The Berlin Wall -- Part One

The Berlin Wall divided East and West Berlin, was built in August of 1961 and stretched for over a hundred miles.

"Just past midnight on the night of August 12-13, 1961, trucks with soldiers and construction workers rumbled through East Berlin. While most Berliners were sleeping, these crews began tearing up streets that entered into West Berlin, dug holes to put up concrete posts, and strung barbed wire all across the border between East and West Berlin.

Berliners were shocked when they woke up that morning. What had once been a very fluid border was now rigid. No longer could East Berliners cross the border for operas, plays, or soccer games. No longer could the approximately 60,000 commuters head to West Berlin for well-paying jobs. No longer could families, friends and lovers cross the border to meet their loved ones. Whichever side of the border one went to sleep on during the night of August 12, they were stuck on that side for decades."

[Taken from About.com]

This is what the wall looked like in 1961.

And in the 1970's

The wall was built three times, each time bigger and stronger. It essentially trapped people in their own country.

The fall of the Berlin Wall happened on November 9, 1989.

"People were in shock. Were the borders really open? East Germans tentatively approached the border and indeed found that the border guards were letting people cross. Very quickly, the Berlin Wall was inundated with people from both sides. Some began chipping at the Berlin Wall with hammers and chisels. There was an impromptu huge celebration along the Berlin Wall, with people hugging, kissing, singing, cheering, and crying.

The Berlin Wall was eventually chipped away into smaller pieces, some the size of a coin and others in big slabs (This is true. On some of the postcards we saw in Berlin there were small parts of the wall attached)."

Only a few parts of the wall are still standing in the city and Rose and I went to the wall north of the River Spree.

This is the Commemorative Cross of the Sophien Parish. The sign by it reads "Approximately a thousand graves had to be moved when the border strip was developed. It is, however, possible that the graves of World War II bomb victims were not exhumed and that the border grounds were built over the graves. This cross commemorates them."