Post by yenilira on Apr 5, 2011 15:45:22 GMT 1
...colloquially known as ‘The Berlin Wall’...........
After World War II the city of Berlin was partitioned into four sectors analogous to the occupation zones in which Germany was divided. The American, British and French sector were part of the western system while the Soviet sector was part of the communist system in the East.
Until the erection of the Berlin Wall on August 13, 1961, Berlin citizen were allowed to cross the border sectors from West to East or East to West Berlin.
It has been suggested that Khrushchev was the initiator of the construction of the wall, but it was Walter Ulbricht (First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party and GDR State Council Chairman) who signed the order to close the border and erect a ‘Mauer’, initially barbed wire entanglements and fences along the 156 kilometres (97 miles) around the three western sectors, and the 43 kilometres (27 miles) that divided West and East Berlin.
Streets were torn up and paving stones used as barriers, and transport services between East and West were halted.
With the closing of the East-West sector boundary in Berlin, the vast majority of East Germans could no longer travel or emigrate to West Germany. Many families were split, while East Berliners employed in the West were cut off from their jobs.
West Berlin became an isolated enclave in a hostile land.
Heavily fortified with guard towers every half a mile and with cultivated areas which would show every footprint, it was also mined and booby trapped, and patrolled by the 'Grepos' and their guard dogs.
In spite of it being a formidable barrier, there were many who attempted to traverse it to the West, notably Conrad Schumann who was the first East German border guard to escape by jumping the barbed wire to West Berlin. On 22 August 1961 Ida Siekmann was the first casualty at the Berlin Wall: she died after she jumped out of her third floor apartment at 48 Bernauer Strasse. East German authorities then no longer permitted apartments near the wall to be occupied, and any building near the wall had its windows boarded and later bricked up.
The East Berlin border guards often let fugitives bleed to death in the ‘Death Strips’, 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, which incident prompted J.F.Kennedy to visit Berlin and make his famous “ich bin Berliner” speech.
In all, there were over 5,000 successful escapes, including an airborne escape made by Thomas Krüger, who landed a Zlin Z 42M light aircraft of the Gesellschaft für Sport und Technik, an East German youth military training organization, at RAF Gatow, although 200 persons lost their lives in attempts.
There were nine border crossings between East and West Berlin, which allowed visits by West Berliners, West Germans, Western foreigners and Allied personnel into East Berlin, as well as visits by GDR citizens and citizens of other socialist countries into West Berlin, provided that they held the necessary permits. Those crossings were restricted according to which nationality was allowed to use it (East Germans, West Germans, West Berliners, other countries).
The most famous was the vehicle and pedestrian checkpoint at the corner of Friedrichstraße and Zimmerstraße, known as Checkpoint Charlie, which was restricted to Allied personnel and foreigners, and the scene in many ‘spy’ books and films, ‘the stand-off between American and Soviet armour in October 1961, and personnel ‘exchanges’.
Today, all that remains here is a solitary GDR checkpoint watchtower, in a lorry park, (at the last time of visiting, but was torn down in 2000), a few white lines on the pavements, or a double line of cobblestones, to indicate the actual line of the wall, a replica of the iconic checkpoint booth and signpost in four languages stating “You are leaving the American Sector”, and of course, the ‘Checkpoint Charlie Museum’, with various exhibits, including those used to escape over, through, and under, the Wall.
The original booth has now been ‘airlifted’ to the AlliiertenMuseum.
Turning left into Zimmerstraße and following it to Niederkirchnerstraße (formerly Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse),
there is an Exhibition Platform – the ’Topography of Terror’ –and another remnant of ‘Der Mauer’ – on the sites of the former Gestapo Headquarters and the Reich Security Main Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt or RSHA). In effect, the government of the National Socialist SS and Police State.
This ‘Topography of Terror’ outdoor Museum is now housed within the new documentation center which was opened in May 2010.
farm1.static.flickr.com/223/501175120_a8484bb3aa_b.jpg
Apparently, the best complete section of the wall lies to the north-east, on Bernauer Strasse between Ackerstrasse and Bergstrasse, in Mitte. It is actually two walls, facing one another, with the aptly-named ’Death Strip’ between them.
When my wife and I stopped off in Berlin whilst on a round-Europe rail trip a few years back, we used our Inter-Rail tickets on the S-Bahn (and U-Bahn) to visit the the more well-known, 1,800-metre ’East Side Gallery’ section of the wall, on Mühlenstraße, which ran alongside the River Spree, in the then-run down area between Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain.
The iconic art-work mural, the ’Kiss of Death’, or ’Brotherly Kiss’ between Brezhnev and Honecker is being repainted, as is many others, and in the link you can see just how high the wall actually is.
www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-41037.html
Berlin Ostbahnhof (translates from German as Berlin East railway station) is a mainline railway station and the station for the East Side Gallery. It is in Friedrichshain, now part of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district, and has undergone several name changes in its history. It was known as Berlin Hauptbahnhof from 1987 to 1998, a name now applied to Berlin's new central station. Alongside Berlin Zoologischer Garten it was one of the city's two main stations; however, it has declined in significance since the opening of the new Hauptbahnhof on 26 May 2006, and many mainline trains have been re-routed through the new Tiergarten tunnels, bypassing Ostbahnhof.
Our maps then showed the old name of the station....
Looking at ’Street View’, the souvenir stalls where we had a coffee and got our passports stamped ’GDR’ official-like, (2DM), have apparently now gone but the pub at the rail bridge is still there. There was also a kiosk where you could buy a piece of the wall – I had previously hacked off a bit myself further up the road and still have it. I am now a ‘Wall Woodpecker.’
From there, we crossed the Spree by the Am Oberbaum, and thru the predominantly-Turkish district of Kreuzberg, one of Berlin’s ‘problem areas’, to Checkpoint Charlie. We walked unhindered - it could have been due to the ‘Alanya’ tee-shirt I was wearing at the time, ending up at the Brandenburger Tor and the Reichstag.
The wall at the Brandenburger Tor
www.life.com/gallery/36002/image/3360992#index/6
which is now marked by a double row of cobblestones.
...and the Reichstag
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Mauer_hinter_Reichstag.jpg
A favourite ‘photo-stop’ for tourists was the piece of wall in Potsdamer Platz, which marks where the first gap opened in 1985. There is also an observation tower – BT11 – near the Bundesrat, in 10117 Berlin.
The Wall as it is today:
www.berlin.de/mauer/verlauf/index/index.en.php
Remains of the Wall:
www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,3547883,00.html
Back in the seventies I passed up the opportunity to be posted to Berlin – I now wish I had gone, if only to compare the Wall and the city itself then with what I saw in 1998.
YL.
After World War II the city of Berlin was partitioned into four sectors analogous to the occupation zones in which Germany was divided. The American, British and French sector were part of the western system while the Soviet sector was part of the communist system in the East.
Until the erection of the Berlin Wall on August 13, 1961, Berlin citizen were allowed to cross the border sectors from West to East or East to West Berlin.
It has been suggested that Khrushchev was the initiator of the construction of the wall, but it was Walter Ulbricht (First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party and GDR State Council Chairman) who signed the order to close the border and erect a ‘Mauer’, initially barbed wire entanglements and fences along the 156 kilometres (97 miles) around the three western sectors, and the 43 kilometres (27 miles) that divided West and East Berlin.
Streets were torn up and paving stones used as barriers, and transport services between East and West were halted.
With the closing of the East-West sector boundary in Berlin, the vast majority of East Germans could no longer travel or emigrate to West Germany. Many families were split, while East Berliners employed in the West were cut off from their jobs.
West Berlin became an isolated enclave in a hostile land.
Heavily fortified with guard towers every half a mile and with cultivated areas which would show every footprint, it was also mined and booby trapped, and patrolled by the 'Grepos' and their guard dogs.
In spite of it being a formidable barrier, there were many who attempted to traverse it to the West, notably Conrad Schumann who was the first East German border guard to escape by jumping the barbed wire to West Berlin. On 22 August 1961 Ida Siekmann was the first casualty at the Berlin Wall: she died after she jumped out of her third floor apartment at 48 Bernauer Strasse. East German authorities then no longer permitted apartments near the wall to be occupied, and any building near the wall had its windows boarded and later bricked up.
The East Berlin border guards often let fugitives bleed to death in the ‘Death Strips’, 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, which incident prompted J.F.Kennedy to visit Berlin and make his famous “ich bin Berliner” speech.
In all, there were over 5,000 successful escapes, including an airborne escape made by Thomas Krüger, who landed a Zlin Z 42M light aircraft of the Gesellschaft für Sport und Technik, an East German youth military training organization, at RAF Gatow, although 200 persons lost their lives in attempts.
There were nine border crossings between East and West Berlin, which allowed visits by West Berliners, West Germans, Western foreigners and Allied personnel into East Berlin, as well as visits by GDR citizens and citizens of other socialist countries into West Berlin, provided that they held the necessary permits. Those crossings were restricted according to which nationality was allowed to use it (East Germans, West Germans, West Berliners, other countries).
The most famous was the vehicle and pedestrian checkpoint at the corner of Friedrichstraße and Zimmerstraße, known as Checkpoint Charlie, which was restricted to Allied personnel and foreigners, and the scene in many ‘spy’ books and films, ‘the stand-off between American and Soviet armour in October 1961, and personnel ‘exchanges’.
Today, all that remains here is a solitary GDR checkpoint watchtower, in a lorry park, (at the last time of visiting, but was torn down in 2000), a few white lines on the pavements, or a double line of cobblestones, to indicate the actual line of the wall, a replica of the iconic checkpoint booth and signpost in four languages stating “You are leaving the American Sector”, and of course, the ‘Checkpoint Charlie Museum’, with various exhibits, including those used to escape over, through, and under, the Wall.
The original booth has now been ‘airlifted’ to the AlliiertenMuseum.
Turning left into Zimmerstraße and following it to Niederkirchnerstraße (formerly Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse),
there is an Exhibition Platform – the ’Topography of Terror’ –and another remnant of ‘Der Mauer’ – on the sites of the former Gestapo Headquarters and the Reich Security Main Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt or RSHA). In effect, the government of the National Socialist SS and Police State.
This ‘Topography of Terror’ outdoor Museum is now housed within the new documentation center which was opened in May 2010.
farm1.static.flickr.com/223/501175120_a8484bb3aa_b.jpg
Apparently, the best complete section of the wall lies to the north-east, on Bernauer Strasse between Ackerstrasse and Bergstrasse, in Mitte. It is actually two walls, facing one another, with the aptly-named ’Death Strip’ between them.
When my wife and I stopped off in Berlin whilst on a round-Europe rail trip a few years back, we used our Inter-Rail tickets on the S-Bahn (and U-Bahn) to visit the the more well-known, 1,800-metre ’East Side Gallery’ section of the wall, on Mühlenstraße, which ran alongside the River Spree, in the then-run down area between Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain.
The iconic art-work mural, the ’Kiss of Death’, or ’Brotherly Kiss’ between Brezhnev and Honecker is being repainted, as is many others, and in the link you can see just how high the wall actually is.
www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-41037.html
Berlin Ostbahnhof (translates from German as Berlin East railway station) is a mainline railway station and the station for the East Side Gallery. It is in Friedrichshain, now part of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district, and has undergone several name changes in its history. It was known as Berlin Hauptbahnhof from 1987 to 1998, a name now applied to Berlin's new central station. Alongside Berlin Zoologischer Garten it was one of the city's two main stations; however, it has declined in significance since the opening of the new Hauptbahnhof on 26 May 2006, and many mainline trains have been re-routed through the new Tiergarten tunnels, bypassing Ostbahnhof.
Our maps then showed the old name of the station....
Looking at ’Street View’, the souvenir stalls where we had a coffee and got our passports stamped ’GDR’ official-like, (2DM), have apparently now gone but the pub at the rail bridge is still there. There was also a kiosk where you could buy a piece of the wall – I had previously hacked off a bit myself further up the road and still have it. I am now a ‘Wall Woodpecker.’
From there, we crossed the Spree by the Am Oberbaum, and thru the predominantly-Turkish district of Kreuzberg, one of Berlin’s ‘problem areas’, to Checkpoint Charlie. We walked unhindered - it could have been due to the ‘Alanya’ tee-shirt I was wearing at the time, ending up at the Brandenburger Tor and the Reichstag.
The wall at the Brandenburger Tor
www.life.com/gallery/36002/image/3360992#index/6
which is now marked by a double row of cobblestones.
...and the Reichstag
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Mauer_hinter_Reichstag.jpg
A favourite ‘photo-stop’ for tourists was the piece of wall in Potsdamer Platz, which marks where the first gap opened in 1985. There is also an observation tower – BT11 – near the Bundesrat, in 10117 Berlin.
The Wall as it is today:
www.berlin.de/mauer/verlauf/index/index.en.php
Remains of the Wall:
www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,3547883,00.html
Back in the seventies I passed up the opportunity to be posted to Berlin – I now wish I had gone, if only to compare the Wall and the city itself then with what I saw in 1998.
YL.