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November 9th will mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. After twenty-eight years, this symbol of the cold war disappears. In August 1961, the unthinkable had become reality: a city was cut in two by an almost impassable border that the East German regime perfected for years, but which also symbolizes its failure.
" No one intends to build a wall ." On June 15, 1961, the strong man of the GDR, Walter Ulbricht, answers the question of a West German journalist who asks him if it is conceivable that a state border be erected at the Brandenburg Gate. The colleague did not use the term "wall". Does Ulbricht commit a Freudian slip of the tongue announcing his intentions or does he want to warn the West and his compatriots?
The exodus of East Germans
The situation was particularly tense in June 1961. During the two weeks preceding the Ulbricht press conference, 10,000 East Germans were fleeing their country. The hemorrhage puts the RDA in difficulty. Since 1952, a prohibited area exists between the two parts of the country and prevents the East-Germans from leaving their country. But to win West Berlin is easy enough. The city was cut after the war (as the whole country) into four sectors between the victorious Allies of the Second World War (Soviet, American, British and French).
East Berlin as the rest of the socialist GDR founded in 1949 are part of the area controlled by Moscow. The three western sectors of West Berlin are a common area. But the border remains open between the two parts of the city. Schoolchildren and students cross them daily as people working in another sector. Since 1958, both the GDR and the Soviet Union have been trying to challenge this situation. Buses and trams between the two parts of the city are interrupted. But the subway and the S-Bahn (a kind of RER) still work and 80 streets connect the western sectors to the Soviet zone. 2.6 million people leave the GDR between its foundation in 1949 and the construction of the Berlin Wall in August 1961.
Operation "Chinese Wall"
Faced with this exodus that threatens the survival of the regime, East Berlin wants to fight back and since 1958 a "Wall of China" operation plans to close the inter-Berlin border. On June 15, 1961, Walter Ulbricht lies shamefully when he states that " no one intends to build a wall ". In early August, the number one East German gets the green light from Moscow for his plan "Chinese Wall". The USSR states: barbed wire must first cut the city in two. They will only be replaced by a wall if the West does not react.
On Saturday, August 12, 4,000 people (a record) flee the GDR. After midnight, the army quadrille Berlin East. 25,000 militia and armed police deploy every two meters along the 155-kilometer border between the two parts of the city. The metro and the S-Bahn are interrupted. In the morning, the city is cut in half by barbed wire. Some East Germans flee by jumping over or shearing them. In the Bernauer Strasse, the buildings on one side of the street are in the GDR. In this street that quickly becomes a symbol of divided Berlin, people are jumping from the windows of the floors of the buildings not yet walled up in nets stretched by firemen from West Berlin. Houses will be evacuated and destroyed later.
In the face of discontent in the GDR, 1,000 people are arrested for state crimes. In the West, people facing the border observe the cut of their city stunned or insult the Eastern forces of the order. Already torn families wave their hands in tears over the barbed wire.
The response of the Western Allies is very moderate. Nobody wants an armed conflict. The cut of the city does not put into question the fundamental interests of the ones and the others. The next step of the "Chinese Wall" plan can therefore be implemented. As of August 15, masons replace the barbed wire with a concrete wall of 1.50 meters and stack blocks. Two months earlier, Walter Ulbricht had declared that all these workers were urgently needed to build housing in the GDR.
This division of the city, improbable a few days earlier, will not be an interim measure. The " wall of anti-fascist protection ", built by the GDR to officially protect its citizens from Western aggression, will remain in place for twenty-eight years until November 9, 1989. The wall will be perfected over time. In its final version, it will consist of prefabricated concrete elements 3.60 meters high and surmounted by a round cement pipe on which a grapple has no grip. There are actually two parallel walls in the middle of which is a no man's land (50 to 500 meters wide) allowing a better control with towers, barbed wire, alarms. Automatic firing systems and mines will be installed at the border between the GDR and the FRG (but not in Berlin). Part of the borders is made up of rivers whose access is also particularly controlled.
Escape at all costs
After the construction of the wall in August 1961, various measures are taken to make it less watertight, but still in the west-east direction. In 1963, one million Berliners get the right to visit relatives for Christmas. Further easing will follow. For East Germans, except for regime executives and other exceptions, the wall remains tightly closed. You have to wait for retirement before you can go west. If some do not come back, it eases the funds of the East German regime.
Some do not want to wait and run away. Approximately 5,000 people arrived between 1961 and 1989, using vehicles as pushbutts, through pipes or tunnels dug for weeks or crossing a river. For others, the flight is interrupted by arrest and jail time. Some do not survive after an accident or are killed by East German forces. In total, at least 140 people were killed in Berlin between 1961 and 1989 while attempting to move west. To these victims are added those who died while attempting to cross the border between Germany and Germany other than Berlin. The last dead are to deplore a few months before the fall of the wall . The young Chris Gueffroy is the last victim killed by bullets trying to win West Berlin on February 6, 1989. The following month, Winfried Freudenberg, managed to flee with an inflatable ball. He wins freedom, but crushes in West Berlin where he dies of his wounds.
► See also: Fifty years later, the Berlin Wall
► To listen too: Berlin today, where are the traces of the wall?