Fall Of The Berlin Wall | A Kick Of History

 Hi everyone! Welcome to A Kick Of History! In today's post we will talk about a historic event that changed the world. This event was the Fall Of The Berlin Wall. All my info is from this site: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall Now, without further-ado, let get on with it!

The Berlin Wall was a concrete barrier that was heavily guarded. This barrier or wall, physically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. The construction of the wall was started by the German Democratic Republic on the day of August 13, 1961. This wall cut West Berlin off from the rest of East Germany, this included East Berlin. This huge barrier had guard towers placed along it and a wide area of land known as the "death strip." This area of land had anti-vehicle trenches, beds of nails, and much more. The Eastern Bloc shows the wall protecting the population from elements trying to prevent the building of a socialist state in East Germany. 

On the 15 of June, 1961, the First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party and German Democratic Republic Walter Ulbricht stated that "No one has the intention of erecting a wall!" This suggests that the want for the construction of the wall came from Khrushchev. Although, others say that Khrushchev was wary of building the wall. They feared the negative reaction of the Western side of Germany. Anyways, Ulbricht pushed  for the closure of the border for a very long time. He argued that the existence of East Germany was at stake. 

Khrushchev had become very emboldened after seeing the US President John F. Kennedy's youth and inexperience, which he thought of as a weakness. In the 1961 Vienna Summit, Kennedy made the mistake of saying that they US would not actively oppose the building of a wall. After this event Kennedy immediately admitted the feeling of miscalculation and failure. On the 12th of August 1961, the leaders of the German Democratic Republic went to a garden party and there, Ulbricht signed an order to close the border and make a wall. 

 

At midnight of that day, police, and the units of the East German Army began to close the border. By the morning of August 13, the border that was with West Berlin, was closed. The east German troops and worker started to tear the streets up running alongside the border. This made these streets impassable for most cars. They started to install barbed wire and fences along the 155 kilometers that was around the three western sectors. They also put this along the 43 kilometers that dived West and East Berlin. In Germany the day of August 13 is now referred to as Barbed Wire Sunday. 

Later the original barrier was built into the Wall all proper. The first concrete parts and large blocks were put in place on the 17 of August 1961. While the construction of the wall was still happening, the NVA and the Combat Groups of the Working Class stood in front of the wall. They had orders to shoot anyone who tried to defect. Also, chain fences, walls, minefields and much more were put in place. A huge piece of no man's land was made to give a clear line of fire at refugees if they try to flee. 

Their was a wave of refugees wanting to leave East Germany for the West and this number kept increasing. By the early November of 1989, refugees were finding their way to Hungary. They did this by going through Czechoslovakia. Or they did this via the West German Embassy, which was in Prague. This was tolerated by the government because of agreements with the Czechoslovakia government, this allowed free travel across their border. This huge amount of people grew so big it cause much difficulty to both countries though. To ease the difficulties, the governments decided that on November 9, they were going to allow refugees to go straight through the crossing places that were between East and West Germany. This also included East and West Berlin. Later that day, the administration for the ministry modified the plans to include private, round-trip, and travel abilities.

After hearing a broadcast about this, East Germans immediately began gathering together at the wall. They gathered at the six checkpoints that were between East and West Berlin. They demanded that the border guards open the gates immediately. The surprised guards made many phone calls to their superiors about this later on. At the beginning, they were told to find the “more aggressive” people and stamp their passports with a stamp that stopped them from returning to East Germany, therefore taking away their citizenship. Although, this still left many more people demanding to be let in because Guther Schabowski (party boss in East Berlin also spokesperson for Sed Poliburo) said they can. It was soon clear that no one in the East German authorities would take responsibility for making orders to use force that was lethal, so there was no way to hold back the huge crowd of people. At last, at 10:45 pm November 9, the commander of the Born honker Strabe border crossing yielded. This allowed guards to open the checkpoints and let people through with barely any identity check. As the Ossis came through, the Wessis greeted them. They waited with flowers and champagne with wild rejoice. A while after, a swarm of West Berliners jumped atop of the Wall and were joined by East German little ones. The evening of November 9, 1889 is now known as the night when the Berlin Wall finally came down