Translation. Region: Russian Federation –
Source: Official website of the State –
An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
Built overnight, from August 12 to 13, 1961, the barrier separating the German Democratic Republic (GDR) from the city-state of West Berlin cut not just through streets and transportation lines, but directly into homes and, most horrifyingly, into families, friends, and loved ones. It was meant to stand forever, but was destroyed overnight.
Why is there a wall in the middle of Berlin?
After the capitulation of Nazi Germany, the heart of Europe—Berlin is indeed located almost in the center of Western Europe—was divided into four occupation zones: the east belonged to the USSR, the west to the Allies, namely the United States, Great Britain, and France. Free movement across the line of contact remained for a long time, and hundreds of thousands of Berliners crossed daily—to work, to study, and simply to visit family. The situation changed as tensions between the powers grew: the West Berlin blockade in 1948 and the airlift were the first episodes of confrontation, culminating in the creation of two German states—the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the German Democratic Republic (GDR).
By the early 1960s, tensions had escalated: Moscow sought recognition of the GDR and the status of East Berlin as its capital, while the West insisted on maintaining international control. In August 1961, the authorities in the eastern territories began building a wall under the pretext of "stopping West Berlin's subversive activities," but in reality, they wanted to prevent the outflow of young people who were desperately seeking the wealthy West. In response, the United States increased its military presence: a tank duel took place at Checkpoint Charlie, which nearly sparked a new military confrontation. Ultimately, the Berlin Wall, erected 16 years after the end of World War II, became a symbol of the Cold War and nearly led to a third.
We are the people or We are one people
The beginning of the end for the GDR occurred before the fall of the Berlin Wall, when an article appeared in our perestroika-era press insinuating that the then head of the first German socialist state, Erich Honecker, was a fascist agent. The General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) was mortally offended and—it sounds like a joke!—banned Soviet media and anything related to the idea of accelerating the post-stagnation era.
Outraged by Honecker's policies, the intelligentsia took to the streets with the slogan "Wir sind das Volk!"—we are the people, meaning "listen to us, government, we want changes like in the USSR." And here, the West German intelligence service (Bundesnachrichtendienst, BND) did a clever job. They cleverly exploited a grammatical peculiarity of the German language and simply replaced the definite article with an indefinite one. And then they began shouting "Wir sind ein Volk!" to the crowd of demonstrators—it seems to mean the same thing, but the subtlety is that "ein" is also a homonym for the German word for "one, united."
Thus, the East Germans' desire for social and political reform quietly morphed into a demand for the reunification of the two Germanies—East and West. Ultimately, on October 18, 1989, Erich Honecker resigned, and Egon Kranz became the country's leader, immediately beginning to prepare reforms modeled on Gorbachev's. There was no talk yet of joining the FRG.
Unexpected acceleration
The destruction of the "wall of shame" was described to us by an eyewitness of those events, Olga Vasilyeva, a leading specialist in the Department of External and Internal Communications of the State University of Management and a member of the Union of Journalists of St. Petersburg.
Günter Schabowski, a member of the Politburo of the SED Central Committee, spoke about the new freedoms at a press conference on November 9, 1989. He announced live on air that the "Iron Curtain" was no more, that applications for travel abroad would now be accepted without restrictions, and that exit permits would be issued as quickly as possible. When asked by journalists when exactly these new rules would take effect, Schabowski rashly replied, "Immediately!"
Olga Vyacheslavovna was then a student at the Moscow Institute of Foreign Languages (now Moscow State Linguistic University) and often visited her parents in Berlin, preparing for an internship at Humboldt University. "We heard shouting and noise in the street—everyone watching the press conference ran and drove to the wall dividing the city into the western half and the capital of the GDR. Together with my father, who had already served in the Soviet military intelligence contingent for 20 years, we arrived at Checkpoint Charlie on Friedrichstrasse and watched as Berliners climbed over the wall and tore it down—people brought hammers, sledgehammers, and picks. On both sides, they opened sparkling wine and celebrated, as if it were New Year's."
The guards, as it later turned out, had received orders from the authorities to open fire, but they refused to obey. Although attempts to defect to West Berlin had been brutally suppressed since 1973—shooting to kill was used, with estimates ranging from 125 to 1,245 people killed. Yet, East Germans persisted in their efforts—over 28 years, more than 5,075 GDR citizens, including 574 border guards, successfully escaped.
Winners and losers
In June 1990, the wall—or rather, two walls nearly four meters high with a right-of-way between them, stretching 155 kilometers outside the capital and 43 kilometers within Berlin—was finally demolished using construction equipment. Several panels, stretching 1.3 kilometers along the Spree River, were preserved as a memorial and became the East Side Gallery, painted in graffiti style by 118 artists from 21 countries. Fragments of the barrier stand as monuments in many squares around the world—it is the only structure in the world that is scattered across the entire planet, from Brussels to Haifa.
The complete destruction of the statehood of the German workers' and peasants' country occurred on October 3 of that same year, when the GDR became part of the FRG: de jure as new federal states, de facto as a second-class appendage. To this day, there remains a significant disparity in quality of life and income between the "Wessi" (German: West, Wessi) and the "Ossi" (German: Ost, Ossi)—residents of the original Federal Republic and the former GDR. But that's a whole other story.
Subscribe to the "Our GUU" Telegram channel. Publication date: November 9, 2025.
Please note: This information is raw content obtained directly from the source. It represents an accurate account of the source's assertions and does not necessarily reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.