Berlin Wall: What you need to know about the barrier that divided East and West | The Independent Berlin Wall: What you need to know about the barrier that divided East and West On Sunday, it will be 25 years since the Berlin Wall fell Friday 7 November 2014 16:22 BST Click to follow Indy Lifestyle Online Sunday will mark 25 years since the Berlin Wall was torn down, ending almost 30 years of division in the German capital. It had been constructed overnight and on the night of 9 November 1989 it fell, with thousands of East Germans travelling to the barrier to demand the gates be opened. They were met on the other side by huge crowds of “Wessis” waiting to greet them with flowers and champagne, starting celebrations that lasted for days. This weekend, Berlin is celebrating again, with a symbolic wall of illuminated balloons being released into the sky amid a programme of concerts, plays and exhibitions throughout the city. Most Germans marking the occasion will not remember the construction of “Die Mauer”, which caught Berliners by complete surprise. Read more West German people smashing down the Berlin Wall in November 1989 When was the Berlin Wall built?

The first barrier was constructed overnight on 12 August 1961, after the leader of the East German Communist Party, Walter Ulbricht, ordered a barricade to stop East Germans defecting. An estimated 2.5 million people had flooded into West Berlin since 1949 and the Government wanted to put a stop to the exodus from the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Berliners woke up on 13 August to find themselves separated from friends, family, work and even their homes and in the coming weeks and months, the barrier was strengthened with concrete walls and guard towers. The finished wall was made up of a 66 mile concrete section that was 3.6 metres high, with a further 41 miles of barbed wire fencing and more than 300 manned look-out towers. It did not just go through the centre of the city – it completely encircled all of West Berlin, which was surrounded by the communist GDR. Two women wave to their family across the Berlin Wall, 1961 Why was it constructed?

By 1949, Germany had become two separate countries - The Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), run by the Allies, and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), run by the Soviet Union. Although Berlin was in East Germany, as the capital it was also shared between Britain, France, America and the Soviet Union. The inner German border was officially closed in 1952 and the city became the main route for disaffected East Germans reaching the West. Thousands of people exploited what became known as the “Berlin emigration loophole” and the GDR’s introduction of new passport laws in 1957 only drove more people through the capital – up to 90 per cent of all refugees. Families and friends, once neighbours, now stand divided and wave across to each other over the Berlin wall. What impact did it have? The wall divided friends, families and loved ones, causing people on both sides to lose their jobs and livelihoods if trapped on the wrong side. In total, about 5,000 people are thought to escaped East Germany by crossing the wall – including more than 1,300 guards.

Tales of daring escapes became a fixture in the Western media, including acrobat Horst Klein, who dangled off a disused cable as he made his way to the West inch-by-inch. Heinz Meixner famously cut out his car’s windscreen and ducked underneath the barrier at Checkpoint Charlie, as he sped through with his mother in the boot. Perhaps the most famous symbols of freedom became Hans Strelczyk and Gunter Wetzel, who constructed a hot air balloon to fly themselves over the wall in 1979. There was one group of Berliners that crossed without risking their lives – the 50,000 Grenzgängers – who were permitted to work in the West, with its larger salaries, capitalist economy and political freedoms. A man lies in the back of lorry after crossing the Berlin Wall by ladder fearing the guards may have seen him escape, 1965 How many people died? The first person to be killed trying to cross the wall was Gunter Litfin, on 24 August 1961. Like many East Germans, he worked in West Berlin and had woken up little over a week before to find his livelihood as an apprentice tailor destroyed.

He was also a member of the centre-right CDU party, which was quickly made illegal by the GDR and rented a flat in the West. The wall was still mostly a barbed wire barrier at the time and he hoped to break through with a well-timed run on what he believed was a poorly-guarded stretch. But when he was spotted climbing over railway tracks, he was shot in the head. In the immediate aftermath, officials hushed up his death and responded to rumours with claims that Litfin was a gay man known as “Dolly” fleeing due to his “criminal acts.” For the 28 years it stood, up to 200 people are believed to have died at the wall, although estimates vary. Many lost their lives along the heavily fortified “death strip”, which contained anti-vehicle trenches, barbed wire and beds of nails under blinding floodlights. The wall, nicknamed the Iron Curtain, became a symbol of the division in Europe between the west and the oppressive east, despite the GDR’s attempts to characterise it as a protective shell against “fascism” allegedly remaining from the Nazi era.

1959: East German 'wall guards' observe West Berlin over a barrier erected by the GDR in August that year. Why did it fall? The proximity of West Berlin, offering the prosperity and freedom that the East lacked, was a constant bane to the GDR’s leadership. Positive propaganda about the “Anti-Fascist Protective Rampart” was not enough to stop East Germans succumbing to the lure of the Western city or the rest of democratic Europe. As revolutions against the Soviet Union rose through the 1980s, people in the GDR started to demand greater personal and political freedoms, as well as that of movement, and protesters demanded they be allowed into the West. A protest outside the DDR parliament on 7 November 1989 calling for the Wall to come down. It did so two days later After Hungary and the then Czechoslovakia opened their borders to East Germany, defectors began to drain from the country and the Government found it increasingly difficult to refuse calls to open legal crossings. When the border was eventually opened, it was almost by accident.

East Berlin's Communist party spokesman, Günter Schabowski, announced East Germans would “immediately” allowed to travel directly to West Germany on 9 November in a broadcast that was seen across the country at 7pm. When the GDR attempted to backtrack later that evening, calling on citizens to queue at the migration office the next day, it was too late and thousands of East Germans were already on their way to the barricade. When did the wall come down? Crowds of East Germans arrived at the wall to find confused guards, until then ordered to shoot those attempting to cross on sight, unaware of the sudden change. As soldiers made frantic calls, they demanded the gates were opened until their request was finally opened at 10.45pm. To avoid a stampede, officials began to gradually let people in, before finally losing control and opening the barriers. As East and West Germans celebrated that night, singing and dancing on the wall, many soldiers were said to have joined in the revelry.

The fall of the Berlin Wall – 25 years on The fall of the Berlin Wall – 25 years on 1/10 The fall of the Berlin Wall – 25 years on East German border guards stand on a section of the Berlin wall in front of the Brandenburg gate on November 11, 1989 AFP/Getty 2/10 The fall of the Berlin Wall – 25 years on Cars line up at the Pomezy border station, on November 5, 1989 as East German refugees cross the border to West Germany AFP/Getty 3/10 The fall of the Berlin Wall – 25 years on East German refugees penned behind barriers outside the West German embassy wait for the buses to take them to the railway station to leave Prague on 4th October 1989 AFP/Getty 4/10 The fall of the Berlin Wall – 25 years on Thousands of young East Berliners gather at the Berlin Wall, near the Brandenburg Gate on November 11, 1989 AFP/Getty 5/10 The fall of the Berlin Wall – 25 years on East Berliners climb onto the Berlin Wall to celebrate the effective end of the

 city's partition, 31st December 1989 Getty 6/10 The fall of the Berlin Wall – 25 years on A replica of a watchtower of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) on display in the "Potsdamer Platz Arkaden" shopping mall in Berlin where an exhibition titled "25 Years of the Fall of the Berlin Wall" has been staged AFP/Getty 7/10 The fall of the Berlin Wall – 25 years on Berliners from East and West celebrate at the Brandenburg Gate in December 1989 AFP/Getty 8/10 The fall of the Berlin Wall – 25 years on East German drivers queue at the Schirnding border crossing into Czecho-slovakia five days before the fall of the Berlin EPA 9/10 The fall of the Berlin Wall – 25 years on The Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, watched by his wife Raisa, right, kisses his East German counterpart Erich Honecker in East Berlin in October 1989 AP 10/10 The fall of the Berlin Wall – 25 years on Police from both sides stand idly by as the Berlin Wall

 is breached for the first time between East and West, at the Sandkrug Bridge crossing-point on Invaliden Strasse, in November 1989 AFP/Getty The 9 November 1989 is considered to be the date the wall “fell” but the structure was not completely taken down that night.

It was gradually smashed to pieces over the following weeks, with many people taking it apart themselves with hammers and chisels, keeping pieces of history for themselves. The government finally destroyed the wall in 1990 although parts of it remain in Berlin and in museums around the world. Talks between East and West Germany started that year and at midnight on 3 October 1990 – less than a year after the Berlin Wall fell – the republics were officially reunited. The Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall The mounting tensions between the Allies and Soviets culminated in the Berlin Crisis and the construction of the Berlin Wall. The Berlin Wall During the early years of the Cold War, West Berlin was a geographical loophole through which thousands of East Germans fled to the democratic West. In response, the Communist East German authorities built a wall that totally encircled West Berlin. It was thrown up overnight, on 13 August 1961. For the next three decades, the city became the hot end of the Cold War as the world's nuclear superpowers faced off across the Wall. Half a century later, we look back on the Wall and its impact through a BBC archive collection.

Photo: West Berliners gather at the Wall whilst an East German soldier patrols the other side, in August 1961. (Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images) More information about: The Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer) was a barrier that divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. Constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany), starting on 13 August 1961, the Wall completely cut off (by land) West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin until government officials opened it in November 1989. Its demolition officially began on 13 June 1990 and was completed in 1992. The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, which circumscribed a wide area (later known as the "death strip") that contained anti-vehicle trenches, "fakir beds" and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc claimed that the Wall was erected to protect its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the "will of the people" in building a socialist state in East Germany.

In practice, the Wall served to prevent the massive emigration and defection that had marked East Germany and the communist Eastern Bloc during the post-World War II period. The Berlin Wall was officially referred to as the "Anti-Fascist Protective Wall" (German: Antifaschistischer Schutzwall) by GDR authorities, implying that the NATO countries and West Germany in particular were considered equal to "fascists" by GDR propaganda. The West Berlin city government sometimes referred to it as the "Wall of Shame"—a term coined by mayor Willy Brandt—while condemning the Wall's restriction on freedom of movement. Along with the separate and much longer Inner German border (IGB), which demarcated the border between East and West Germany, it came to symbolize a physical marker of the "Iron Curtain" that separated Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War. Before the Wall's erection, 3.5 million East Germans circumvented Eastern Bloc emigration restrictions and defected from the GDR, many by crossing over the border from East Berlin into West Berlin; from which they could then travel to West Germany and other Western European countries.

Between 1961 and 1989, the Wall prevented almost all such emigration. During this period, around 5,000 people attempted to escape over the Wall, with an estimated death toll ranging from 136 to more than 200 in and around Berlin. In 1989, a series of radical political changes occurred in the Eastern Bloc, associated with the liberalization of the Eastern Bloc's authoritarian systems and the erosion of political power in the pro-Soviet governments in nearby Poland and Hungary. After several weeks of civil unrest, the East German government announced on 9 November 1989 that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin. Crowds of East Germans crossed and climbed onto the Wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere. Over the next few weeks, euphoric people and souvenir hunters chipped away parts of the Wall; the governments later used industrial equipment to remove most of what was left. Contrary to popular belief the Wall's actual demolition did not begin until the summer of 1990 and was not completed until 1992.

The fall of the Berlin Wall paved the way for German reunification, which was formally concluded on 3 October 1990. DO THIS BECAUSE... Learn the history of the Berlin Wall and see for yourself the Berlin Wall Memorial Pass the famous sites, such as the “ghost stations” exhibit at Nordbahnhof and a preserved GDR watchtower WHAT TO EXPECT Built on the night of the 13th August 1961, the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart (as it was officially referred to by the East German government) or Wall of Shame (as it was called in the West) ran 97 miles around the three western sectors of Berlin and 27 miles directly through the city’s center. The imposing concrete barrier and its infamous “death strip” soon came to represent the most ominous symbol of the ideological and physical divide between Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc, artificially severing one culture into two - and literally cleaving the city of Berlin - for over a quarter of a century before finally crumbling in the days, weeks and months following the 9th of November 1989.

Led by a 20th century historian, this three-hour walk unravels the complex social, cultural and political history of the Berlin Wall by tracing a section of its former route through the city’s center. In doing so, you will investigate the Post-war background of the Wall’s construction, the physical realities of life in the city that it divided, and the implications of its fall for a reunified Berlin. The main goal of this tour will be to understand the Wall for what it was: not merely a concrete barrier but also a controlled series of empty spaces and activities (searches, patrols, observations and checkpoints) that came to signify all the consequences of the division of Berlin and of Europe. Beginning at the Berlin Wall Memorial in Bernauer Strasse, the site of some of the earliest and most dramatic escape attempts from the communist GDR, you will stop at numerous exhibitions, memorials, artwork and historical locations in order to get a sense of the scale and nature of the city’s division. You will see how the Wall was constructed and expanded, the ways in which it was used as an ideological symbol by Cold War powers, and ultimately how and why it fell.

Finally, you will discuss the irony that Berlin is now largely associated with a structure that no longer exists. The fate of the Wall since 1989 and the debates about place and identity to which it has given rise, dramatize the larger issues of national identity in a newly unified Germany. As you pass the many memorializing sites along your itinerary - the “ghost stations” exhibit at Nordbahnhof, Karla Sachse’s artwork Kaninchenfeld (Rabbit Field), a preserved GDR watchtower, and others - you will find the answers to fundamental questions about the tension in Germany’s troubled history between destruction and forgetting, on one hand, and preservation and remembering, on the other. That is: should this history be erased completely from the city’s map or etched indelibly into the city's memory? Nowhere is this debate more evident than along the route of the Berlin Wall, its physical concrete no longer visible but its social, cultural and political repercussions apparent everywhere.

Read more German Unity Day 2015: Facts, History About The Berlin Wall On Germany's 25th National Holiday German Unity Day 2015: Facts, History About The Berlin Wall On Germany's 25th National Holiday 10/03/15 AT 10:28 AM Close Saturday is the 25th German Unity Day, the annual celebration of the formal reunification of Germany after years of separation. The public holiday is always recognized on Oct. 3, giving the country's roughly 81 million people time to reflect on their nation's history. After World War II, Germany was broken into Allied occupation zones under the control of the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union. The first three joined their areas into the Federal Republic of Germany, or West Germany, while the Soviets controlled the land around Berlin. The Soviet Union tried to take over the whole city, east and west, but failed in 1949. It continued to run Germany's eastern zone, comprising about one-third of the country; that area was called East Germany, or the German Democratic Republic (GDR), formally established in 1949.

Residents of East Germany grew tired of the regime and began crossing into the democratic West in droves, according to the History Channel . In response, soldiers from the East began construction on the Berlin Wall on Aug. 13, 1961. Officially called the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart, the wall would eventually stretch about 97 miles and average of 12 feet tall. It was made mostly of cement and barbed wire and separated countless families. Many people who tried to cross over were shot. A memorial to German reunification is pictured at the Grenzmuseum at the former internal border in the village of Asbach Sickenberg, Germany, on Sept. 30, 2012. Photo: Reuters In November 1989, after protests by citizens and international leaders, East Germany opened its borders. Berliners tore down the hated wall with their hands, picks, hammers -- whatever they had -- and the two countries formally became one Germany again when they signed a treaty on Aug. 31, 1990. They were officially reunified on Oct. 3 when East Germany was dissolved.

Nowadays, "October 3 is a feast and a picnic," professor and museum worker Tuya Roth told Deutsche Welle . "[Former German Chancellor] Helmut Kohl always emphasized that it is a day in fall with nice weather that can be used by the people as a feast and picnic day." The location of the German Unity Day festival rotates yearly. This year, Frankfurt will host it with food, beer, live music and dance performances. If you're honoring the observance at home, check out these facts about Germany: West Germany liked to call the Berlin Wall the "Wall of Shame." When the wall was built, then-U.S. President John F. Kennedy said, "it’s not a very nice solution, but a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war." Ronald Reagan would later famously demand that statesman Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev "tear down this wall." While the wall was up, about 5,000 people escaped into West Germany, sneaking through checkpoints, walking through an underground tunnel and even landing in a hot air balloon. But not everyone made it. At least 171 people died trying to cross.

Related Stories Building a Wall Building a Wall Subsequent albums - (none) Other releases - (none) A vaguely political song in which Chris makes a few vocal appearances, including two "call and response" sections: Neil: "Protection!" Chris: "Detention!" Neil: "There's nowhere to defect to any more!" With its lyric "I'm building a wall, a fine wall, not so much to keep you out—more to keep me in," this track expresses the desire to "cocoon"—to escape from the world's travails by removing oneself as much as possible from it all. Paralleling the "not so much … more to" structure, the narrator adds that he wants to leave the world because— It's all wrong Not so much what men are doing Much more what they're not In other words, the wrongs of the world are as much if not more the result of inaction—sins of omission—than of sins of commission. Neil has stated that this song indeed arose from his occasional desire to "block out" the rest of the world from his day-to-day existence (who among us hasn't felt that way from time to time?), especially these days in which government surveillance seems more common than ever before.

His lyrics seem to express a longing for the simpler, more innocent days of his childhood, when he could look up without ambivalence to heroes like Jesus, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (a popular 1960s TV series), and Julius Caesar. Despite living then "in the shadow of the war," he prefers it because "it was a free country"—thereby suggesting that it's not so free anymore. Despite the much more generally upbeat tone of Yes , the same spectres that haunted the previous studio album Fundamental continue to exert their dark influence. On the other hand, with Chris on hand to utter a deflating "Who d'you think you are, Captain Britain?" in response to Neil's pontifications, even these dusky tones are ultimately cast in a considerably lighter shade. In case you're not aware, "Captain Britain" is Marvel Comics' U.K. "analog" to Captain America. It's an especially intriguing reference considering that, pre-PSB, Neil worked as the London editor of Marvel Comics from 1975–77, during which he supervised the launch of Captain Britain in the U.K.

(although Marvel didn't accept his critique of how the concept and scripts were "too American" to resonate with a British audience). So Chris's seemingly snarky comment doubles as something of an inside joke. Annotations "Back then on a bomb-site we were spies among the ruins…. On TV we saw cold war" - The song is replete with references to memories from Neil's childhood. Even into the late 1950s and early 1960s there were parts of Britain where the effects of German air raids during the Second World War were still visibly apparent. One of my site visitors has astutely observed that that aforementioned references to the aftermath of World War II, including the Cold War, as well as the opening lines referring to defection, strongly suggest that Neil may have had the Berlin Wall in mind as partial inspiration for the song, or at least for much of its imagery. Neil has, in fact, confirmed this (see the discussion of Hadrian's Wall below). The Berlin Wall—called officially by the Russians and East Germans the "Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart"—was implemented in 1961 to divide East and West Berlin.

It was ultimately torn down in 1989 with the collapse of Soviet communism and the subsequent reunification of Germany. The Man from U.N.C.L.E. – The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was a successful 1960s American television show that obviously gained some popularity in Britain as well. Like others of its "spy genre," it hinged greatly on the Cold War, mentioned earlier in the song. "Caesar conquered Gaul" – The ancient Roman general Julius Caesar conquered Gaul (modern-day France) in the 50s BCE. "Scouting for centurions on a Roman wall" – A reference to Hadrian's Wall (commonly also referred to simply as the "Roman Wall" in Britain), built by the Romans under the Emperor Hadrian primarily during the years CE 122–128 to protect Roman-occupied Britain from the "barbarian tribes" of the far north of the island.

Neil has described this line as part of the song's "schoolboy reminiscence": "Growing up in the North East of England, I frequently visited and walked along Hadrian's Wall—still do!" He has also noted that he mainly had two walls in mind in writing the song: Hadrian's Wall and the Berlin Wall—the first "to keep out the Picts and Scots" and the second "to keep in the East German population." "Sand in the sandwiches, wasps in the tea" – The twentieth-century British poet (and poet laureate) John Betjeman's poem "Trebetherick" includes this exact same line, raising the spectre of a direct connection. Neil, however, has suggested that this apparent allusion is more or less coincidental, describing it as one of those "typical experiences of a British picnic which Betjeman will have experienced, too." While it's quite possible Neil may have been unconsciously influenced by the Betjeman poem, it's also possible that the poem and the song simply draw upon the same common British expression.

While we're on the subject of literature, there are also perhaps unconscious echoes in this song of the famous 1914 poem "Mending Wall" by American poet Robert Frost. In particular, that poem's narrator desire to know "What I was walling in or walling out" is somewhat paralleled by the song's assertion that its narrator's wall is "Not so much to keep you out—more to keep me in." And, as one of my site visitors has pointed out, the Frost poem's repeated (and rather critical) evocation of the proverb "Good fences make good neighbors" suggests a possible added dimension to the political implications of the PSB song. That is, perhaps the "protection" and "prevention" that Britain's figurative walls offer help make it a "good neighbor" to other countries—and, of course, vice-versa. "Who d'you think you are? Captain Britain?" - As noted above, Captain Britain is essentially the U.K. answer to the Marvel Comics superhero Captain America, and a character whom Neil launched during his brief tenure as editor with Marvel.

"More work for the undertaker means there's less for me" – Inspired by the title of the 1948 novel More Work for the Undertaker by British author Margery Allingham. Mixes Genetologic Research » Blog Archive » Preservation of the Berlin Wall Preservation of the Berlin Wall Maarten Vanden Eynde Preservation of the Berlin Wall, 2007 The Berlin Wall, known in the Soviet Union and in the German Democratic Republic as the “Anti-Fascist Protective Rampart,” was a separation barrier between West Berlin and East Germany, which closed the border between East and West Berlin for 28 years. Construction on the Berlin Wall began on August 13, 1961, and it was dismantled in the weeks following November 9, 1989. The Wall was over 155 km (96 miles) long. A no man’s land was created between the barriers, which became widely known as the “death strip”.

It was paved with raked gravel, making it easy to spot footprints left by escapees; it offered no cover; it was booby-trapped with tripwires; and, most importantly, it offered a clear field of fire to the watching guards. Over the years, the Wall went through four distinct phases: 1. Basic wire fence (1961) 2. Improved wire fence (1962-1965) 3. Concrete wall (1965-1975) 4. Grenzmauer 75 (Border Wall 75) (1975-1989) The “fourth generation wall”, known officially as “Stützwandelement UL 12.11″(Retaining wall element UL 12.11), was the final and most sophisticated version of the Wall. Begun in 1975 and completed about 1980, it was constructed from 45,000 separate sections of reinforced concrete, each 3.6 m high and 1.2 m wide, and cost 16,155,000 East German Marks.

The top of the wall was lined with a smooth pipe, intended to make it more difficult for escapers to scale it. It was reinforced by mesh fencing, signal fencing, anti-vehicle trenches, barbed wire, over 116 watchtowers, and twenty bunkers. This version of the Wall is the one most commonly seen in photographs, and surviving fragments of Wall in Berlin and elsewhere around the world are generally pieces of the fourth-generation Wall. Maarten Vanden Eynde, Berlin Wall, 2006 ‘For the exhibition Turn to Stone in the Museo Mineralogico Campano I send a postcard to the museum containing a small plastic box with a piece of the Berlin Wall. I donated the work to the director with the specific question to preserve the Berlin Wall by adopting the piece in the permanent collection. He agreed and from now on the postcard stands in the display surrounded by other mineral stones. The small stone contains the story of the whole wall and preserves an important part of human history. It represents World War II, the cold war, communisms and all the personal stories that are connected to the Berlin Wall.

It’s a memory of the past for the future.’ This entry was posted on zondag, mei 20th, 2007 at 17:38 and is filed under Archaeology , Petrology , Visual Arts . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. 4 Responses to “Preservation of the Berlin Wall” Jo Berlin Wall "The clash of ideas is the sound of freedom." ~ Lady Bird Johnson On August 13th, 1961, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) began the construction of a massive wall to separate themselves from the rest of Germany, creating east and west territories. The Wall was officially known as the "Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart", though really the purpose of the structure was to keep East German citizens from defecting to the West. The Wall stood until November 9th, 1989. When the government announced that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany, thousands of East Germans massed at the Wall.

Many climbed the wall to join West Berliners in celebration till eventually sledgehammers were used to knock holes in the wall. Less than a year later, Germany was reunified. The mini museum sample was personally collected by Hans during a trip to the former East Germany. It represents not only oppression, but the strength of the human spirit to endure against all odds and emerge triumphant. Letter from Germany: A Trip to East Berlin | Stratfor Letter from Germany: A Trip to East Berlin Print Text Size Editor's Note: This Field Note was written on the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Nov. 9, 2014. Berlin is a vibrant city. I can say that based on recent experience. My first encounter with it, however, gave a somewhat different impression. Being of a fairly tender age at the time, all I recall now is the color palette: gray. Bleached skies overhead, drab concrete all around. It was the Cold War, after all, and joie de vivre was in short supply along the inner German border — the physical manifestation of the Iron Curtain, separating East and West Germany.

Although this demarcation line between the communist Eastern Bloc and the Western democratic collective was most elaborate in scale and reach, it's the separate Berlin Wall that so vigorously captures the imagination to this day. The Infamous Checkpoint Charlie crossing point between East and West Berlin, May 1966. (John Waterman/Fox Photos/Getty Images) When the inner German border officially closed in 1952, Berlin became the primary jump-off point for East Germans fleeing to the West, often taking valuable skills and knowledge with them. This exodus was possible because the Allied Control Council — the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and France — shared administrative duties in Berlin, creating an ambiguous portal for exfiltration from the communist East. Although the German Democratic Republic made it difficult for emigrants and defectors to leave East Germany, it wasn't impossible. The border in Berlin wasn't fully closed until midnight on Aug. 12, 1961. Construction of the "anti-fascist protective rampart" — the Berlin Wall — began soon after, encircling the perceived capitalist enclave of West Berlin.

Cold War Kids The strategic and operational calculus of the Cold War resulted in a stalemate, prompting NATO and Warsaw Pact countries to place around 1 million military personnel in close proximity to the Iron Curtain. My father was one of those million. Our family lived in West Germany from 1979 to 1982 in a small town called Goch, 12 kilometers (7 miles) from the border with the Netherlands. We lived alongside the German population, who mostly ignored us, seeing the British, French and Americans as part of an occupying force. My father was in the Royal Air Force, a navigator on Buccaneer S.2B low-level strike aircraft. His squadron (No. 16 Squadron) was assigned to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe in support of forces opposing the Warsaw Pact. The squadron emblem — cross keys, one gold, one black, representing the unlocking of an enemy's secrets by day and night — is indicative of its role. As well as low-level surveillance missions along the border with East Germany, the squadron deployed with 18 WE.177 tactical nuclear bombs. A Hawker Siddeley Buccaneer S.2B of No.

12 Squadron, Royal Air Force, performing a touch and go landing at the Naval Air Weapons Center at China Lake, California, Sept. 16, 1981. (D. Cornelius/Wikimedia) The military families were largely insulated from the alternating tensions of the Cold War, though there was at least one occasion when we were told it might be necessary to evacuate within 48 hours. When the prospect of high intensity conflict across the European theater wasn't on the agenda, however, we were allowed to travel to Berlin. So my family went once. I'll defer here to the recollections of my mother, who remembers the trip better than I do. "Our trip to Berlin was very insightful. The only way to West Berlin was either to fly in or drive through the inner border with East Germany. Your dad decided to drive. After sorting out the various permits and paperwork we drove down a specified road through East Germany. We were not allowed to stop and our duration of travel was timed. The road was quite quiet but there were no barriers or hedges, so we drove along, watching people working in the fields either side of us…quite surreal.

We entered West Berlin through the Russian guard posts, where our permits were checked, car searched, and so on. Only then we were allowed into West Berlin. "Our visit to East Berlin was memorable. We arrived in our car at Checkpoint Charlie (the only place allied troops could cross over). It was all rather chaotic with many vehicles vying for space, overseen by watchtowers and one small guard hut. Your dad had to wear RAF No. 1 dress uniform to enter East Berlin. We wondered how long we would need to queue when a guard noticed your dad and we got pulled to the front of the queue and through the barrier and into East Berlin. The contrast to the West was striking. There were hardly any people walking around. Almost no cars on the streets, certainly none like our VW cabriolet. We drove around, stopping to look at various sites. You dad was convinced we were followed everywhere. We were only allowed into certain shops, and not many at that. The shops mainly sold gifts; chessboards with hand carved pieces, Russian dolls, that sort of thing.

People weren't generally talkative, but someone said that most of the 'gifts' were made by Russian prisoners in the gulags." We spent as much time as we dared and returned back through Checkpoint Charlie, where we stopped to look in a nearby museum dedicated to the various escape attempts over the years. As a young child I was fascinated by the often elaborate schemes to circumvent the defenses, some successful, some not. The notion of escaping by hot air balloon, something that happened the year we arrived in Germany, gripped me in particular. It seems fitting that on the 25th anniversary of the fall of the wall, 8,000 glowing balloons mark the path the "anti-fascist rampart" took through Berlin. Walls are important historic signifiers, and it is important to remember where they stood, and what they stood for, even if they have long since been reduced to rubble.

Question: Which construction was officially titled the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart?
Answer: Berlin Wall