The Berlin Wall

Anne Stawicki - 2009

At the end of WWII, the German capital of
Berlin was divided into sectors:

East Berlin -
communist West Berlin -
democratic
The Spree River along
the Berlin Wall
 East
Germany

West
Germany

SPREE RIVER
The “wall” went through the
middle of the street
separating families,
neighbors, and friends. . . .
East Berlin with guards

West Berlin
 Friends and family had to
share important events and
celebrations across the
distance of the barriers and
wall.

Walls cannot break the

relationship and bonds
between family and friends.
 A second wall was eventually built
100 yards to the east of the
In the “nooriginal wall.
man’s land” between the two wall were:
▪293 watchtowers
▪66 miles of anti-vehicle trenches
▪hundreds of killer guard dogs
▪countless searchlights and alarms, self-firing
guns, and landmines

Checkpoints were set up along the wall where guards looked at

people’s passes very carefully.
The construction of the
Berlin Wall.

Diagram shows the

area of Berlin Wall.
 ESCAPES
171 people were killed
or died attempting to
escape the Berlin Wall
between August 13,
1961 through
November 9, 1989.

Almost 3,200 were arrested for trying to get over, under or

through the wall.

Some 5,000 East German escaped.

Throughout East Berlin there were border guards.
The border inspection check area was called:
Checkpoint Charlie.
Twice, East Germans escaped in a
car so low that it could be driven
right under the horizontal bars at the
crossing points. Vertical bars
were added to make
this impossible.
Many escaped in cleverly designed hiding places in cars driven
by West Germans who could cross the border legally.
The border guards began to use mirrors to look under cars and
used dipsticks to be sure engines had not been
tampered with.

the Trabant
In 1964, nine East Germans escaped, one by one, by hiding in a
three-wheeled car so small that the police didn’t even bother to
search it. The East Germans hid where the car’s
heating system and battery belonged!
 The first barricades of
barbed wire and bricks only
required determination and
courage to find or to make an
opening and jump through it.
Conrad
Schumann, an East Berlin
border policeman made his
Escapes from escape that was caught on
East Berlin to camera.

West Berlin
During the first days several
people lost their life killed by
the East border guard.
Gϋnter Litwin was the first
victim shot down by the
border guard in East Berlin on
August 24, 1961.

At the beginning people tried

to climb over the Wall or
through the fences. They
jumped out of houses which
were in the border area.
They built tunnels to escape.
 August 17, 1962

18-yr. old Peter Fechter

was shot as he tried to
scale. For 50 min.
he lay moaning in sight of
West Berliners. He
bled to death just 2 ft.
from freedom.
The two families who used a home-made hot air
balloon to escape to into West Berlin. Their
story is called “Night Crossing.”
The Wall came down in
November of 1989
The Soviet Union’s economy was struggling and
could no longer afford to send troops to help patrol
the Berlin Wall. It was too large a
task for the East Germans to enforce the wall.
The opening of the Berlin Wall began the reunification process of Germany.

East Germany and West Germany became one country,

Germany, on Oct. 3, 1990