This summer, August 13 will mark the 60th anniversary of the construction of the Berlin Wall.
The "wall of shame" divided the German capital for 28 years.
In this new episode of the Europe 1 Studio podcast "At the Heart of History", Jean des Cars tells about the construction of the separation wall between East and West Berlin.
In the middle of the Cold War, Eastern Europe is dominated by the USSR while the West represents the free world. On the night of August 13, 1961, the People's Army of the GDR occupied East Berlin and began to isolate it with roadblocks ... In this new episode of the Europe 1 Studio podcast
"At the heart of history"
, Jean des Cars looks back at the history of the construction of the Berlin Wall.
The year 1989 is decidedly a bad year for Erich Honecker who leads with an iron fist the German Democratic Republic, the GDR.
He is suffering from cancer, and East Germany's economy is in dire straits.
The people are starting to show their bad humor.
The strange tourists from the GDR
During August, he learns that it is a member of Solidarnosc who becomes Prime Minister of Poland, a brother country which has great aspirations of independence.
Worse still, a large number of East Germans, who are not allowed to cross the Iron Curtain and come to the West, have decided to spend their holidays in friendly countries, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia.
But as soon as they arrived in their capitals, they rushed to find refuge in the embassies of the Federal Republic of Germany, West Germany.
They are literally invaded.
Three million East Germans left the GDR!
This immense migration did not escape Archduke Otto of Habsburg, heir to the throne of the late Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Then German deputy in the European Parliament, he is also at the head of the Pan-European Movement that he created.
To publicize this influx of East Germans into Hungary, the son of the last Emperor of Austria-Hungary then organized a gigantic European picnic in the country, just on the Austrian border.
Want to listen to the other episodes of this podcast?
>> Find them on our Europe1.fr site and on Apple Podcasts, Google podcasts, Deezer, Spotify, Dailymotion and YouTube, or your usual listening platforms.
>> Find here the user manual to listen to all the podcasts of Europe 1
On this occasion, 500 East German holidaymakers cross the Austro-Hungarian border post of Sopron and enter Austria without being in the least worried.
From September 13, with the effective opening and demilitarization of the border, a first breach opens in the southern part of the Iron Curtain ...
Further north, the pressure on the Czechoslovak border reached a fever pitch.
Is the Iron Curtain cracking?
Erich Honecker is worried.
His only certainty is that at least the Berlin Wall will hold up.
The big Soviet brother will help East Germany ...
Not so sure !
Because Gorbachev, maneuvering in Moscow, is also in great financial difficulty and seeks to settle what is starting to be a revolt in East Germany in a peaceful manner.
For Gorbachev, there is no question of sending the Soviet tanks as the USSR had done in Budapest in 1956 and in Prague in 1968: Moscow no longer has the means and above all does not want to trigger an international conflict.
Will the Berlin Wall hold out?
And especially why does it exist ??
Before the Berlin Wall, the Iron Curtain
We know that at the end of World War II, Europe was separated into two blocks, the East and the West.
The East is dominated by the USSR, the West embodies the free world.
You can still move relatively freely in Europe.
The first to worry about the separation of Europe in two is Winston Churchill.
On March 5, 1946, while receiving the American President Harry Truman, he evokes in his speech "the Iron Curtain" which would be spreading in Europe in front of the countries of the East under the control of the USSR.
It is a premonitory speech.
Indeed, two years later, on February 25, 1948, the Communists seized power in Czechoslovakia.
The economic situation there is catastrophic because it could not benefit from the Marshall Plan.
A wave of purges is spreading over the country.
Arrests are ordered, the Prague coup has succeeded.
Soon, the Iron Curtain will separate Western Europe from Eastern Europe whose countries all become satellites of the USSR.
Germany was cut in two during the peace treaties that ended the war.
There is, to the west, the Federal Republic of Germany, the FRG, with Bonn as capital, and the German Democratic Republic, the GDR, to the east, with Berlin as its capital.
But Berlin's status is complex.
The city was itself cut in two: east of the Brandenburg Gate is the capital of the GDR, occupied by the Soviets.
To the west, Berlin is jointly occupied in a tripartite manner by the Franco-British and American Allies.
The city is landlocked in the GDR, very far from the border.
A motorway crosses East Germany, connecting the FRG to West Berlin.
After the Prague coup in February 1948, on June 14 and 15, coal transports to Berlin were blocked by the Soviets on the east-west border. The motorway is closed under the pretext of repairs on the Elbe bridges. On June 24, the Soviets cut off all traffic to Berlin with the exception of air traffic. The case escalates.
The supply of electricity to West Berlin is completely interrupted. In retaliation, the Allies decide to suspend deliveries of steel and coal to the Soviet zone of occupation. In response, Moscow sets up the Berlin Blockade. The USA and the United Kingdom decide to supply the western sector of Berlin with an airlift which will provide the inhabitants with food and raw materials. The Allies do not want to abandon West Berlin. The blockade will last almost a year, until May 12, 1949.
Thanks to negotiations at the UN, Moscow puts an end to them, gives up putting into circulation a single currency for the whole of the city of Berlin and finally recognizes the existence of an independent state, West Germany. .
This is a first alert.
Berlin's status is fragile, at the mercy of the goodwill of the Soviet Union ...
In the summer of 1961, a new crisis broke out in Berlin.
For the first time, armed police officers from east and west face each other.
Free passage from east to west poses a serious problem for the authorities of the GDR.
Every day, 53,000 East Berliners cross the border to work in West Berlin.
But there are also refugees who go to the west for good.
On August 9, the flow reached its maximum with 1,926 people.
The beginnings of the construction of the wall
Authorities in East Germany are preparing to block the border into Berlin. The People's Assembly votes the full powers of the government of the GDR to "take all necessary measures to protect its interests". On the night of August 13, 1961, the People's Army of the GDR occupied East Berlin and began to isolate it with roadblocks and fortifications. Of the 80 crossing points between the zones that existed then, only 12 remain open. A rally of more than 500,000 people takes place in West Berlin to oppose the blockade of the border.
On August 15, concrete elements began to replace the barbed wire fences.
Construction of the Berlin Wall has started.
To cross it by car, you need a special pass.
On August 19, the Allies protested in a note sent to Moscow.
She asserts that the measures taken are a flagrant violation of the statute of the Four Powers in Berlin (the USSR in the East, France, the USA and the United Kingdom in the West).
Lost sentence: the wall is consolidated.
Another barrier, with watchtowers, permanently monitored by "vopos" equipped with machine guns, is built parallel to the wall, inside East Berlin.
Between the two, it is a no man's land to better identify and kill the candidates for the clandestine crossing of the wall.
The brutality of the construction had tragic consequences for some families, now cut in two.
Crossing the wall is a formidable endeavor, often doomed to failure and which can lead to retaliation for those who have been left behind.
For the first anniversary of the wall, the West German government publishes an assessment of the number of defectors: 12. On the other hand, 316 people went from east to west despite the closure of the border between the two Germany.
On August 17, 1962, the young East Berliner Peter Fechter was shot dead by the East German police while trying to cross the wall.
He was the first to die from the Berlin Wall.
The event provokes Western diplomatic protests.
The following year, US President John Fitzgerald Kennedy devoted the third day of his visit to Federal Germany to Berlin. He had revenge to take. At the beginning of his presidency, in April 1961, the disaster of the landing in Cuba in the Bay of Pigs had been an unfortunate disaster. Two months later, at the Vienna summit, Kennedy had to endure the ascendancy and contempt of Khrutchev. But in October 1962, he will be firm and courageous towards Khroutchev by forcing him to withdraw the missile rockets and their launching pads which he was preparing to place in battery in Cuba, against the United States. .
He then felt capable of defying the USSR by delivering a historic speech in front of the Berlin City Hall and a crowd of 400,000 people.
And when he affirms his support for West Berlin and ends his speech with "Ich bin ein Berliner", "I am a Berliner", he triggers immense cheers.
He then goes to the Berlin Wall, to the Check Point Charlie crossing point.
He gives another speech to an audience of students at the Free University of Berlin in which he says he believes a reunification of the two Germans is possible.
The brief 7-hour stay of the American President in Berlin had a worldwide impact and constitutes a new deal in East-West relations.
Sadly, his assassination the following November put a stop to the hopes of West Berliners.
The Farewell Affair
The assessment of the danger that the USSR represented for the West will change in the 1980s thanks to a spy case: the Farewell affair.
It is the code name of a KGB lieutenant-colonel, Vladimir Vetrov, who, stationed at the Soviet embassy in Paris in the early 1980s, looted the industrial secrets of Matra, Thomson, Airbus and Aerospace. because he was also a distinguished engineer.
This whimsical character, anarchist and bon vivant, becomes the friend of an important executive of Thomson.
Returning to Moscow, he became one of the main KGB officers in the department of technology abroad.
Returned by his French friend, he will deliver to the DST the list of technology looting as well as that of Soviet agents infiltrated in the West.
At the G7 summit in Ottawa in 1984, President Mitterrand revealed to Ronald Reagan the extent of the "deliveries" made by Farewell.
At the same time, the French President clears himself of the accusations made by the USA of having Communist ministers in his government ...
What Reagan and his advisers discover is that the USSR has indulged in a great bluff: Soviet technology is failing, it is overplaying its power, it is running out of steam.
It was at this time that Reagan set up his strategy of "star wars" by forcing Moscow to a permanent bidding that would ruin the USSR.
For the record, Farewell was unmasked by the KGB, arrested, and executed with a bullet in the back of his neck in 1984.
In the meantime, all his revelations had enabled the West to destroy the Soviet spy network and change their access codes to several weapon systems.
Gorbachev changes USSR policy
In March 1985, Gorbachev came to the head of the USSR.
Without him, the wall would never have fallen smoothly and without a gunshot.
He inherits a quasi-bankrupt USSR.
While Westerners estimated Moscow's military spending at around 9%, it was actually 35% of gdp.
The consequence was a dramatic impoverishment of populations, productivity at its lowest, 25 million Soviets living below the poverty line, not to mention the 1,300,000 prisoners languishing in the hell of the gulags.
In these conditions, it was not easy to stand up to Reagan in the two-sided summits, which he nevertheless managed to do because he was an extraordinary diplomat.
As soon as he arrived in the Kremlin, Gorbachev had established a roadmap: end the arms race, get out of Afghanistan and improve relations with the United States and China.
As for the Warsaw Pact states, Gorbachev admits: "We can no longer take responsibility for their internal development".
The man who will help him carry out this policy is 66 years old.
His name is Yakovlev.
It is he who will state the principles of Glasnost and Perestroika.
East Germany has long been an illusion.
It was considered the first technological and economic nation of the Eastern bloc.
But little by little, it stiffened, becoming a kind of Prison State led by a worn-out Secretary General, Erich Honecker.
It stagnates in a regime of terror with the Red Army at the borders and the East German People's Army inside.
This is a problem for Gorbachev.
We must get rid of Honecker without revolution.
The KGB will prepare a plan to find him more flexible successors.
And for Gorbachev, it is also important to maintain peaceful relations with wealthy Federal Germany.
But this complicated balance, he will try to obtain it.
Gorbachev and Chancellor Kohl
From 12 to 15 June 1989, the Chancellor of Federal Germany Helmut Kohl receives Gorbachev in Bonn on an official visit.
It was at the same time that the decision to lower the Iron Curtain between Austria and Hungary was obtained by Bonn in return for a credit of one billion Deutsche Marks for the benefit of Hungary.
The first opening of the Iron Curtain was therefore financed by Germany.
After the gala dinner on June 14, Kohl and Gorbachev take a walk in the Chancellery grounds.
They speak of economic exchanges but also and above all of the German division.
Khol explains to Gorbachev that the reunion of the two Germans is the dream of his life ... but that he is not sure to see it carried out during his lifetime.
Gorbachev practically supports him by telling him that he will never blame him for being a genuine patriot.
So, Kohl lets go: "Just as one cannot stop the course of a river, no one will ever prevent the Germans from meeting again. Just as the Rhine goes to the sea, so does the course of the History is leading us towards reunification. My hope is that we can, in confidence with our neighbors, promote this process. And that is obviously priceless! "
Gorbachev replies that it would be necessary to agree on the amount of the transaction and he asks him: "In the end, how much is your price?"
Khol answers tit for tat: "Your price will be mine ..."
Gorbachev replies that the Chancellor gives him funny ideas and that he should take care that one day he does not take him at his word ...
Everything is now in place.
Khol wants reunification, Gorbachev is conciliatory on condition that he finds his advantage there.
We must get rid of Honecker.
All that's missing is an uprising in East Germany and we won't give a lot of money for the future of the Berlin Wall!
Bibliographic resources:
Michel Meyer, Secret story of the fall of the Berlin Wall (Odile Jacob, 2009, new edition, 2014)
Henry Bogdan, Histoire des pays de l'Est (Perrin, 1991, updated reissue from the Tempus collection, 2008)
"At the heart of History" is a Europe 1 Studio podcast
Author and presentation: Jean des Cars
Production: Timothée Magot
Director: Christophe Daviaud
Distribution and editing: Clémence Olivier and Salomé Journo
Graphics: Karelle Villais