by Sheree Zielke

Created on: April 29, 2007   Last Updated: November 23, 2009

The history of the Berlin Wall covers a period of 28 years during which time East German citizens were imprisoned in their own country; their autonomy to make a decision on where to live and where to work was ripped from them by a 155 kilometer (nearly 100 miles) barrier created by a Communist government wishing to both contain and control its citizens.

Many Baby Boomers were just entering grade school when communist East Germany (East Berlin) began building the Berlin Wall. The date was August 13, 1961. The concrete barrier, the Soviets termed an "Anti-fascist Protective Rampart," was built to stop East German laborers from fleeing into West Berlin. This "protective barrier" actually started out as a barbed-wire fence; it was soon replaced by a 12-foot high concrete wall, a wall that effectively ended a German Empire.

Up until that historical Sunday night, East and West Berliners had been allowed to mix freely with East Germans, spending their time both shopping and working in West Berlin. In a move by Communist German Democratic Republic (GDR) ruler, Walter Ulbricht, under protection of the Soviets, the wall was erected to stop the "brain drain," the loss of highly skilled young workers from East Berlin to the non-Communist side of West Berlin, ruled by the Federal Republic of Germany.

On the morning of August 13th, Berlin residents were presented with the overnight efforts of the East German army; it had built a barrier complete with ditches, 302 sentry towers and armed checkpoints, like the now infamous, "Checkpoint Charlie". Official records show that more than 400 people died trying to breach the Berlin Wall; over 3200 persons were arrested and thrown in prison. And while some successful escapees managed to tunnel their way under the wall, the less fortunate were shot and killed.

The Berlin wall came down in 1989 when political factors deemed it no longer a necessity; the country of Hungary had eased its border restrictions meaning East Germans had an alternate route by which to reach West Berlin. On November 9, 1989, the East German government relented and officially opened the wall.

With a new found sense of freedom and autonomy, Berlin citizens on both sides of the wall, upon hearing they would be able to travel freely between the two Berlins, united in a raucous victory celebration. With great enthusiasm, they began the wall's destruction. Both locals and tourists squirreled away small pieces of the infamous wall as a memento of the Communist tyranny of the East German government. Perhaps some of history's most famous photos are those showing a person fervently hacking off a chunk of the Berlin Wall.

East Germany finally joined in to help its counterpart, West Berlin, remove the wall. Only small sections of the wall now remain as a testament to man's need to control his fellow men. Those wall fragments have been preserved and can be seen near the Hauptbahnof, the Berlin Train Station, and the Reichstag government building.

The seeds of German reunification took root as the Berlin wall began to tumble. And by October 3, 1990, nearly 30 years after the inception of the infamous wall, in a process known as Die Wende, East and West Germany were finally unified.

Learn more about this author, Sheree Zielke.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.