This weekend, Germany will observe the 25th anniversary of the
fall of the Berlin Wall. The German Democratic Republic (East Germany)
began erecting the barrier in 1961, building on existing checkpoints,
and fortified it over nearly 30 years: The initial waist-high wooden
gates gave way to massive concrete structures with buffer zones known as
"death strips." The Berlin Wall was intended to halt the steady stream
of defections from the Eastern Bloc; during its existence, only about
5,000 people managed to cross over, escaping into West Berlin. More than
100 are believed to have been killed in the attempt, most shot by East
German border guards. In 1989, waves of protest in East Berlin and a
flood of defections through neighboring Hungary and Czechoslovakia led
the government to finally allow free passage across the border. West
German citizens swarmed the wall, pulling parts of it down with hammers
and machinery, an act that set the stage for Germany's reunification. [36 photos]
West Berlin citizens hold a vigil atop the Berlin Wall in front of the
Brandenburg Gate on November 10, 1989, the day after the East German
government opened the border between East and West Berlin. (Reuters/David Brauchli)
On August 13, 1961, East Germany closed its borders with the west.
Here, East German soldiers set up barbed wire barricades at the border
separating East and West Berlin. West Berlin citizens watch the work. (AP Photo) #
A young East Berliner erects a concrete wall that was later topped by
barbed wire at a sector border in the divided city August 18, 1961. East
German police stand guard in background as another worker mixed cement.
(AP Photo) #
Tracks of the Berlin elevated railroad stop at the border of American
sector of Berlin in this air view on August 26, 1961. Beyond the fence,
communist-ruled East Berlin side, the tracks have been removed. (AP Photo/Worth) #
Formidable concrete walls took shape at the seven crossing points
between East and West Berlin on December 4, 1961. The new walls were
seven feet high and five feet thick. Only small passages for traffic
were left open. In center of the Bornholmer Bridge (French/Russian
sector border), behind steel tank traps, a big sign showing the East
German emblem hammer and compass. (AP Photo/Worth) #
East German VOPO, a quasi-military border policeman using binoculars,
standing guard on one of the bridges linking East and West Berlin, in
1961. (Library of Congress) #
Under the eye of a communist "people's policeman", East Berlin workers
with a power shovel destroy one of a number of cottages and one-family
houses along a sparsely settled stretch of the east-west Berlin boundary
in October of 1961. (National Archives) #
Blocking the church - Two East Germans work on a huge 15 foot wall,
placing pieces of broken glass on the top to prevent East Berliners from
escaping. (AP-Photo/Kreusch) #
A refugee runs during an attempt to escape from the East German part of
Berlin to West Berlin by climbing over the Berlin Wall on October 16,
1961. (AP Photo) #
Typical of East Berlin measures to halt the escape of refugees to the
west are these bricked-up windows in an apartment house along the city's
dividing line October 6, 1961. The house, on the South side of
Bernauerstrasse, is in East Berlin. (AP Photo) #
East German border guards carry away a refugee who was wounded by East
German machine gun fire as he dashed through communist border
installations toward the Berlin Wall in 1971. (AP Photo) #
East Berlin laborers work on "Death Strip" which communist authorities
created on their side of the border in the divided city on October 1,
1961. A double barbed wire fence marks the border, with West Berlin at
right. In this view of the area laborers level rubble of houses which,
just days before, stood on the site close to the border. Buildings along
the 25-mile dividing line were evacuated and razed by Berlin reds to
eliminate one means of escape used by East Berliners to jump to the
west. (AP Photo) #
Dying Peter Fechter is carried away by East German border guards who
shot him down when he tried to flee to the west in this August 17, 1962
photo. Fechter was lying 50 minutes in no-man's land before he was taken
to a hospital where he died shortly after arrival. (AP Photo) #
View from top of the old Reichstag building of the Brandenburg Gate,
which marks the border in this divided city. The semi-circled wall
around the Brandenburg Gate was erected by East German Vopos on November
19, 1961. (AP Photo/Worth) #
The Brandenburg Gate is shrouded in fog as a man looks from a
watchtower over the Wall to the Eastern part of the divided city on
November 25, 1961. The tower was erected by the West German police to
observe the Inner-German border. (AP Photo/Heinrich Sanden Sr.) #
East German border guard Conrad Schumann leaps into the French Sector of West Berlin over barbed wire on August 15, 1961. (Peter Leibing/Library of Congress) #
East German border guards carry away a 50 year old refugee, who was
shot three times by East German border police on September 4, 1962, as
he dashed through communist border installations and tried to climb the
Berlin wall in the cemetery of the Sophien Church. (AP Photo) #
Reverend Martin Luther King, American civil rights leader, invited to
Berlin by West Berlin Mayor Willy Brandt, visits the wall on September
13, 1964, at the border Potsdamer Platz in West Berlin. (AP Photo) #
A mass escape of 57 people in October 1964 from East Berlin through a
tunnel to the cellar of a former bakery in "Bernauer Street", West
Berlin. Picture of the tunnel exit. (AP Photo) #
A graffiti-covered section of the wall close to the Brandenburg Gate in
Berlin in 1988. Sign reads: "Attention! You are now leaving West
Berlin" (AP Photo) #
(1 of 3)
Two East Berliners jump across border barriers on the Eastern side of
border checkpoint at Chaussee Street in Berlin in April of 1989. They
were stopped by gun wielding East German border guards and arrested
while trying to escape into West Berlin. People in the foreground, still
in East Berlin, wait for permits to visit the West. (AP Photo/Klostermeier) #
(2 of 3)
Two East Berlin refugees are taken away by border guards after a
thwarted escape attempt at Berlin border crossing Chausseestreet, in
this April 1989 picture. (AP Photo) #
(3 of 3)
An East Berlin border guard, cigarette in mouth, points his pistol to
the scene where two East Germans were led away after failing to escape
to the west at Berlin border crossing Chausseestrasse. Eyewitnesses
reported the guard also fired shots. (AP Photo) #
A general view of the overcrowded East Berlin Gethsemane Church on
October 12, 1989. About 1,000 East Germans took part in a prayer service
here for imprisoned pro-democracy protesters. The church was the focus
of protests in the final days of the wall. (AP Photo) #
An unidentified East German border guard gestures toward some
demonstrators, who who threw bottles on the eastern side of
newly-erected barriers at the Checkpoint Charlie crossing point on
October 7, 1989. (AP Photo/Rainer Klostermeier) #
East and West Berliners mingle as they celebrate in front of a control
station on East Berlin territory, on November 10, 1989, during the
opening of the borders to the West following the announcement by the
East German government that the border to the West would be open. (AP Photo/Jockel Finck) #
East Berliners get helping hands from West Berliners as they climb the
Berlin Wall which divided the city since the end of World War II, near
the Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate) on November 10, 1989. (AP Photo/Jockel Finck) #
A man hammers away at the Berlin Wall on November 12, 1989 as the border barrier between East and West Germany was torn down. (AP Photo/John Gaps III) #
West Berliners crowd in front of the Berlin Wall early November 11,
1989 as they watch East German border guards demolishing a section of
the wall in order to open a new crossing point between East and West
Berlin, near the Potsdamer Square. (Gerard Malie/AFP/Getty Images) #
East and West German Police try to contain the crowd of East Berliners
flowing through the recent opening made in the Berlin wall at Potsdamer
Square, on November 12, 1989. (Patrick Hertzog/AFP/Getty Images) #
Decades later, the Berlin Wall is a memory, pieces of it scattered
around the world. Here, some original pieces of the wall are displayed
for sale at the city of Teltow near Berlin, on November 8, 2013. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber) #
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