops, events, supermarkets, and figure

neg: Berlin Wall troops and workers had begun to tear up streets running alongside the border to make them impassable to most vehicles and to install barbed wire entanglements and fences along the around the three western sectors, and the that divided West and East Berlin. The date of 13 August became commonly referred to as Barbed Wire Sunday in Germany. The barrier was built inside East Berlin or East German territory to ensure that it did not encroach on West Berlin at any point. Generally, the Wall was only slightly inside East Berlin, but in a few places it was some distance

neg: Berlin Wall did not recognize the authority of the GDR to regulate Allied military traffic to and from West Berlin, as well as the Allied presence within Greater Berlin, including entry into, exit from, and presence within East Berlin. The Allies held that only the Soviet Union, and not the GDR, had authority to regulate Allied personnel in such cases. For this reason, elaborate procedures were established to prevent inadvertent recognition of East German authority when engaged in travel through the GDR and when in East Berlin. Special rules applied to travel by Western Allied military personnel assigned to the Military Liaison

neg: United States Army Europe the Berlin Wall, isolating the three western sectors of the city both from East Germany and the Soviet sector, or East Berlin. In response, the United States deployed an additional armored cavalry regiment to Europe, along with additional support units. USAREUR strength reached a post-World War II high of 277,342 in June 1962 as the crisis deepened. That 1946–1991 Cold War maximum USAREUR troop record gradually reduced over time. The command dispatched a reinforced infantry battle group to Berlin to strengthen the existing garrison. The nuclear armed USAREUR did not go to DEFCON 3 during 22 Oct to 20 November

neg: Berlin Wall all Russians do not know who built the Berlin Wall. Ten percent of people surveyed thought Berlin residents built it themselves. Six percent said Western powers built it and four percent thought it was a "bilateral initiative" of the Soviet Union and the West. Fifty-eight percent said they did not know who built it, with just 24 percent correctly naming the Soviet Union and its then-communist ally East Germany. Not all segments of the Wall were ground up as the Wall was being torn down. Many segments have been given to various institutions in the world. They can be found,

neg: Stig Bergling Middle East where Bergling was trained as a spy but in East Germany. As an employee of the Security Service, he was not allowed to go to the Eastern Bloc countries so the trips to his employers in East Berlin were made in the greatest secrecy. To get into East Berlin, Berling had to go through the Berlin Wall at a special door at Friedrichstraße. It was an ordinary door in the house next to the Friedrichstraße station entrance. His liaison officer went ahead and then Berling could go straight out through a small door and suddenly he found himself

neg: Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein and painters Hermann Linde and Heinrich Linde-Walther. He went to Waldorfschool and afterward he studied Physics for a few semesters also in Lübeck. Then he switched on to the Film Industry and went for that in 1959 to Berlin. He did some various practicum in different film management area such as synchron studio, film laboratory, and sound studio. Suddenly his career broke up, when he was captured there after building the Berlin Wall, on the east side, as he tried to help his girlfriend be transported to West-Berlin. In a fast political juristic show-process he was sentenced for 5 years

neg: Bridge of Spies (film) years in prison. Donovan receives a letter from East Germany, purportedly sent by Abel's wife, thanking him and urging him to get in contact with their lawyer, whose name is Vogel. The CIA think this is a back-channel message hinting that the USSR is willing to swap Powers for Abel. They unofficially ask Donovan to go to Berlin to negotiate the exchange; he arrives just as the Berlin Wall is going up. Crossing in to East Berlin, he meets with a KGB officer in the Soviet Embassy and is then directed to Vogel, who represents the Attorney General of the

neg: National Churchill Museum to make a sculpture for the Churchill Memorial at Westminster," Sandys said, "and this seemed the perfect moment to do something. Friends in Berlin had come back with tiny little pieces of wall, and I thought, ‘Wouldn't it be great to make a sculpture.’ I thought I'd better go straight [to Berlin] while there was some wall left." In 1990, with the support of Westminster College, Sandys and her husband, Richard Kaplan, had traveled to East Berlin to secure portions of the wall. Upon their arrival in Berlin, however, the couple realized the sculpture would be costly, as -wide sections

neg: Berlin Wall a Berlin Wall mock up. The Trabant was the East German people's car that many used to leave DDR after the collapse. The Allied Museum in the Dahlem district of Berlin hosted a number of events to mark the Twentieth Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall. The museum held a Special Exhibition entitled "Wall Patrol – The Western Powers and the Berlin Wall 1961–1990" which focused on the daily patrols deployed by the Western powers to observe the situation along the Berlin Wall and the fortifications on the GDR border. A sheet of "Americans in Berlin" Commemorative Cinderella

neg: Günter Schabowski effective immediately, without delay." () Accounts differ on who asked that question. Both Riccardo Ehrman, the Berlin correspondent of the ANSA news agency, and German Bild Zeitung (a tabloid) reporter Peter Brinkmann were sitting on the front row at the press conference, and claimed to have asked when the regulations would come into force. Later, when asked whether the new regulations also applied to travel between East and West Berlin, Schabowski looked at the text again and discovered that they did. When Daniel Johnson of "The Daily Telegraph" asked what that meant for the Berlin Wall, Schabowski sat frozen before

neg: Hildegard Trabant all other deaths at the Berlin Wall, Hildegard Trabant's death went totally unnoticed in West Berlin. It would be 26 years later (October 1990) when the 1964 East Berlin files were given to the German federal judiciary. After a lengthy trial, Kurt Renner, the guard who shot her, was found guilty of manslaughter, and sentenced to one year and nine months in prison, which was commuted later to probation. Also unlike almost all other deaths at the Berlin wall, it was obvious that when she was actually shot, she had abandoned her attempt to escape East Berlin, and was merely

neg: Tom Brokaw "NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw" commenced on September 5, 1983. Among other news items, he covered the Challenger disaster, EDSA Revolution, Loma Prieta earthquake, fall of the Berlin Wall and Hurricane Andrew. Brokaw scored a major coup when, on November 9, 1989, he was the first English-language broadcast journalist to report opening of the Berlin Wall. Brokaw attended a televised press conference organized in East Berlin by Günter Schabowski, press spokesman for East German Politburo, which had just decided to allow East Berliners to cross to the West without prior approval. When Schabowski was asked when this epoch-making freedom

neg: Vishnudevananda Saraswati shoot me over the Berlin Wall what difference is it? Many people have died for war; I shall die for peace." He safely landed his ultralight glider in an East Berlin field and, after several hours of questioning by East German authorities, was released to West Berlin, where he immediately held the Global Village Peace Festival alongside the Wall. The festival featured a walk across hot coals to demonstrate that the mind is stronger than matter, and figuratively that the human spirit can overcome "fire" of all kinds. Vishnudevananda returned to Berlin when the Wall fell in 1989, staging a

neg: Wolfgang Engels traitor to East Germany and denounced his escape to West Germany. Wolfgang Engels Wolfgang Engels (born in 1943 in Düsseldorf) is a former East German soldier. At the end of April in 1963, on the eve of the communist May Day celebrations, he stole an East German Army (NVA) armoured personnel carrier (APC) from his military-base and rammed it into the Berlin Wall in an attempt to escape to West Berlin. The APC did not fully penetrate the Wall, having been stuck halfway on the fortified border, so Engels hurriedly exited the vehicle and was shot twice by East German

neg: History of Berlin to intervene. In 1968 and after, West Berlin became one of the centers of the student revolt; in particular, the Kreuzberg borough was the center of many riots. The Fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 marks the end of the Cold War. On 9 November 1989, border guards allowed crowds from East Berlin to cross the frontier at the Bösebrücke. The guards believed that the authorities had decided to open the wall, but in reality no firm decision was taken and events gathered steam on their own. People of East and West Berlin climbed up and danced on

neg: Hildegard Trabant fleeing back towards the inner wall, to avoid arrest. Hildegard Trabant Hildegard Johanna Maria Trabant, née Pohl, (June 12 1927 – August 18 1964) was a German woman who became the fiftieth known person to die at the Berlin Wall. Trabant was shot and killed by East German border guards during a crossing attempt, one of only eight women victims of the Berlin Wall, and was the only escapee victim known to have been loyal to the East German regime. Hildegard Pohl was born on June 12, 1927, in Berlin, Weimar Republic, and grew up in the city. Trabant was

neg: Chris Gueffroy over the wall on mistaken beliefs that the "Schießbefehl", the standing order to shoot anyone who attempted to cross the wall, had been lifted (it had not), and that the Swedish prime minister was to pay a state visit to East Berlin (he had already left when they attempted their escape). Their attempted escape from East Berlin to West Berlin, along the Britz district canal would take place on the night of February 5–6, 1989, about two kilometers from what would be Gueffroy's last residence on Südostallee 218, Johannisthal, Treptow, East Berlin. Climbing the last metal lattice fence, the two

neg: Tierpark (Berlin U-Bahn) by 1 July 1989, just a few months before the fall of the Berlin Wall. When the Berlin Wall fell, the line was subsequently renumbered to U5 in 1 July 1990. Tierpark (Berlin U-Bahn) Tierpark is a Berlin U-Bahn station located on the . It is named after the Tierpark Berlin, one of the two zoological gardens in Berlin. Prior to the opening of the station, the line was intended to go to Karlshorst in the early 1950s/60s plans. Construction of the station began on 19 September 1969. This station was opened in 1973. It was the one and only

neg: Hildegard Trabant Hildegard Trabant Hildegard Johanna Maria Trabant, née Pohl, (June 12 1927 – August 18 1964) was a German woman who became the fiftieth known person to die at the Berlin Wall. Trabant was shot and killed by East German border guards during a crossing attempt, one of only eight women victims of the Berlin Wall, and was the only escapee victim known to have been loyal to the East German regime. Hildegard Pohl was born on June 12, 1927, in Berlin, Weimar Republic, and grew up in the city. Trabant was loyal to the East German regime, having joined the

neg: Winfried Freudenberg the relatively lenient sentence of three years of probation, and then granted amnesty in October 1989. The next month East Germany began allowing its citizens to travel to the west, and several months later the Berlin Wall was dismantled and the two countries reunified. Winfried Freudenberg Winfried Freudenberg (29 August 1956 – 8 March 1989) was the last person to die in an attempt to escape from East Germany to West Berlin across the Berlin Wall as he fell from an improvised gas balloon at high altitude over West Berlin. Freudenberg was born in Osterwieck, and grew up in the

neg: Wolfgang Engels Wolfgang Engels Wolfgang Engels (born in 1943 in Düsseldorf) is a former East German soldier. At the end of April in 1963, on the eve of the communist May Day celebrations, he stole an East German Army (NVA) armoured personnel carrier (APC) from his military-base and rammed it into the Berlin Wall in an attempt to escape to West Berlin. The APC did not fully penetrate the Wall, having been stuck halfway on the fortified border, so Engels hurriedly exited the vehicle and was shot twice by East German border-guards while struggling to free himself from the rolls of razor-sharp

neg: Steinstücken on Berlin on September 3, 1971, which led to a tiny sliver of land connecting West Berlin to Steinstücken becoming part of West Berlin territory. In return West Berlin ceded six uninhabited exclaves to East Germany and paid four million West German Deutsche Marks. The connecting road, Bernhard-Beyer-Straße, was then built on this sliver, allowing Steinstücken residents to cross unimpeded to West Berlin. As the new border enclosed the road on both of its sides, so did the Berlin Wall after East Germany extended it accordingly. The bridge above the Deutsche Reichsbahn railway tracks, leading to the other half of

neg: History of Berlin exempted from the obligatory military service required in West Germany proper: the Kreuzberg district became especially well known for its high concentration of young radicals. The Wall afforded unique opportunities for social gatherings. The physical wall was set some distance behind the actual sector border, up to several meters behind in some places. The West Berlin police were not legally allowed to enter the space between the border and the wall, as it was technically in East Berlin and outside their jurisdiction: many people took the opportunity to throw loud parties in this space, with the West Berlin authorities powerless

neg: RAF Gatow tank unit of the "National People's Army" ("NVA") of East Germany. This was located immediately opposite the airfield, behind the section of the Berlin Wall which ran along the western side of the airfield, and was clearly visible from RAF Gatow's control tower. The Berlin Wall section opposite Gatow was not in fact a wall, but a wire fence. East Germany claimed that this was a "military courtesy", but nobody at RAF Gatow believed this, thinking that it was instead intended to make a military invasion easier. This surmise was confirmed after the reunification of Germany, when the East German

neg: Boris Snetkov East Germany during October and November, the WGF's troops did not intervene in the Leipzig Monday demonstrations and the Fall of the Berlin Wall as a result of orders given to Snetkov by the Soviet ambassador in East Germany, Vyacheslav Kochemasov, which were confirmed by the Soviet government. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the easing of Cold War tensions, discipline in the WGF began to break down. In response to charges of fatal recruit abuse, widespread desertion, and weapons smuggling among Soviet troops, Snetkov held a November 1990 press conference to deny the charges, in which he

neg: Bridge of Spies (film) when he trained agents and radio operators for clandestine work in German-occupied regions. This training is thought to have been critical to what his mentor, Pavel Sudoplatov, later called one of the most important radio deception operations of the war. Frederic Pryor stated in an interview that various details of the plot related to his involvement were incorrect. He did not cross the Berlin wall during its construction, as he was on vacation in Denmark at the time. He was detained after his return, when he crossed into East Berlin to visit a friend's sister; she had fled to West

neg: Mikhail Pervukhin the East German leader, invited Pervukhin to his summer house to discuss the East German immigration flow to West Germany. There Ulbricht told Pervukhin that if the Soviets did not react soon, East Germany would "collapse". Pervukhin discussed other problems as well, claiming that Ulbricht but also the East German leadership in general, were opposed to the Soviet Union's plan to improve relations with West Germany. When Khrushchev gave his approval to construct what would become the Berlin Wall, Pervukhin was the first to know. Ulbricht told Pervukhin of the need to create the East–West barrier at night, and he

neg: Tiergarten (park) the British, Americans and French. When the Berlin Wall went up around East Berlin, the monument became inaccessible to the people for whom it was built. According to testimony reported in the 1995 documentary film "the Desperate Edge of Now", statues of historical military figures from the park were buried by Berlin citizens in the grounds of the nearby Bellevue Palace in order to prevent their destruction by the occupying American forces. They were not recovered until 1993. On June 2, 1945, the Berlin Magistrate decided they would restore the Greater Tiergarten. The first suggestions came in 1946/47. Reinhold Lingner

neg: Hryðjuverkamaður snýr heim police. In East Germany, Valur meets a new partner, a Polish radical socialist called Aldona, though after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Gerður visits briefly and has sex with Valur, leaving when she realises that Valur has a partner. Valur later has a child by Aldona called Lára. Valur's best friend in Berlin is Karl-Elke, whom he helps escape to West Germany, and who returns to East Berlin after the fall of the Berlin Wall to start a cafe. In the present time of the novel, Valur returns to Iceland for the first time, still a wanted man, because

neg: Escape from East Berlin Escape from East Berlin Escape from East Berlin is a 1962 film directed by Robert Siodmak and starring Don Murray. The story takes place in East Berlin soon after the Berlin Wall is built, and is based on an actual escape on January 28, 1962. Kurt Schröder is a chauffeur to East German Major Eckhardt and his seductive wife Heidi, and lives within sight of the Wall. Kurt is having an affair with Heidi. One night he sees a friend, Günther Jurgens, who works at the garage where Kurt has the Major's car maintained, drive his truck into the wall,

neg: Berlin Wall authorities allowed people to leave, provided that they did so by train through East Germany. This was followed by mass demonstrations within East Germany itself. Protest demonstrations spread throughout East Germany in September 1989. Initially, protesters were mostly people wanting to leave to the West, chanting ("We want out!"). Then protestors began to chant ("We are staying here!"). This was the start of what East Germans generally call the "Peaceful Revolution" of late 1989. The protest demonstrations grew considerably by early November. The movement neared its height on 4 November, when half a million people gathered to demand political change,

neg: Bertram Wieczorek (in Prague), in 1968. New Forum was not crushed: after the Berlin Wall was breached by street protesters in November 1989 as Soviet forces looked on but did nothing to intervene, a momentum towards a more democratic future for East Germany gained traction. Bertram Wieczorek himself resigned from New Forum at the end of the year and in January 1990 returned to the CDU. However, during 1990 the CDU in East Germany systematically transformed its relationship to the old East German political establishment, even though western commentators (and others) sometimes struggled to keep up with the significance of what was

neg: West Berlin blocked by bars. West Berlin paid for the treatment of its sewage in Western Deutsche Marks which were desperately needed by the East German government. Since the methods used in the East did not meet Western standards, West Berlin increased the capacity of modern sewage treatment within its own territory, so that the amount of its sewage treated in the East had been considerably reduced by the time the Wall came down. The situation with refuse was similar. The removal, burning or disposal of the ever-growing amount of West Berlin's rubbish became a costly problem, but here too an agreement

neg: The Tunnel (2001 film) if she does not cooperate, the state will take her soon-to-be-born baby. Carola informs on Vic and he is detained when trying to cross back to West Berlin. He is released after a while but cannot go back to the east. Fritzi's love, Heiner, makes a futile attempt to cross the barbed wire and walls, but he is shot 5 times by the East German border guards and left to die in a scene mirroring the true case of Peter Fechter. The American soldiers prevented Fritzi's friend from climbing to the wall to look for Heiner, who is being shot

neg: Berlin Wall was also possible by railway (four routes) and by boat for commercial shipping via canals and rivers. Non-German Westerners could cross the border at Friedrichstraße station in East Berlin and at Checkpoint Charlie. When the Wall was erected, Berlin's complex public transit networks, the S-Bahn and U-Bahn, were divided with it. Some lines were cut in half; many stations were shut down. Three western lines traveled through brief sections of East Berlin territory, passing through eastern stations (called "," or ghost stations) without stopping. Both the eastern and western networks converged at , which became a major crossing point for

neg: Wolfgang Hilbig lignite mine. In 1978 Hilbig moved to East-Berlin and in 1979 he became an independent writer. In 1985, he left the GDR with a travel visa to go to West Germany. He lived in Berlin after the fall of the Berlin Wall and was married to Natascha Wodin from 1994 to 2007. They had one daughter. He died from cancer in 2007 and is buried in the 'Dorotheenstädtischen' cemetery in Berlin. At first Hilbig favoured poetry, but his works remained widely unpublished in the GDR. He received attention from the West however, as a result of his poems in the

neg: Harald Jäger he was unemployed. In 1997, he was able to save up enough to open a newspaper shop in Berlin with his wife. He has since written a book about his experience called "The Man Who Opened the Berlin Wall". Harald Jäger Harald Jäger (born 27 April 1943) is a former East German Passport Control Unit (PKE), lieutenant colonel who was in charge of the passport control unit. He is best known for disobeying orders and opening the Bornholmer Straße border crossing of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989. Jäger grew up in Bautzen, and was educated in the manufacture

neg: West Berlin Four transit train connections—earlier also called "interzonal train" ()—connected West Berlin with Hamburg via Schwanheide (E)/Büchen (W) in the North, with Hanover via Marienborn (E)/Helmstedt (W) in the West, with Frankfurt upon Main via Gerstungen (E)/Hönebach (W) in the Southwest, and with Nuremberg via Probstzella (E)/Ludwigsstadt (W) in the South of West Germany. These transit trains did not service domestic passengers of East Germany and made stops in East Germany almost exclusively for East German border guards upon entering and leaving the country. Until the construction of the Berlin Wall, "interzonal trains" would also stop once on their way within

neg: Go (game) annual castle games, played in the presence of the "shōgun". Despite its widespread popularity in East Asia, Go has been slow to spread to the rest of the world. Although there are some mentions of the game in western literature from the 16th century forward, Go did not start to become popular in the West until the end of the 19th century, when German scientist Oskar Korschelt wrote a treatise on the ancient Han Chinese game. By the early 20th century, Go had spread throughout the German and Austro-Hungarian empires. In 1905, Edward Lasker learned the game while in Berlin.

neg: Berlin Wall led the leaders of East Berlin to place more restrictions on shooting in public places, and provide medical care for possible "would-be escapers". The last person to be shot and killed while trying to cross the border was Chris Gueffroy on 6 February 1989, while the final person to die in an escape attempt was Winfried Freudenberg who was killed when his homemade natural gas-filled balloon crashed on 8 March 1989. The Wall gave rise to a widespread sense of desperation and oppression in East Berlin, as expressed in the private thoughts of one resident, who confided to her diary

neg: T. H. E. Hill at the Hollywood Book Festival in 2008. Since then it has garnered an additional five awards. Most recently, it was included in the "Indie 500 Booklist" for 2011. Hill's second novel, "The Day Before the Berlin Wall", is an alternate history of the lead-up to the construction of the Berlin Wall, based on a legend that was still being told in the mid-1970s, by U.S. Army soldiers stationed in Berlin. According to the legend, the U.S.A. had advance intelligence of the plans to build the wall. This information included the fact that the East-German engineer troops who were going to

neg: Susanne Schädlich back over to the east. Her father developed psychological problems and her parents split up. Only when she moved to West Berlin where her father was living from 1979, did she begin to feel "at home in the west". In 1985, when she was trying without success to find a teaching job in the west, her uncle found her an apprenticeship in clothes manufacturing in East Berlin. She went for an interview and found herself ending up in an office of the Ministry for State Security (MfS) where she was urged to renounce her West German citizenship. Realising in time

neg: Berlin Wall Day. On 9 November 2009, Berlin celebrated the 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall with a "Festival of Freedom" with dignitaries from around the world in attendance for an evening celebration around the Brandenburg Gate. A high point was when over 1,000 colourfully designed foam domino tiles, each over tall, that were stacked along the former route of the Wall in the city center were toppled in stages, converging in front of the Brandenburg Gate. A Berlin Twitter Wall was set up to allow Twitter users to post messages commemorating the 20th anniversary. The Chinese government quickly

neg: Denots Crew time. And all over Europe´s main cities like Berlin, Paris, London and Amsterdam. In Berlin The Denots Crew started with Breakdance Shows on a popular tourist place called Kudamm. And they painted the first Street Art on Berlin Wall in 1983 which became the origin East Side Gallery later on. In 1986 Denots Crew met up with Keith Haring while he had painted 100m of the Berlin Wall. Denots Crew continued experimentally and started the integration of American HipHop cultur into Berlins youth. Just Like other pioneers of europes HipHop Culture like Mode2 in London, Niels Shoe Meulman in Amsterdam

neg: Berlin Wall could be easily crossed in most places. On 1 April 1952, East German leaders met the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in Moscow; during the discussions Stalin's foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov proposed that the East Germans should "introduce a system of passes for visits of West Berlin residents to the territory of East Berlin [so as to stop] free movement of Western agents" in the GDR. Stalin agreed, calling the situation "intolerable". He advised the East Germans to build up their border defenses, telling them that "The demarcation line between East and West Germany should be considered a border—and not just

neg: Foreign policy of the John F. Kennedy administration access to West Berlin. Previous administrations had simply referred to “Berlin.” The evidence suggests that Kennedy essentially accepted the permanent division of Berlin into East and West and implied that an East Berlin border closure would not bring a US response as long as West Berlin was left alone. Since he was already thinking about putting up a wall in Berlin, Khrushchev was encouraged to continue down this path. The U.S. State Department prepared several papers for Kennedy on how to approach Khrushchev. One of them, titled "Scope Paper", indicated that Khrushchev would "undoubtedly press hard his position on Berlin

neg: Michael Steiner lead to the fall of the Berlin Wall. As hundreds of East Germans surrounded his embassy grounds, asking for asylum and West German citizenship, he helped some of them over the wall himself, onto the embassy grounds, which were West German territory. Then he worked to negotiate a deal to allow the East Germans to leave the embassy and go to the West. During his career with the German government, Steiner served as head of the liaison office for German humanitarian aid in Zagreb, made his mark in the 1990s working with the so-called Contact Group of nations monitoring the

neg: East Germany led Erich Honecker to resign in October, and he was replaced by a slightly more moderate communist, Egon Krenz. On 9 November 1989, a few sections of the Berlin Wall were opened, resulting in thousands of East Germans crossing freely into West Berlin and West Germany for the first time in nearly 30 years. Krenz resigned a few days later, and the SED abandoned power shortly afterward. Although there were some limited attempts to create a permanent democracy in East Germany, this did not come to pass. East Germany held its last elections in March 1990. The winner was a

neg: Berlin Wall Missions accredited to the commander of Soviet forces in East Germany, located in Potsdam. Allied personnel were restricted by policy when travelling by land to the following routes: As with military personnel, special procedures applied to travel by diplomatic personnel of the Western Allies accredited to their respective embassies in the GDR. This was intended to prevent inadvertent recognition of East German authority when crossing between East and West Berlin, which could jeopardize the overall Allied position governing the freedom of movement by Allied forces personnel within all Berlin. Ordinary citizens of the Western Allied powers, not formally affiliated with

neg: West Berlin Until June 1963 the East deepened its border zone around West Berlin in East Germany and East Berlin by clearing existing buildings and vegetation to create an open field of view, sealed off by the Berlin Wall towards the West and a second wall or fence of similar characteristics to the East, observed by armed men in towers, with orders to shoot at escapees. Finally, in 1963, West Berliners were again allowed to visit East Berlin. On this occasion a further checkpoint for pedestrians only was opened on the Oberbaumbrücke. West Berliners were granted visas for a one-day visit between

neg: Berlin Wall activities of Western agents in Eastern Europe. The Eastern German government also claimed that West Berliners were buying out state-subsidized goods in East Berlin. East Germans and others greeted such statements with skepticism, as most of the time, the border was only closed for citizens of East Germany traveling to the West, but not for residents of West Berlin travelling to the East. The construction of the Wall had caused considerable hardship to families divided by it. Most people believed that the Wall was mainly a means of preventing the citizens of East Germany from entering or fleeing to West

neg: Clemens Meyer spell in a youth detention centre. He worked as a security guard, forklift driver and construction worker before he became a published novelist. Meyer won a number of prizes for his first novel "Als wir träumten" ("As We Were Dreaming"), published in 2006, in which a group of friends grow up and go off the rails in East Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall. He received the Rheingau Literatur Preis in 2006. It has been adapted into an upcoming film, due to be released in 2015. His second book, "Die Nacht, die Lichter" ("All the Lights", 2008), was

neg: Berlin Wall the Allied forces, were authorized to use all designated transit routes through East Germany to and from West Berlin. Regarding travel to East Berlin, such persons could also use the Friedrichstraße train station to enter and exit the city, in addition to Checkpoint Charlie. In these instances, such travelers, unlike Allied personnel, had to submit to East German border controls. During the years of the Wall, around 5,000 people successfully defected to West Berlin. The number of people who died trying to cross the Wall, or as a result of the Wall's existence, has been disputed. The most vocal claims

neg: Jump Up the Wall Music Entertainment Japan's sublabel onenation. The album was released in both CD and CD+DVD format. Much like "Soulhead," "Jump Up the Wall" did not carry any preluding singles; however, it did consist of one music video on the DVD: "World Go Round," which featured Japanese reggae artist, lecca. The album is predominately R&B and hip hop. Jump Up the Wall Jump Up the Wall (stylized as JUMP UP THE WALL) is the second album by Soulhead under the Avex label. It is their fifth studio album and sixth overall. It became their lowest charting album, coming in at #73 on

neg: Ghost station stop served by West Berlin trains, but located on East Berlin territory just behind the border. However, was in use and accessible for West Berliners, as one of its exits opened on a West Berlin street. This exit was exactly on the border line, a warning sign next to it informing passengers about the situation. Its other exits to East Berlin streets were blocked. The first people to enter the ghost stations after the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 found that they lived up to their informal name, with ads and signage on the walls unchanged since

neg: Berlin Wall expected the Soviet sector to be sealed off from West Berlin, but were surprised by how long the East Germans took for such a move. They considered the Wall as an end to concerns about a GDR/Soviet retaking or capture of the whole of Berlin; the Wall would presumably have been an unnecessary project if such plans were afloat. Thus they concluded that the possibility of a Soviet military conflict over Berlin had decreased. The East German government claimed that the Wall was an "anti-fascist protective rampart" () intended to dissuade aggression from the West. Another official justification was the

neg: Berlin Wall motifs were put up for auction in 1990 in Berlin and Monte Carlo. On 1 July, the day East Germany adopted the West German currency, all "de jure" border controls ceased, although the inter-German border had become meaningless for some time before that. The fall of the Wall marked the first critical step towards German reunification, which formally concluded a mere 339 days later on 3 October 1990 with the dissolution of East Germany and the official reunification of the German state along the democratic lines of the West German Basic Law. In some European capitals at the time, there

neg: Rudolf Urban (Berlin Wall victim) Berlin Wall, border guards were posted in the hallways and entrances, who checked identity documents of those entering the apartments. On the evening of August 18, five days after the erection of the Berlin Wall, the entrance door, and the escape route to West Berlin was bricked and sealed, with alternate entrances established but leading to East Berlin. According to his wife Ilse, this was the deciding factor for her husband, who was previously hesitant about leaving East Berlin. They attempted their escape the following day, accompanied by his friend and his friend's wife, Willy and Irmgard Kutzminski. They chose