55 years old the wall that divided Germany and Europe
Berliners see the closure of the border between East and West Berlin on 13 August 1961. Photo: AFP / East News
August 13, 1961, they blocked the border between the Eastern and Western parts of Berlin. That has led to the emergence of the wall that divided Germany and Europe, says Roman Popkov
55 years ago, on 13 August 1961, the boundary between the Eastern and Western parts of Berlin was closed. In the press this date is sometimes called the day the Berlin wall that is not quite true. On the night of August 13, East German police and state security officers closed the free passage of the Germans from one part of town to the other and began to pull along the border of barbed wire. The construction of the actual concrete wall began in the fall of 1961. But it was the events of 13 August became symbolic for Germany and split into two military camps of Europe.
Nations divided by the Cold war
The front of the Cold war was not only through the German nation, but also through others.
In the second half of 1940-ies appeared North and South Korea. 48th parallel was first delimiter between Soviet and American forces defeated the Japanese and then between the two Korean States. The North Korean regime in 1950 he launched a military attempt to unify the Peninsula under his rule and almost achieved it, occupying a large part of South Korea. But southerners have saved the US army and their allies, who put North Korea on the brink of defeat. Northerners, in turn, passed to the offensive of the Americans defended the military support of the Soviet Union and Communist China. After three years of bloody war, the Peninsula remained divided and continued to be so until now.
Split into two parts with the second half of 1940-ies was, and Vietnam. During the two Indochina wars of the Pro-Soviet North Vietnam survived, got stronger and in Alliance with the guerrillas of South Vietnam joined in 1975-1976 the country and the nation under a single flag.
The Chinese also found themselves on opposing sides during the Cold war, but it has its own specifics. Korea and Vietnam were divided between rival units of roughly equal, Germany is not quite equally, but its Eastern part was a very large territory. In China, the second alternative of the PRC the state was located on the island of Taiwan. It happened after the civil war between the Communists and the Kuomintang. The government of Chiang Kai-shek with the remnants of defeated troops fled in 1949 to Taiwan and anchored there for decades. In this case, from the point of view of the Kuomintang government, its sovereignty extended to the whole of China. The West has long believed the Taiwanese government the only source of legitimate power in China, and the Taiwan delegation to 1971 he occupied the place of China in the UN security Council.
Between East and West Germany was no open armed conflict going on, but it divided the German land became the personification of the threat of a Third world war.
“Attention! You are now leaving West Berlin”, July 21, 1986. Photo: Wolfgang Kumm / dpa / AFP / East News
Two republics on the ruins of the Reich
The decision to divide Germany into zones of occupation was made at the allied conference in Yalta, when there was the Second world war, the Wehrmacht continued to resist, and according to German streets Chagall battalions of the Volkssturm and Hitler youth with a Panzerfaust on his shoulders. Hitler hoped to the last that the allies “are at each other’s throats”, dividing the territory of Germany, allowing the Third Reich to escape. But the hope of the führer were in vain. The troops of the United States, Britain, France and the USSR situated in their zones of occupation. Four sectors were divided and ruined Berlin.
Tensions between the USSR and the West began a few years after the surrender of Germany and Japan. Was first Berlin crisis and blockade by the Soviet army in West Berlin in 1948-1949. Then in the Western occupation zone, declared the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Communists in response proclaimed in the Soviet zone the German democratic Republic.
Both countries were the giant military bases in opposing the USA and the USSR. All logic of development of statehood of Germany and the GDR was doomed on their membership in rival political-military blocs. In 1950-e years, Germany became a member of NATO, and the GDR — a member of the Organization of the Warsaw contract (OVD). Both republics have acquired armies. The West German Bundeswehr crept into the NATO system, and the people’s national army of the GDR — in the structure of the ATS.
The German-German border became the front edge of contact between the two systems. But at the heart of the GDR was Berlin, where West and East Germans were free to go interblock boundary.
Growing popular dissatisfaction with the “state of workers and peasants”
Initially, Moscow was not interested in the overlapping border between the Western and Eastern parts of the city. According to American journalist John Keller, a specialist in the history of the GDR, for many years worked in Germany, the Soviet leadership was interested in Berlin as a free city, the geo-strategic “Achilles ‘ heel” in the Western security system and the “European Hong Kong” shopping link between the socialist East and the capitalist West.
An ideal variant for the Kremlin leadership, headed by Nikita Khrushchev was the proclamation of West Berlin a free city with its subsequent demilitarization.
But the leadership of the GDR was a different take on the Berlin problem. In the economic development of East Germany increasingly lagged behind the West, and its inhabitants clearly saw the difference between their standard of living and quality of life of neighbors from Germany. The first Wake-up call for the authorities of the GDR rang in 1953, when the “state of workers and peasants” engulfed the working-class uprising.
Demonstrators throw rocks at Soviet tanks during the rebellion against the Communist regime in East Berlin, 17 June 1953. Photo: AFP / East News
Protests against the “worker-peasant authorities” was triggered by the increase in output quotas without increasing wages. First rebellion raised by the builders who erected the house for the party elite in the Stalin-Allee in Berlin. Then strikes and spontaneous demonstrations covered three hundred cities. The American radio in West Berlin and the German radio stations gave live information about street confrontations, not allowing to establish information blockade.
The police and state security officers were used by the insurgent crowds of firearms, but to crush the rebellion failed. Only the intervention of the Soviet army saved the Communist regime of the GDR from collapse.
Voting with one’s feet
The nomenklatura of the GDR have not forgotten about this riot, but not learned the right lessons. The economy continued to develop according to the canons of barracks socialism. The Ministry of state security (the most sinister “Stasi”) has established total control over all aspects of society.
Not having the strength to start a revolution, the Germans “voted with their feet” against the dictatorship. In the bloody 1953 to the West, including Berlin, fled 331 thousand people. Interestingly, eight thousand of them were employees of the police were confined to barracks. Among the escapees was also 1718 members and candidate members of the ruling party SED.
In the second half of 1950-ies the socio-economic situation in the country stabilized, and in 1959 went to the West “only” 143 thousand people.
And then the government led by Walter Ulbricht started a new experiment — decided to carry out agriculture collectivization.
Banner comparing Walter Ulbricht with Adolf Hitler during a demonstration in West Berlin, August 16, 1961. Photo: AFP / East News
Since voluntarily collectivize German peasants were not very good, the SED decided to use force. The head of the Ministry of state security Erich Mielke at the end of 1959 began the arrests “irresponsible” farmers. Particularly distinguished themselves during the collectivization of the “Cheka”, as he liked to call himself the Stasi, were awarded orders and medals. At the same time, the people’s chamber of the GDR passed the law on the right to work, which did not mention the right to strike.
The country began shortages of food, Berlin officials even publicly had to admit deficiency of oil, milk and meat. John Keller in the book “Secrets of the Stasi” says that the first Secretary of the SED Walter Ulbricht at a meeting with journalists from party Newspapers said that the oil stick on purpose as it is harmful to health.
In such circumstances, again, increased emigration to Germany in 1960 he left nearly 200 thousand citizens of the GDR. When the number of the population to about 16 million people it was a tangible figure. In 1961 escape to the West continued to grow and took on the character of this outcome. And first of all went away highly skilled workers and professionals. The Exodus has become a serious problem for the country’s economy.
“Anti-fascist protective rampart” and its victims
At the meeting of the heads of the Communist parties of Eastern Europe, devoted to the troubles of the GDR, it was considered a variant in which the socialist camp would have taken on the role of the donor, fueling the East German economy. Ulbricht even offered to send in the GDR in business 50 thousand workers and specialists from the USSR and Bulgaria.
American tanks parked at the checkpoint “Charlie.” Photo: Berliner Verlag / AFP / East News
Moscow yielded to the pressure of East Berlin and mandated a lock of West Berlin from the GDR.
August 12 was put under the gun all the employees of the people’s police in East Berlin, and the Berlin Central offices of the Stasi. On the night of 13 August, they lined up along the borders of West Berlin. The history of the unified city was interrupted for 28 years. On the morning of 13 August, Berliners, hurrying on from one part of town to the other, ran into police cordons and barbed wire.
In response to the unilateral actions of the GDR, the us military stationed in West Berlin, moved to the demarcation line. Thus began the second Berlin crisis, which lasted several months. Peak it reached on 26 and 27 October 1961, when the incident occurred at checkpoint Charlie. 26 October Charlie arrived a few American tanks and bulldozers. The Soviet military received intelligence reports, according to which the Americans supposedly wanted to tear down the border facilities on Friedrichstrasse. From the East to checkpoint Charlie” came the Soviet tanks.
Fighting machines of the two superpowers in full combat readiness stood facing each other a few days and was withdrawn from the border the morning of 29 October.
Soon the Berlin wall became more or less finished shape. Its length was 155 kilometers, she was surrounded by West Berlin sector from all sides. 45 miles of the wall ran in the city. Berlin’s underground is also divided into two different systems.
The Berlin wall was a complex fortification. Actually, the walls built for two, and between them there were 302 watchtowers, fences topped with barbed wire (at many sites under electrical voltage), anti-tank.
The monument of the portraits of soldiers among the 1065 crosses dedicated to people who died trying to cross the border between West and East Berlin between 1961 and 1989, checkpoint Charlie, Berlin. Photo: John Macdougall / AFP / East News
East German propaganda praising the wall as the “anti-fascist protective wall”, built ostensibly to counter “Western saboteurs and revenge-seekers”. Anniversaries of the start of construction of the wall was marked by a military parade.
East Germans continued to attempt to escape to the West. East German border guards were merciless fire on the fugitives. Just from 1961 to 1989, the victims of the wall was hundreds of people. The last refugee was shot at the wall on 9 February 1989, nine months before its fall in November 1989 during the national revolution.
Author ROMAN POPKOV
