Why do they build berlin wall

On 22 August , 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.

He attempted to swim across the Spree Canal to West Germany on August 24, , the same day that East German police received shoot-to-kill orders to prevent anyone from escaping. East Germans successfully defected by a variety of methods: digging long tunnels under the Wall, 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 defection, 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 windscreen to come away when it made contact with the beam.

They lay flat and kept driving forward. The East Germans then built zig-zagging roads at checkpoints. Privacy Policy. Skip to main content. Search for:. The Building of the Berlin Wall On August 15, they began replacing barbed wire with concrete. The wall, East German authorities declared, would protect their citizens from the pernicious influence of decadent capitalist culture.

The first concrete pilings went up on the Bernauer Strasse and at the Potsdamer Platz. Sullen East German workers, a few in tears, constructed the first segments of the Berlin Wall as East German troops stood guarding them with machine guns.

With the border closing permanently, escape attempts by East Germans intensified on August Conrad Schumann, a year-old East German soldier, provided the subject for a famous image when he was photographed leaping over the barbed-wire barrier to freedom.

During the rest of , the grim and unsightly Berlin Wall continued to grow in size and scope, eventually consisting of a series of concrete walls up to 15 feet high.

These walls were topped with barbed wire and guarded with watchtowers, machine gun emplacements, and mines. By the s, this system of walls and electrified fences extended 28 miles through Berlin and 75 miles around West Berlin, separating it from the rest of East Germany.

The East Germans also erected an extensive barrier along most of the mile border between East and West Germany. In the West, the Berlin Wall was regarded as a major symbol of communist oppression. About 5, East Germans managed to escape across the Berlin Wall to the West, but the frequency of successful escapes dwindled as the wall was increasingly fortified. Thousands of East Germans were captured during attempted crossings and were killed.

On the evening of November 9, , East Germany announced an easing of travel restrictions to the West, and thousands demanded passage though the Berlin Wall. As they celebrated with champagne, music, and tears, Berliners began to literally tear down the wall with sledgehammers and chisels. Less than a month later, the GDR collapsed entirely, and in , Germany reunified. Today, a double row of cobblestones marks the place where the wall once stood. All rights reserved. Share Tweet Email. Read This Next Wild parakeets have taken a liking to London.

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Though he was not happy about it, President John F. In all, at least people were killed trying to get over, under or around the Berlin Wall. Escape from East Germany was not impossible, however: From until the wall came down in , more than 5, East Germans including some border guards managed to cross the border by jumping out of windows adjacent to the wall, climbing over the barbed wire, flying in hot air balloons, crawling through the sewers and driving through unfortified parts of the wall at high speeds.

At midnight, they flooded through the checkpoints. Soon the wall was gone and Berlin was united for the first time since The reunification of East and West Germany was made official on October 3, , almost one year after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. Berlin, the German capital city, was located deep in the Soviet zone, but it was also divided into four In June , the simmering tensions between the Soviet Union Great events do not always have great causes.

Ida Siekmann had been holed up for days. Nine days earlier, workers had sealed the border to her country by dead of night.