Remembering The Berlin Wall

The Berlin Wall was erected in the night of 13 August 1961, three months after we'd moved to Japan. It was a Sunday and most Berliners slept while the East German government began closing the border between East and West Berlin. The East German troups tore up streets and installed barbed wire and fences through Berlin. Concrete blocks came first and within months a wall of concrete 12 feet high and 103 miles long was finished. For 28 years, East Germans tried to escape to West Berlin. In the summer of 1989, Hungary allowed East Germans to travel through their country on their way to Austria and West Germany. On 9 November 1989 news spread that there would no longer be restrictions on travel in either direction. Citizens on both sides of Germany began to demolish the wall. The government did not interfere. In 1990 East Germany reunited with West Germany as one nation, the Federal Republic of Germany

Though I've done a lot of traveling in my lifetime, I've never made it to Germany so I have no direct connection with anything dealing with The Berlin Wall. I do, however, have memories of it growing up and would just like to share one or two.

I remember the day The Berlin Wall came down. I was at home with my daycare children when the breaking news came on over the television. I remember calling everyone that I could get in touch with and letting them know the news just in case they'd not heard. It was wonderful watching slabs of the wall fall by the wayside and the joy that was in the faces of the people.

On a business trip to Washington, D.C., Tricia Hock, a friend of mine, and I went to visit one of the Smithsonian museums and there in a room was displayed a very large slab of what used to be The Berlin Wall (see picture). I remember being overcome with the feelings of so many people who had died trying to scale The Wall for a taste of freedom and to be with family and friends. Who knows what people may have crossed at that particular section? I remember calling Mom and Dad and trying to share with them what it felt like to be standing in front of this piece of history I'd just touched.

During the Wall's existence there were around 5,000 successful escapes to West Berlin. The number of people who died trying to cross the wall or as a result of the wall's existence has been disputed. The most vocal claims by Alexandra Hildebrandt, Director of the Checkpoint Charlie Museum and widow of the Museum's founder, estimated the death toll to be well above 200, while an ongoing historic research group at the Center for Contemporary Historical Research in Potsdam has confirmed 136 deaths. Prior official figures listed 98 as being killed.

The East German government issued shooting orders to border guards dealing with defectors, though such orders are not the same as shoot to kill orders which GDR officials denied ever issuing. Guards were told by East German authorities in an October 1973 order later discovered by researchers that people attempting to cross the wall were criminals and needed to be shot: "Do not hesitate to use your firearm, not even when the border is breached in the company of women and children, which is a tactic the traitors have often used".

Early successful escapes involved people jumping the initial barbed wire or leaping out of apartment windows along the line but these ended as the wall was fortified. To solve these simple escape attempts, East German authorities no longer permitted apartments near the wall to be occupied and any building near the wall had its windows boarded and later bricked up. On August 15, 1961, Conrad Schumann was the first East German border guard to escape by jumping the barbed wire to West Berlin.

Later successful escape attempts included long tunnels, waiting for favorable winds and taking a hot air balloon, sliding along aerial wires, flying ultralights, and in one instance, simply driving a sports car at full speed through the basic, initial fortifications. When a metal beam was placed at checkpoints to prevent this kind of escape, up to four people (two in the front seats and possibly two in the boot) drove under the bar in a sports car that had been modified to allow the roof and wind screen to come away when it made contact with the beam. They simply lay flat and kept driving forward. This issue was rectified with zig-zagging roads at checkpoints. The sewer system preceded the wall, and some people escaped through the sewers, in a number of cases with assistance from the Girmann student group.

An airborne escape was made by Thomas Krüger, who landed a light aircraft of the Gesellschaft für Sport und Technik, an East German youth military training organization, at RAF Gatow. His aircraft, registration DDR-WOH, was dismantled and returned to the East Germans by road, complete with humorous slogans painted on by RAF airmen such as "Wish you were here" and "Come back soon".

If an escapee was wounded in a crossing attempt and lay on the death strip, no matter how close they were to the Western wall, they could not be rescued for fear of triggering engaging fire from the 'Grepos', the East Berlin border guards. The guards often let fugitives bleed to death in the middle of this ground, as in the most notorious failed attempt, that of Peter Fechter (aged 18). He was shot and bled to death in full view of the Western media, on August 17, 1962. I do remember seeing this on the news and in the newspaper. Fechter's death created negative publicity worldwide that led the leaders of East Berlin to place more restrictions on shooting in public places, and provide medical care for possible “would-be escapers”. The last person to be shot while trying to cross the border was Chris Gueffroy on February 6, 1989.