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would just stay in West Berlin.

After mass immigration from East Germany, the Soviet Union had had enough; they began planning ways to stop the flow. Rumors that the East Germans only possible escape might be closed, sped the surge of immigration. From July of 1961 until the wall was built, 30,000 immigrants defected every month. On the night of August 13, 1961, the Berlin wall began construction. It encompassed the entire boundary between West Berlin and the rest of East Germany. It was a concrete barrier topped off with barbed wire. In the beginning, the wall was 8 feet high. However, during the mid 1960s after successful escapes were made, the wall was reinforced to 16 feet high.

Around 45,000 border guards were drafted to guard along the Berlin Wall. They wouldn't permit those who had been visiting East Berlin while the wall was being built, to cross the border and get back to the West. Likewise, those working or visiting relatives or friends in the West could not get back to their families in the East. Besides being trapped from without or within the wall, over 60,000 East Berliners worked in West Berlin. Every day they would cross the border and work in the West because the wages were much higher. However, now that the wall was built, they no longer had jobs.

The wall caused havoc in Berlin as well as East Germany. Now the East Germans only means of escape was blocked off and patrolled. In order to cross the border daring escape attempts were made. Some decided to make their dash while the wall was being built. Some tried to run across the border, others tried to swim across different channels, however after these escape methods were proven dangerous and not very effective, craftier ways were developed.

The wall had been built in a manner so that it did not weave around the houses on the border. Instead the house was considered part of the wall and the workers would continue building the wall on the other side of the house. People would go into those houses along the border and then climb out a window on the other side. Soon the border guards found out what was going on and boarded up the windows. Instead, people started jumping out of the 2nd and 3rd story windows, onto mattresses or firemen nets on the other side of the wall. Others took their cars and after breaking the wall by ramming it, would flee. Still others drove their cars as fast as they could go through the guarded checkpoints. Eventually the border guards cleared a 300-foot area between the

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