EP 107: The Berlin Wall

Hashtag History

This week on Hashtag History, we are discussing the Berlin Wall. This was a wall that was first erected in August of 1961 to essentially separate East and West Germany from one another. Following the Second World War, Germany - and Berlin itself - was split up into four allied occupation zones. The western portions were governed by the United States, Great Britain, and later France, while the eastern portion was governed by the Soviet Union. Between the years of 1949 and 1961, somewhere between 2.5 and 3.5 million Germans from the eastern side would flee to West Germany (for reasons we will get into later in this episode). In response to this mass exodus, East Germany would construct a wall through Berlin, closing off access to West Germany. What would begin as some cinder blocks and barbed wire would be converted over time into concrete walls that stood fifteen feet tall. These walls would be guarded 24/7 with soldiers in watchtowers ready to shoot at the first sign of escape. More than one hundred people (with the most widely accepted number closer to two hundred people) would be killed as they attempted to get to the other side of the wall.

This wall quite literally separated families. It separated communities. It destroyed railroad lines that used to pass through the city. It destroyed daily activities. It meant that some people could no longer go to their jobs or go to their nearest grocery store; to go see movies or go to the park with friends. More than 5,000 East Germans - so desperate to make it to West Germany - did just that by climbing over the barbed wire, jumping out of windows that were close to the wall, going underneath the wall through the sewer system, even flying hot air balloons over the wall!

This wall would stand for nearly thirty years before it was finally torn down in 1989. There was a huge celebration the day the wall fell with one Berlin resident spray-painting on the wall: “Only today is the war really over".

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