Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Construction of Berlin Wall

Following World War II, the eastern portion of Germany was ceded to Russian for its contributions of winning the war for the Allies.

The former Germany became two Germanies : East and West, Communist and democratic.

When East Germany shut its border with West Germany in 1952, it also cleared an area 3 miles wide along the 860 mile border.

In this area, the East Germans strung barbed wire fences and buried land mines. Barbed wire fenced p to six feet high were put during the night and Berliners woke up in the morning to find themselves living in a divided city.

On August 13, 1961 at 1.11 am the East German government closed the border between East and West Berlin, halting cars and trams in their tracks.

The construction of the Berlin Wall marked a new phase in the division of Germany and Berlin.

The day the Wall’s construction began became known as Barbed Wire Sunday. As reported by Agence France-Presse:

Overnight on August 12, tens of thousands of guards, soldiers and police hastily erected checkpoints and barbed wire, imprisoning their own people and cementing – literally - the Cold War division of Europe.

Over the next thirty years, minefield, automatic machine guns and other additional made the Berlin Wall impassible.

When this wall came down, on 10 November 1989 it fall marked a new era in Germany and world history.
Construction of Berlin Wall

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