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Reasons for the construction of the Berlin Wall. Partition of Berlin and the history of the Berlin Wall

Berlin, the capital of Germany, arose in the first half of the 13th century. Since 1486, the city has been the capital of Brandenburg (then Prussia), since 1871 - Germany. From May 1943 to May 1945, Berlin was subjected to one of the most devastating bombings in world history. At the final stage of the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945) in Europe Soviet troops May 2, 1945 completely captured the city. After the defeat of Nazi Germany, the territory of Berlin was divided into zones of occupation: the eastern one - the USSR and the three western ones - the USA, Great Britain and France. On June 24, 1948, Soviet troops began blockade of West Berlin.

In 1948, the Western powers authorized the heads of state governments in their zones of occupation to convene a parliamentary council to draw up a constitution and prepare for the creation of a West German state. Its first meeting was held in Bonn on 1 September 1948. The constitution was adopted by the council on 8 May 1949, and on 23 May the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) was proclaimed. In response, in the eastern part controlled by the USSR, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was proclaimed on October 7, 1949 and Berlin was declared its capital.

East Berlin covered an area of 403 square kilometers and was the largest city in East Germany in terms of population.
West Berlin covered an area of 480 square kilometers.

At first, the border between the western and eastern parts of Berlin was open. The dividing line, 44.8 kilometers long (the total length of the border of West Berlin with the GDR was 164 kilometers), ran straight through the streets and houses, the Spree River, and canals. Officially, there were 81 street checkpoints, 13 crossings in the subway and on the city railway.

In 1957, the West German government led by Konrad Adenauer enacted the Hallstein Doctrine, which provided for the automatic severance of diplomatic relations with any country that recognized the GDR.

In November 1958, the head of the Soviet government, Nikita Khrushchev, accused the Western powers of violating the Potsdam Accords of 1945 and announced the abolition of the international status of Berlin by the Soviet Union. The Soviet government proposed turning West Berlin into a "demilitarized free city" and demanded that the United States, Great Britain and France negotiate on this subject within six months ("Khrushchev's Ultimatum"). The Western powers rejected the ultimatum.

In August 1960, the government of the GDR put into effect restrictions on visits by citizens of the FRG to East Berlin. In response, West Germany abandoned the trade agreement between both parts of the country, which the GDR regarded as an "economic war".
After lengthy and difficult negotiations, the agreement was put into effect on January 1, 1961.

The situation worsened in the summer of 1961. The economic policy of the GDR, aimed at "catching up and overtaking the FRG", and the corresponding increase in production standards, economic difficulties, forced collectivization of 1957-1960, higher wages in West Berlin encouraged thousands of GDR citizens to leave for the West.

In 1949-1961, almost 2.7 million people left the GDR and East Berlin. Almost half of the refugee flow consisted of young people under the age of 25. Every day, about half a million people crossed the borders of the Berlin sectors in both directions, who could compare living conditions here and there. In 1960 alone, about 200,000 people moved to the West.

At a meeting of the general secretaries of the communist parties of the socialist countries on August 5, 1961, the GDR received the necessary consent from the Eastern European countries, and on August 7, at a meeting of the Politburo of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED - East German Communist Party), a decision was made to close the border of the GDR with West Berlin and the FRG. On August 12, a corresponding resolution was adopted by the Council of Ministers of the GDR.

In the early morning of August 13, 1961, temporary barriers were erected on the border with West Berlin, and a cobblestone pavement was dug up on the streets connecting East Berlin with West Berlin. The forces of the people's and transport police units, as well as combat workers' squads, interrupted all transport communication on the borders between the sectors. Under the strict guard of the GDR border guards, East Berlin builders set about replacing the barbed wire border fences with concrete slabs and hollow bricks. The complex of border fortifications also included residential buildings on Bernauer Strasse, where the sidewalks now belong to the West Berlin district of Wedding, and the houses on the south side of the street to the East Berlin district of Mitte. Then the government of the GDR ordered the doors of the houses and the windows of the lower floors to be walled up - residents could only get into their apartments through the entrance from the courtyard, which belonged to East Berlin. A wave of forced eviction of people from apartments began not only on Bernauer Strasse, but also in other border zones.

From 1961 to 1989, on many stretches of the border, the Berlin Wall was rebuilt several times. At first it was built of stone, and then was replaced by reinforced concrete. In 1975, the last reconstruction of the wall began. The wall was built from 45,000 concrete blocks measuring 3.6 by 1.5 meters, which were rounded at the top to make it difficult to escape. Outside the city, this front barrier also included metal bars.
By 1989, the total length of the Berlin Wall was 155 kilometers, the inner city border between East and West Berlin was 43 kilometers, the border between West Berlin and the GDR (outer ring) was 112 kilometers. Closest to West Berlin, the front concrete barrier wall reached a height of 3.6 meters. It encircled the entire western sector of Berlin.

The concrete fence stretched for 106 kilometers, the metal one for 66.5 kilometers, the earthen ditches had a length of 105.5 kilometers, and 127.5 kilometers were under tension. Near the wall, as on the border, a control and trail strip was made.

Despite tough measures against attempts to “illegally cross the border”, people continued to run “through the wall”, using sewer pipes, technical means, and building tunnels. During the years of the wall's existence, about 100 people died trying to overcome it.

The democratic changes that began in the late 1980s in the life of the GDR and other countries of the socialist community sealed the fate of the wall. On November 9, 1989, the new government of the GDR announced an unhindered transition from East to West Berlin and a free return back. About 2 million inhabitants of the GDR visited West Berlin during November 10-12. Immediately began the spontaneous dismantling of the wall. The official dismantling was carried out in January 1990, part of the wall was left as a historical monument.

On October 3, 1990, after the accession of the GDR to the FRG, the status of the federal capital in the united Germany passed from Bonn to Berlin. In 2000, the government moved from Bonn to Berlin.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources

The Berlin Wall (Berliner Mauer) is a complex of engineering structures that existed from August 13, 1961 to November 9, 1989 on the border of the eastern part of the territory of Berlin - the capital of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the western part of the city - West Berlin, which had , as a political unit, a special international status.

During this period, there is also a serious aggravation of the political situation around Berlin. At the end of 1958, the head of the USSR, Nikita Khrushchev, proposed making West Berlin a "free city" with a guarantee of its independence, which would mean the end of the occupation by the victors of World War II. If the NATO countries, Khrushchev warned, did not agree to conclude a peace treaty with both Germany, the USSR would conclude one only with the GDR. It will gain control over the routes of communication with West Berlin, and the Americans, British and French, in order to get into the city, will be forced to turn to the East German authorities, inevitably recognizing their existence. But the recognition of the GDR did not take place. Between 1958 and 1961 Berlin remained the hottest spot in the world.

In August 1960, the government of the GDR put into effect restrictions on visits by citizens of the FRG to East Berlin, citing the need to stop their "revanchist propaganda." In response, West Germany abandoned the trade agreement between both parts of the country, which the GDR regarded as an "economic war". After lengthy and difficult negotiations, the agreement was nevertheless put into effect on January 1, 1961. But the crisis was not resolved by this.

At a meeting of the Political Consultative Committee of the States Parties to the Warsaw Pact, held in Moscow in March 1961, the head of the GDR, Walter Ulbricht, expressed concern about the emigration of the population of the GDR through West Berlin and proposed to strengthen the border with barbed wire fences. But his offer was rejected.

Later, Walter Ulbricht still managed to convince the leaders of the socialist camp of the need to build a barrier between the Germans. At a meeting of the general secretaries of the communist parties of the socialist countries on August 5, 1961, the GDR received the necessary consent from the Eastern European countries, and on August 7, at a closed meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), the day for the construction of the wall was appointed, which became August 13.

The construction of the Berlin Wall began on August 13, 1961. In the early morning, temporary barriers were erected on the sector borders between East and West Berlin, and cobblestone pavement was dug up on the streets connecting East and West Berlin to make them impassable. The forces of the people's and transport police units, as well as the so-called "combat workers' squads" interrupted all communication on the borders between the sectors.

In the beginning, these were mainly barbed wire. The armed forces of the GDR unrolled barbed wire 46 km long. Barbed wire blocked 193 streets, 8 tram tracks, 4 metro lines and some railway lines. In places close to the border, water and gas pipes were welded, electric and telephone cables were cut. The dividing line ran through squares, bridges, boulevards, cemeteries, ponds and parks.

By August 15, the entire western zone was surrounded by barbed wire. Then, slightly retreating into the interior of the territory, so as not to violate the Potsdam agreements, they began to build the Wall itself from special blocks, which was built by soldiers and construction workers under the protection of the border guards of the GDR. At the same time, the walls of the facades of residential buildings became part of the border fortifications. In them, the front doors were sealed with stone and the windows of the lower floors were walled up. In mid-September 1961, the length of the barrier wall was 3 km. In the future, the installation of barrier structures and the improvement of the system of checks at the border were continued.

Construction and refurbishment of the wall continued from 1962 to 1975.

On June 19, 1962, the construction of the parallel wall began. Another wall was added to the existing wall, 90 meters behind the first, all the buildings between the walls were demolished, the gap was turned into a control trail.

The world-famous term "Berlin Wall" meant the front, closest to West Berlin, barrier wall.

In 1965, the construction of the wall of concrete slabs began, and in 1975, the last reconstruction of the wall began. The wall was built from 45,000 concrete blocks measuring 3.6 by 1.5 meters, rounded at the top to make it difficult to escape.
Outside the city, this front barrier also included metal bars.

There were eight border crossings, or checkpoints between East and West Berlin, where West Germans and tourists could visit East Germany.

By 1989, the Berlin Wall was a complex set of engineering structures. The total length of the wall was 155 km, the inner city border between East and West Berlin was 43 km, the border between West Berlin and the GDR (outer ring) was 112 km. Closest to West Berlin, the front barrier wall reached a height of 3.60 meters. It encircled the entire western sector of Berlin. In the city itself, the Wall divided 97 streets, six metro lines and ten districts of the city.

The complex included 302 observation posts, 20 bunkers, 259 guard dogs and other border facilities.

The wall was constantly patrolled by special units subordinate to the GDR police. The border guards were armed with small arms, they had trained service dogs, modern tracking equipment, and signal systems at their disposal. In addition, the guards had the right to shoot to kill if the border violators did not stop after warning shots.

On the east side of the Berlin Wall adjoined a dead zone half a kilometer wide. On the western side, the wall has become a platform for the work of numerous artists, both professional and homegrown. By 1989, the Berlin Wall had become a multi-kilometer graffiti exhibition.

During the period from 1961 to 1988, over one hundred thousand people, citizens of the GDR, attempted to escape.

In 2006, the two-year investigations of the Potsdam Research Center were made public recent history according to the "list of dead at the wall." According to a spokesman for the center, "it was possible to reliably confirm the death when trying to cross the intra-Berlin border only in 125 cases out of the previously announced 268."

On November 9, 1989, the government of the GDR announced the preparation of new rules for traveling abroad, providing, in particular, the opportunity to stay in West Berlin without special permission, control was removed from border crossings. On the night of November 9-10, 1989, a massive border crossing began (more than 1.2 million people) and spontaneous dismantling of the Berlin Wall structures.

In total, the Berlin Wall stood for 20,315 days. The official dismantling was carried out in January 1990. Part of the Berlin Wall was left as a historical monument.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources

Berlin was the capital of the Third Reich during World War II. The country of Germany was divided by a wall into two parts of the “one mechanism”: East and West Germany. In the middle of the twentieth century, thousands of Germans from East Germany migrated to West Germany in search of new work. From the west, the Germans came to the east, and from East Germany they went to the west, since food prices were much lower there.

The existence of the barrier separating Germany in the form of a wall begins at the end of the Second World War. The country is literally divided by this wall into two parts - East and West, with the East part of Germany following communism, and the West following democracy.

The wall separating Berlin has become a symbol of the "iron obstacle" that existed between the two parts of Europe: Eastern and Western. An interesting precedent is that this Wall divided Germany into two parts for a whole 28 years and one more day.

At the beginning of its existence, the Wall consisted only of barbed wire, which prevented movement into the Western part of Germany, as well as crossing its borders. This Wall has caused great inconvenience and a lot of problems for family members, members who ended up on opposite sides of the Berlin Wall. Many Germans from the east of the country worked in the Western part. Many families no longer had the opportunity to see their relatives and friends.

Barbed wire was installed with the permission of the leader of the Soviet Union N. Khrushchev. To avoid resettlement in the Western part of Germany, the government of the Eastern part gave permission to the border troops to open fire to kill without any warning.

Construction of the Berlin Wall

Construction of the Berlin Wall began on August 15, 1961. Its length was 160 km. The area that separated the east and west sides of the Berlin Wall was known by the locals as the "death strip".

Over the years of its existence, this Wall has significantly changed its original appearance. At first it was just a barbed wire fence, then gradually turned into a concrete wall. After some time, observation towers, various recesses in the walls and other means were added to this structure in order to fill the minds of citizens with fear.

In 1975, in the third generation, the Wall was replaced by the next - the fourth. This option was very high, with smooth pipes installed on its top. The wall at that time (around West Berlin) had a length of more than 150 km, and the border between the two parts of Berlin reached more than 43 km. TO general note, the border between the two parts of Germany was 112 km long.

The height of the concrete part of the Wall was over 3 m, and the length was 106 km. There were also anti-vehicle trenches. Their length was more than 105 km. The Wall had over three hundred watchtowers and about twenty bunkers.

With the lifting of restrictions on crossing the borders with neighboring Austria, thirteen thousand residents from East Berlin managed to escape through the borders of Hungary to the Western part of Germany. We can assume that this fact has made very big changes in the history of the existence of the Berlin Wall. This happened on August 23, 1989.

Fall of the Berlin Wall

Huge masses of people from the Eastern part of Germany rebelled against the authorities that dominated at that time. They all gathered around this famous Wall. They picked up sledgehammers and other tools that could be useful for tearing the big Berlin Wall into small pieces.

(Berliner Mauer) - a complex of engineering and technical structures that existed from August 13, 1961 to November 9, 1989 on the border of the eastern part of the territory of Berlin - the capital of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the western part of the city - West Berlin, which had, as a political unit, special international status.

The Berlin Wall is one of the most famous symbols of the Cold War.

After World War II, Berlin was divided between the victorious powers (USSR, USA, France and Great Britain) into four occupation zones. The eastern zone, the largest, almost half the territory of the city, went to the USSR - as the country whose troops occupied Berlin.

Construction and refurbishment of the wall continued from 1962 to 1975. On June 19, 1962, the construction of the parallel wall began. Another wall was added to the existing wall, 90 meters behind the first, all the buildings between the walls were demolished, the gap was turned into a control and trail strip.

The world-famous term "Berlin Wall" meant the front, closest to West Berlin, barrier wall.

In 1965, the construction of a wall of concrete slabs began, and in 1975, the last reconstruction of the wall began. The wall was built from 45,000 concrete blocks measuring 3.6 by 1.5 meters, rounded at the top to make it difficult to escape.

The complex included 302 observation posts, 20 bunkers, 259 devices for guard dogs and other border structures.

The heavily guarded "no man's land" between the wall and West Berlin came to be called the "death strip".

There were eight border crossings, or checkpoints between East and West Berlin, where West Germans and tourists could visit East Germany.

On November 9 of the outgoing year, Berliners took to the streets of their city to mark the 25th anniversary of the unification of the two parts and the fall of the notorious Berlin Wall - the main symbol of the end, as it seemed then, of the Cold War.

SHOOTING ALL

The birth of this ugly monster, which stood for 28 years, was preceded by the Second Berlin Crisis. While the Soviet Union actually transferred its sector of the occupation of Berlin to the GDR, its western part remained under the rule of the occupying forces, and. In this regard, the USSR demanded the transformation of West Berlin into a demilitarized free city. It was not possible to reach an agreement with the former allies, and the German question continued to be a stumbling block in relations between the USSR and Western countries. During this period, it was reduced mainly to the problem of the status of West Berlin. In February 1958, Khrushchev proposed to convene a conference of the four great powers and reconsider the status of this city. During his visit to the United States in September 1959, he reached an agreement with Eisenhower to convene such a conference in Paris the following May.

However, the conference did not take place - it was torpedoed by the flight of a spy plane. On May 1, 1960, an American 11-2 reconnaissance aircraft, making another spy flight over the Urals, was shot down by a Soviet missile, and the surviving pilot, Powers, was captured and convicted. A huge scandal followed, as a result of which the visit to the Eisenhower Union and the Paris Conference were cancelled.

Meanwhile, the situation in Berlin escalated to the limit. In the summer of 1961, the American and Soviet tanks that drove onto the streets of the city almost rested their foreheads on each other. On August 12, 1961, free movement in Berlin from east to west, in violation of the Potsdam Agreement, was prohibited. In the early Sunday morning of August 13, the GDR authorities began the process of separating East Berlin from West Berlin, using barbed wire and anti-tank hedgehogs. A few days later, teams of construction workers, guarded by machine gunners, began to replace the temporary barriers with a foundation wall.

By August 22, the inhabitants of East Berlin finally lost the opportunity to visit the West. On the same day, the first victim appeared near the wall: Ida Zikman crashed while trying to jump over it from the window of her apartment. Then he was shot while trying to move from the eastern sector to the western resident of East Berlin, Günter Liftin, who worked in the western part of the city. He planned his move there on the same day that the GDR authorities closed the border. On September 20, the evacuation of buildings located directly at the border began. In August 1962, Peter Fechter was shot dead while trying to cross the Berlin Wall. An 18-year-old boy was left to bleed out in front of many witnesses. The exact number of those who died while trying to overcome the wall separating the two worlds is unknown: it is believed that the victims were from 136 to 245. The unspoken order to shoot the fugitives from the GDR was given back in 1960, and it was legalized only in October 1974. After the unification of Germany, orders were found in the archives of the security service of the GDR (Stasi) ordering to shoot to kill all fugitives, including women and children. The last victim of the wall was 20-year-old Berliner Chris Gefray, who was shot dead on the night of February 6, 1989. Only 9 months he did not live to see freedom and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

DEATH STRIP

The length of the border between West Berlin and the GDR was 168 km, 45 of which passed inside the city. The border fortifications around West Berlin, 3 to 4 meters high, stretched for 156 km, 112 of them were a concrete or stone wall, the rest was a fence of metal bars. The giant structure also included 186 observation towers, 31 command posts, communication and signaling lines. Service at the Berlin Wall was carried by five hundred watchdogs. On the east side, in front of the wall, there was a strip illuminated by searchlights, called the "death strip". Fugitives caught in the spotlight were shot without warning.

The border cut 192 streets, 97 of which led from West to East Berlin, the rest - into the territory of the GDR. The wall literally cemented the division of the Germans into two Germanys for decades to come. In addition to the mass of practical inconveniences that the wall brought to Berliners (severance of business and family ties, etc.), it exerted a certain oppressive pressure on people. The author of this material happened to visit divided Berlin in the 1960s and feel it. A gloomy gray wall ran along the axis of the street along the dark facades of empty houses, looking at it with blind, tightly bricked windows. Periodically, patrols circulated - open jeeps with machine gunners in helmets of the characteristic German "cut", familiar to us from war films. All this smacked of something sinister.

DEFEATED MONSTER

So who was the initiator of the creation of this structure and the culprit of the tragedies associated with it? Here is what the director of the German Center for the Study of Contemporary History Martin Zabrov says about this: “For historians, there cannot be one reason, just as there cannot be one fault ... you can lay responsibility on certain people and on the system itself. In the end, the division of Germany is a consequence of the Second World War and the struggle of two political forces, the confrontation of which led to the outflow of the population from east to west. Of course, specific individuals also influenced the situation. First of all, the leader of East Germany, Walter Ulbricht, who was much more interested than Khrushchev in stopping the outflow of people. Khrushchev, on the other hand, believed in utopia, believing that socialism would triumph in Berlin without any walls or borders. Ulbricht understood that the situation was getting worse every day, and considered the Berlin Wall a necessary measure to save the GDR. There are different points of view about the role of the Soviet Union - by and large, both sides are responsible for this, but still it was Ulbricht who initiated it.

But time does not stand still. As the Ecclesiastes teaches, "there is a time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones." Documents have been preserved that back in 1987, Gorbachev and Shevardnadze discussed the possibility of demolishing the Berlin Wall and uniting the two Germanys - the FRG and the GDR. The West encouraged them to do this.

In May 1989, under the influence of perestroika in the Soviet Union, the GDR's Warsaw Pact partner destroyed the fortifications on the border with Austria. The leadership of the GDR was not going to follow her example, but soon they lost control of the rapidly unfolding events. Thousands of citizens of the GDR fled to other Eastern European countries in the hope of getting from there to West Germany. Hundreds of East Germans fled west through Hungary. When, in September 1989, Hungary announced the full opening of its borders, the Berlin Wall lost its meaning: within three days of the GDR, 15,000 citizens left through the territory of Hungary. Rallies and demonstrations began in the country. As a result of mass protests, the party leadership of the GDR resigned. On November 4, a mass rally was held in Berlin demanding respect for freedom of speech and assembly. On November 9, 1989, speaking on television, a member of the government of the GDR, Günter Schabowski, announced new rules for entering and leaving the country, according to which citizens of the GDR could now visit West Berlin and the FRG. Hundreds of thousands of East Germans, without waiting for the time appointed by this decision, rushed to the border on the evening of November 9th. The border guards, who did not receive orders, at first, using water cannons, tried to push back the crowd, but then, yielding to the mass pressure, they opened the border. Thousands of residents of West Berlin came out to meet guests from the east. The event was reminiscent of a folk festival. Then the demolition of the wall began, at first spontaneously, and then in an organized manner with the help of heavy equipment. Small fragments of the defeated monster were taken away by people for souvenirs. Separate fragments of the Berlin Wall, richly decorated with graffiti, were left as a monument to the gloomy past and became a tourist attraction. Particularly popular is the area with the painting “ Hot kiss between Brezhnev and Honecker».

However, the end of the GDR for many of its inhabitants meant not only gaining freedom. Many did not know what to do with it, many still experience seizures to this day. ostalgia”, as they call the longing for the bygone socialist past of East (Ost) Germany, or maybe just for the times of their youth. Romantics got freedom, practitioners got the capitalist world of opportunities, pessimists got fears for the future. According to sociologists, from 10 to 15% of former East Germans want a return to the past, and only every second inhabitant of a united Germany is able today to remember the start date for the construction of the Berlin Wall. However, it is much more important that the people remember when, why and thanks to whom it fell.