aug 13, 1961 - Berlin Wall

Description:

The Berlin Wall was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Construction began on 13 August 1961 and included guard towers along large concrete walls, a wide area known as the "death strip" with anti-vehicle trenches and beds of nails. The primary intention of the Wall's construction was to prevent East German citizens from fleeing to the West.

The Soviet Bloc propaganda portrayed the Wall as protecting its population from "fascist elements conspiring to prevent the will of the people" from building a communist state in the GDR. The authorities officially referred to the Berlin Wall as the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart, while West Berlin's city government sometimes referred to it as the "Wall of Shame". The Wall symbolized the Iron Curtain that separated the Western Bloc and Soviet satellite states of the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.

Before the Wall's erection, 3.5 million East Germans circumvented Eastern Bloc emigration restrictions and defected from the GDR, many by crossing the border from East Berlin into West Berlin. Between 1961 and 1989, the deadly force associated with the Wall prevented almost all such emigration, with an estimated death toll of those murdered by East German authorities ranging from 136 to more than 200 in and around Berlin.

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