From the 30th of August 1961 to the night of November 1989, a thin stretch of land over 150 kilometers long was one of the most infamous spots in the world. It may have been made from concrete and barbed wire, but for 28 years the Berlin Wall was the world’s most visible symbol of the Iron Curtain physically separating Communist between Democracy.
Forty three kilometers of it ran through the middle of Berlin dividing the Soviet style German Democratic Republic from the Federal Republic of Germany which controlled West Berlin.
But how did such a complicated arrangement come about in the first place? For the answer to that, we have to go back even further to 1945. The post World War II amicable subdivision of Germany into French-American, British and Soviet controlled sections ran into severe trouble with the advent to the Cold War.
By 1961, economic and political tensions, it seems so many East Berlin has migrated to the West. The East German government directed what they called an anti-fascist protection barrier. Over the next 28 years, the original wire fence was greatly fortified until in 1975 it became a sophisticated grand mark 45,000 separate sections of reinforce concrete, each 3.6 meters high and 1.2 meters wide. During the walls existence, over 200 people were killed trying to cross it.
The fall of communism across Eastern Europe eventually led to you far it seems as thousands of East Berliners search through board of crossing points on the night of November 1989. German reunification concluded a year later on the third of October 1990. Today, all that remains are small sections of concrete memorials to the fact that no wall last forever.
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