Transcript Slide 1

The Berlin Wall:
A Photographic Memoir
Berlin 1945 – 80% of the city’s buildings had been destroyed.
In 1945, Germany was
divided into four zones, one
for each occupying power.
Similarly, Berlin was divided
into four sectors.
Occupied Germany
1945
This Tripartite Agreement
[The original three powers,
the USA, Russia and the UK,
made room for liberated
France] placed Berlin under
the Aliied Control Committee.
Germany did not rule Berlin,
nor could German troops and
airlines enter. Access by road
and air was guaranteed. It
was meant to be a temporary
arrangement
But the Soviets had no intention of relinquishing power
and allowing Germany to reunite. They wanted to deny
the Allies access to Berlin
and, by assuming power over
the Allied sectors, to drive the
West completely out of their
zone. They blockaded Berlin
to try achieve this. The Berlin
Airlift thwarted this attempt.
West Berlin was to become a
thorn in the flesh of the Soviet
zone, since its citizens could
emigrate by simply entering
the Allied sectors and flying
out to West Germany.
Checkpoint Charlie
By 1949, the three western powers had formed the BDR
[German Federal Republic], West Germany, out of their zones.
The Soviet zone had become the DDR [German Democratic
Republic], East Germany. The three western sectors had
become West Berlin, the Soviet sector, East Berlin.
The Two Germanys
1949-1989
The temporary division of Germany and Berlin was to last for
forty years. No-one, perhaps not even Walter Ulbricht, could
have foreseen the course that events were to take during that
era, though he had surely already formulated plans by 1949.
The DDR broke all the Tripartite provisions for Berlin; they
made it their capital, stationed their troops there, and flew their
own airline in and out of Schönefeld airport in their sector.
Despite the different occupying forces, the city remained a
single entity until 13th August, 1961. After this, West Berlin,
sealed off from the rest of the Soviet Zone, effectively became
an island in the middle of East Germany.
The Stalinallee, a street of massive
blocks of flats for workers, was a
typically gigantic socialist project of
its time. In this DDR propaganda
photograph, citizens look down its
massive perspective with hope for a
bright and prosperous future.
It was from this project that workers
rose up against the hard-line
Stalinist government of Walther
Ulbricht after Stalin’s death in March
1953. They had high hopes for
liberalisation in the DDR, but
rebelled against raised work-norms
[by 10%] and repression.
Inset: One of the posters of the
time, advertising the project. East
Germany confidently expected to
overtake the prosperity of the West
within 10 years, and such projects
were meant to exhibit the bright and
promising future of socialism.
Violent scenes in the Alexanderplatz as Russian tanks roll in, to be fought by courageous workers’ armies with sticks and
stones! The Soviet Union at one point thought they had lost their zone, but to their utter surprise, the West did nothing to
intervene, and the DDR survived. But by this time the hollowness of the DDR government’s claim to popular support had
become clear. 1953 proved that the SED owed its survival to the power of the occupying Soviet forces.
East Berliners flee Soviet tanks and troops. The Soviets fired into the crowds, and strafed the border zones to prevent escapes
into West Berlin. While the Red Army was putting down the uprising, Ulbricht and the rest of the regime were cowering under
the protection of the Soviets, who despised them for it. “RIAS [Radio in the American Sector] says that there is no leadership left
in the DDR,” said the Soviet comander contemptuously in their presence. “Well, that seems just about true.” Bertholt Brecht,
DDR author, who supported the suppression of the uprising, later came to regret it, and wrote the poem on the next slide:
The Solution
After the uprising of 17 June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
with redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
and elect another?
Berthold Brecht
In the early days before the Wall, sector boundaries were marked only by signboards such as the one on the right which says:
“You are now entering the American sector.” On the reverse side it says: “You are now leaving the American sector”. Just within
the Russian sector, the East Germans have erected their own sign: “The end of the democratic [!] sector of Greater Berlin is one
metre away.” Considering the record of the Soviet Union compared with the USA, the sign is ironic, to say the least.
The Wall goes up
The Barbed-wire Barrier
1
2
The massive, carefully-planned “Operation Rose” began at midnight on Sunday 12th August, 1961. It was only at dawn on
Monday 13th, that its extent became apparent. [1] The first visible sign in the centre that the border had been sealed – barbed
wire across the Potsdamer Platz, with armed sentries placed every 2 metres to stop East Germans escaping. [2] A Grenzer
[border guard] looks on as the barrier is erected. Does he support it, or is he regretting it?
Uncertainty is also written on the faces
of these two young sentries. What are
they really thinking? Even amongst
supporters of the DDR, the sheer finality
of the division caused by the Wall must
have evoked some very mixed feelings.
Monday 13th August 1961: West Berliners look on as the first barrier is strengthened. The feelings of both NVA soldiers and
onlookers seem to be profoundly mixed. Who is laughing and who is mocking?
A deeply symbolic photograph - the Pariser Platz and Brandenburg gate as seen through the rolls
of barbed wire with which the East German government sealed off the border on 13th August
1961. One of the main reasons for the success of “Operation Rose” was that, fearful of provoking
a war, the Allied occupation forces prevented West Berliners from breaking down the barriers.
Allied armoured cars were stationed just behind the photographer.
The tragedy of Bernauerstrasse. The houses were in East Berlin, but their front doors opened onto a street in West Berlin.
These people are escaping to the West by climbing through the windows. They are already in West Berlin. The East German
Government soon sealed off the doors and windows, first with barbed wire, later by bricking them up. The house fronts
themselves eventually became part of the Wall.
Tuesday 15th August 1961: Conrad Schumann jumps. He was followed by eighty-eight more sentries. He settled in West
Germany and raised a family. After the Wall came down, he returned to his native Saxony to visit his estranged family, but was
not made to feel welcome. He returned home and hanged himself.
A Hero of the Wall
This is without doubt one of the most moving of all the
Wall photographs. On Tuesday 14th August, 1961, a
19-year-old NVA* sentry opens up the barbed wire
barrier letting through a child to rejoin its parents,
from whom it has been cut off.
The fear in the sentry’s face is palpable. He was
arrested and shot for this act of heroic generosity –
and he could have been in no doubt that this was the
likely consequence of his actions. Sadly, history has
not recorded his name.
*Nationale Volksarmee, National
People’s Army
Another famous Wall character, right –
20-year-old Private Hagen Koch. He
mapped the Wall for the DDR on 15th
August, 1961. At Checkpoint Charlie, he
straddled the border and painted the
now infamous white line demarcating
the division between East and West
Berlin. He was issued with a new pair of
boots for his trouble. After the fall of the
Wall, ironically, it was Koch, by then
middle-aged, who was appointed to
auction off its sections!
The first fixed barbed-wire fence is erected. Only across the actual city centre were concrete walls built. The fenced barriers were
nevertheless potentially lethal to the would-be border crosser.
Until the border was sealed, Berlin was functionally still one city, despite the division into sectors. In this photo, the confusion
created by Monday 14th August is apparent on the faces of the people. The man on the eastern side of the fence [left] is on his
way to work in the West, and is starting to realise that he will never see his place of employment again. The woman on the
western side [right] is questioning the East German sentries, and looks angry. The initial reaction of West Berliners was, in fact,
anger; not only at the Communists for their division of the city, but also at the West for its acquiescence in the division.
The Wall goes up
The Cinder-block Barrier
Within three days of sealing off the border with barbed wire, the East German government began to build the first Wall proper, of
cinder blocks, topped by y-shaped brackets carrying barbed wire. Here, distressed West Berliners stand on ladders in a desperate
attempt to see loved ones on the eastern side.
Turning 180º from the previous slide, this is what the West Berlin onlookers in the Bernauerstrasse saw happening. The motorcyle police are West-Berliners. The first, barbed-wire barrier still stands in front of the cinder-block Wall.
The cinder block Wall under construction. The DDR used a human barrier of sentries to prevent its citizens crossing over in the
interim between the removal of the wire and the building of the Wall. In this and the next photograph, Westerners were able to do
little more than stand impotently and watch.
The cinder-block Wall under construction. In the background, the y-brackets and barbed wire have already been mounted on the
finished structure. In the foreground, building continues. This is one of the sections of Wall that divides a street in half [look
carefully in the background], and cuts across another street, the Eisenstrasse [foreground].
This photograph captures perfectly the precarious situation of the Wall in earlier days. East German soldiers affix barbed
wire to the hastily [and shoddily] built cinder-block wall, protected by NVA sentries on the Western side. These men are still
on DDR territory, which extended beyond the Wall. Note how the West Berliners just stand, watching the process.