"Ich bin ein Berliner" is a line from one of the most famous speeches of the twentieth century. It was spoken by John F. Kennedy during a 1963 visit to Berlin, Germany, in a show of support for a people heartbroken by a wall that had severed their city (Isaacs 183). In 1961 Nikita Khrushchev ordered his troops to build the Berlin Wall. It stretched across the city, dividing West Berlin from East Berlin. For the next 28 years the Wall would remain, separating husbands from wives, parents from children and Germans from their fellow countrymen. Why was the Wall built, what impact did it have on the people who lived in it’s shadow, what events led to it’s removal and how did the city go about reuniting once it was dismantled? To begin to answer these questions we must look back to 1945.
In 1945 WWII ended and Germany was divided into two separate countries. East Germany became part of Communist Eastern Europe, and West Germany was part of Democratic Western Europe. Berlin was in the middle of East Germany, and was divided into four zones. The zone controlled by the USSR was known as East Berlin and the three zones controlled by the US, Great Britain and France became West Berlin. Even though West Berlin was a democratic city, it was surrounded by the communist country of East Germany.
Tensions between the communist and democratic governments were high, especially in Berlin. In1948 the western allies introduced new currency to West Germany. The Soviets saw this as a threat and blockaded all access to West Berlin. Western allies responded by flying food and supplies into the city for almost a year, in what became known as the Berlin Airlift (Binder 31). In 1952 the border between the countries of East and West Germany was closed, however access between East and West Berlin continued to remain open. Due to rebuilding efforts by the Western Allies, the economy in West Berlin began to improve, whereas in East Berlin even the basics like food and housing were scarce. Two and one half million people left East Germany between 1949 and 1961 (McAdams 5). “Because of dissatisfaction with the economic and political conditions (forced collectivization of agriculture, repression of private trade, supply gaps), an increasing number of people left the GDR” (Kirste). The migration of people from East Germany (GDR) to West Germany (FRG) across the open border in Berlin increased tension even further.
This mass exodus was not only an embarrassment to East Germany, but since many of the people that left were scientists, doctors and other professionals, it also was a great loss to the GDR in human potential (Isaacs 170). East German leader Walter Ulbricht petitioned the Soviet government to do something to halt the western migration. In 1958 Khrushchev delivered an ultimatum to the three western countries that controlled Berlin, which stated that if they were not out of Berlin in six months the Soviet Union would take matters into their own hands. Khrushchev however, was unwilling to back up his threat with action and so people continued to flow westward out of East Germany at an alarming rate. In June, 1961 President John F. Kennedy and Premier Nikita Khrushchev held a summit meeting in Vienna. The Soviets wanted the allies out of Berlin, and Khrushchev used the summit to renew “…his demands for a rapid settlement, while the President reminded the Soviet leader of Western intentions to hold to their positions in West Berlin” (Binder 43). Khrushchev responded by threatening nuclear war. Kennedy “… was shaken by the Soviet Premier’s nuclear ultimatum” (Wyden 52). Soon after the failed summit Khrushchev gave orders for the Wall to be built.
On August 1961 at 2:00 a.m. Soviet soldiers began to string barbed wire across Berlin. Once the wire was in place they used blocks and mortar to build a more secure wall. Streets were torn up, buildings were torn down and tanks and armed guards were stationed at strategic points. Railway services between East and West Berlin were cancelled. An article in Time magazine describes it this way,
“Like a monstrous guillotine, the wall has slashed the arteries and nerves of Berlin. It cuts through sewers and subways, severs bridges and thoroughfares. It bisects a cemetery, shears off churches and dwellings… The wall has separated sons from mother, wives from husbands, friends from friends”
(Time, 8 Sep, 1961, 30).
People that just the day before had passed freely over the border to work, shop or visit family members, were no longer allowed that freedom of movement.
The GDR called the Wall an "Anti-fascist protection wall". The Soviets defended the building of the Wall as a way to protect their people from the fascist ideas of those in the West, and in fact blamed the Wall on the government of West Germany. The following appeared in a 1962 brochure published by the GDR in order to help people better understand the need for the Wall.
“The Bonn government and the West Berlin Senate have systematically converted
West Berlin into a centre of provocation from where 90 espionage organizations,
the RIAS American broadcasting station in West Berlin (Radio in American
Sector) and revanchist associations organize acts of sabotage against the GDR and
the other socialist countries. Through our protective measures of 13 August 1961
we have only safeguarded and strengthened that frontier which was already drawn
years ago and made into a dangerous front-line by the people in Bonn and West
Berlin” (Calvin: Minds in the Making).
The brochure goes on to say that the Wall was put up due to lack of respect on the part of the Western Allies, and that if they wanted the Wall taken down, then they needed to work for peace by agreeing to a demilitarized West Berlin.
Westerners on the other hand saw the Wall as an effort on the part of the Soviets to imprison their own citizens. The media used words such as “recurrent horror”, “monstrous guillotine”, and “forbidding miles of personal tragedy” to describe the Wall. Poignant pictures of people standing on ladders or hanging on lampposts, trying to get a glimpse of loved ones trapped in East Germany riddled popular newspapers and magazines in the West. Stories of heroic escapes and attempted escapes where young people were mercilessly shot down were also common in periodicals. People across the West saw the Wall as an attack on liberty itself and yet because of Khrushchev’s earlier threat of nuclear war, citizens and leaders of the Western Allies were reluctant to push for its immediate removal.
Germans were frustrated at the lack of action on the part of the Western Allies. Several hours after Soviet troops had begun building the Wall, Willy Brandt, the mayor of West Berlin, stormed into the conference room of Berlin’s allied governing body. He “…was determined to push the Western Allies into some strong action. He failed” (Wyden 161). The Allies were just as determined to avoid precipitating a war “…since the three essentials of the American policy regarding Berlin were not affected: presence of allied troops, free access to Berlin and the right of self-determination of the West Berliners” (Kirste). Gestures by the West, such as Kennedy’s visit to Berlin in 1963, were greatly appreciated, and yet did nothing to accomplish what Berliners seemed to want most: the removal of the Wall.
Many attempts were made by East Berliners to escape to the West. Life magazine published an impressive photo series that shows a young East Berlin soldier jumping over the barbed wire Wall that he is supposed to be guarding. Once on the West Berlin side he threw down his gun and ran for safety. This was one of the more famous photographs of escapes, and it was widely published and used in anticommunist propaganda (Life 32). However, this soldier was just one of a myriad of escapees. Over the next 28 years an estimated 10,000 people attempted to escape and approximately half of those were successful. People jumped out of windows, hid under the hoods of cars, floated over in hot air balloons, swam across rivers, dug tunnels and did whatever else they could think of to make it safely over the border.
Some people though, did not make it safely across. Over the years 80 East Germans lost their lives trying to get to West Berlin (Bornstein 47). Peter Fechter was only 18 when he died while attempting to escape. As a brick layer in East Berlin his salary was much smaller than it would’ve been in West Berlin. Because he wanted to marry but could not make enough money in the East to support a wife, he began to wonder about escaping to the West. On Aug. 17, 1962, he tried to jump over the wall, but was shot by East German soldiers. Armed guards prevented people from aiding him, so they stood by helplessly as he bled to death. Life Magazine, in the article “The Boy Who Died on the Wall” reported that “West Berlin erupted and Peter Fechter became a martyr of the Cold War. The city’s fury was directed not only at the Communists, but also at American authorities who failed to go to Fechter’s rescue” (Life 22). Even though Fechter was only one of many who lost their lives, his life was symbolic of the desperation and frustration that the Germans lived with every day, and his death showcased the ruthless determination of the Soviet military. Escape attempts continued throughout the twenty eight years of the Wall’s existence, and some believe that because they demonstrated the depth of pain caused by the Wall, they were instrumental in finally bringing the it down. (Wyden 676).
Certain events in the early 70’s brought hope to the people of Berlin that the Wall would soon be down. Brandt, who had become chancellor of West Germany in 1969 worked towards better relations with the East. Friendship treaties and peace agreements between several of the communist and democratic countries helped to ease tensions in Berlin. In March 1972 a temporary agreement gave West Berliners permission to visit relatives in East Berlin (Bornstein 44). However when both East Germany and West Germany were admitted to the United Nations in 1973, the question of reunification was put off to some distant future (Binder 48).
In 1985 hope was rekindled when Mikhail Gorbachev became the new leader of the Communist Party. Gorbachev created the policies of perestroika (democratic reform) and glasnost (openness). To honor Gorbachev’s courage and foresight, Time magazine made him the “Man of the Decade” for the 1980’s (Bornstein 55). Gorbachev’s new policies gave Eastern Europeans the courage to protest for freedoms they were lacking, such as the freedom of expression, the freedom of the press and the freedom to travel. When President Ronald Reagan visited Berlin in 1987, in dramatic fashion he called for Gorbachev to “…tear down this wall” (Borstein 55). Emboldened by news of unrest, people throughout the Soviet Bloc began to protest.
1989 became the year when communism unraveled throughout Eastern Europe. Protests erupted in Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary. Czechoslovakia’s communist president Gustav Husak resigned and a new government was installed. Poland also established a new government and elected Solidarity candidate Lech Walesea to be their new leader. Hungary opened its border with Austria, providing East Germans a route to escape to the West. Previously, Hungarian Communists had honored a treaty with East Germany that compelled them to block any East Germans trying to leave the country. Hungary’s decision to no longer “…be a proxy jailer for East Germany triggered the process that destroyed… the Berlin Wall in a matter of weeks” (Bornstein 60). Trainloads of refugees who had been waiting in Prague and Warsaw were allowed to travel through East Germany on their way to West Germany. Over 100,000 people demonstrated against communism in Leipzig. When Erich Honecker (the leader of East Germany) ordered police to open fire on the protesters, they refused. Honecker was removed from office the next day.
As protests for democracy continued, refugees poured out of East Germany across the Hungarian and Czechoslovakian borders. On November 9, 1989, after the East Berlin government debated together about what their next move should be, they made a rather oblique announcement that they were considering allowing border crossings under special circumstances. That’s all the Berliner’s needed to hear. Citizens from both sides of the city converged on the Wall. A huge celebration at the Brandenburg Gate received international television coverage. The world watched, dumbstruck, as people from both sides of the city climbed on top of the Wall. Some who brought hammers and picks and began to whack at the Wall with 28 years of pent up frustration. In the next months government work crews begin to officially dismantle the Wall. An enduring Cold War symbol finally fell.
Even change in a positive direction can be stressful and present challenges, and so it was with the reunification of East and West Berlin. The dismantling of the Wall caught people by surprise, and the transition from divided cities with disparate governments, to unified democratic city was not a smooth one. There were drastic changes and staggering costs for both East and West Berliners. For East Berlin reunification meant a change of currency, a new flag and the loss of countless factory jobs. As one woman from East Berlin put it, under communism, “We had our jobs, a home, and food. What bothered us was being shut in and not being able to speak our minds freely” (National Geographic 23). For West Berlin the cost of absorbing the weaker economy of the East was a trillion dollars over the next decade. While euphoria gave way to practicality, hope still remained strong. A man from West Berlin expressed the viewpoint of many when he said, “The problems will be solved but not as quickly as we thought. It may take five or six years, but democracy will prevail” (National Geographic 22).
The Berlin Wall separated a people who remained united in spirit even after twenty eight years of frustration. That it finally and miraculously fell attests to the strength of that spirit. The Wall became symbolic of the horror of repression and the intense desire for freedom. Its fall is symbolic of what can be accomplished through protest, determination and persistence.