Sunday November 8, 2009
Walking the Wall
Stories and photos by CHIN MUI YOON
Two decades after it fell, the Berlin Wall is still drawing visitors and chilling them with a reminder of the Cold War.
WHERE’S the Wall? It’s a question most first time visitors to Berlin ask. Although the 155km division was torn down 20 years ago, its influence continues to be felt today. Once the ultimate symbol of conflicting political systems that divided a city, tomorrow, the Berlin Wall will be a uniting force for thousands who will gather in the German city to mark the 20th anniversary of its fall.
In the wee hours of Aug 13, 1961, German Democratic Republic (GDR) soldiers began tearing up pavement and building a wall between the Western (World War II Allies) controlled parts of the city and the GDR-controlled parts.
Officially called the Anti-Fascist Protection Barrier, the Wall was the East German Government’s attempt to prevent its people from emigrating to West Germany – at that point, over two million had already done so following the end of World War II and the formation in 1949 of East and West Germany.
A combined picture shows (top) Checkpoint Charlie in 1961 and (above) in 2000. – Reuters While it stood, the Berlin Wall was one of the most sinister symbols of the Cold War. Although the Wall has all but vanished today and the strips of mined no man’s land cleared and adorned with brilliant new architecture, the divide it represented remains a part of Berlin’s identity.
For many tourists, “Walking the Wall” tours are a fascinating way of discovering this intriguing city that today is at once full of history and youthful, rebellious and edgy energy.
The Berlin city website, berlin.de, offers several self-guided walks, such as the concise Berlin Wall History Mile that includes helpful signboards along the route. Guidebooks also offer manageable self-guided tours such as Time Out Berlin’s 3km-long Reunification Ramble, which lets you see remnants of the once heavily fortified border areas, watchtowers and Wall segments in the heart of the city.
There are dozens of routes featuring many monuments, memorials, fragments and signs of the Wall in the city; here’s a brief sample.
The slab stands on the wall’s original path through the now thriving Potsdamer Platz. – AFP The rise and fall
MAY 8, 1945: The European theatre of WWII comes to a close, Nazi Germany capitulates, the country is divided into occupation zones.
Oct 7, 1949: German Democratic Republic (GDR) founded.
June 17, 1953: Soviet troops quell workers’ uprising.
AUG 13, 1961: Berlin Wall goes up.
Dec 21, 1972: Basic Treaty signed between East and West Germany, paving the way for diplomatic recognition.
May 7, 1989: Communists and allies score nearly 99% in local elections later shown to have been rigged.
Sept 10, 1989: Hungary opens its border to Austria, allowing thousands of Soviet bloc citizens to reach the West.
Oct 18, 1989: After unrest across the GDR, including huge demonstrations in the city of Leipzig, and continued exodus, Erich Honecker, leader of the ruling Socialist Unity Party, quits. Egon Krenz replaces him.
NOV 9, 1989: Berlin Wall falls.
July 1, 1990: East and West Germany merge economies, East adopts deutschemark as currency.
Oct 3, 1990: East Germany unites with West Germany. – Reuters
A combination of two pictures shows (top) West Berlin citizens holding vigil in front of the Brandenburg Gate a day after the wall began to fall in 1989 and (above) the gate in 1999 with traffic flowing freely. – Reuters Christian Bahr’s book, The Divided City, records Associated Press reports filed at 3.37am on Aug 13, 1961, as saying that, “Bradenburg Gate closed off”. While the city slept, its citizens’ lives are irrevocably changed overnight.
On Aug 24, East German Wall guards, for the first time, kill a Berliner attempting to escape, 24-year-old Gunter Litfin. Shockingly, a document discovered in August 2007 reveals that, although former officials had previously denied it, East German troops had been given a “shoot to kill” order. The written order stated: “Don’t hesitate to use your weapon even when border breaches happen with women and children, which traitors have often exploited in the past.”
But despite more than 100 (the number is disputed and varies widely) people being killed in the 28 years the Wall stays up, some 5,000 people make successful escapes while more than 75,000 are jailed for attempting to do so.
The GDR leader, Erich Honecker, says fiercely, “The Wall will stand in 50 and even in 100 years.”
It isn’t to be.
The pivotal point comes at 6.53pm on Nov 9 when party spokesman Gunter Schabowski says that GDR citizens can now make personal trips out of the republic without the usual stringent requirements. When stunned journalists ask if this applies to trips to West Berlin, Schabowski mumbles, “Yes ... it is to take effect immediately without delay”.
Party leadership had actually intended to introduce a new application process for GDR passports but Schabowski misunderstood the speech given to him to read. Once he utters those words, though, it is too late for corrections. The German media run with the news and by 8pm that night the top TV news story is, “The GDR opens the border!”
At the Bornholmer Strasse border crossing, a trickle of people arrive to demand to be let through into the West; soon, there is an unstoppable flood. By midnight, people have broken through the famed Checkpoint Charlie, and slabs of Wall all along the border are coming down.
On Dec 22, the Brandenburg Gate opens after 28 years.
And the Berlin Wall soon becomes 300,000 tonnes of rubble for building roads. Some precious chunks and chiselled bits have been saved, though, and some are still available for sale in Berlin. What was once the symbol of repressive Communism has become a profitable commodity in the capitalistic souvenir market!
Information from ‘Divided City’ by Christian Bahr (ISBN: 978-3897730595), archives of ‘The Times’, and the Berlin city website, berlin.de.
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