Berlin Wall

The Berlin Wall
From the West Berlin side, Berlin Wall graffiti art in 1986. The Wall's "death strip", on the east side of the Wall, here follows the curve of the Luisenstadt Canal (filled in 1932).
The Wall and its checkpoints
General information
Type	Wall
Country	East Germany East Berlin; see History of Berlin for further info
Coordinates	52°30′16″N 13°26′28″E / 52.50444°N 13.44111°E / 52.50444; 13.44111
Construction started	13 August 1961
Demolished	9 November 1989 – 1994; 30 years ago (1994)[1]
Dimensions
Other dimensions	Border length around West Berlin: 155 km (96 mi) Border length between West Berlin and East Germany: 111.9 km (69.5 mi) Border length between West and East Berlin: 43.1 km (26.8 mi) Border length through residential areas in East Berlin: 37 km (23 mi) Concrete segment of wall height: 3.6 m (11.8 ft) Concrete segment of wall length: 106 km (66 mi) Wire mesh fencing: 66.5 km (41.3 mi) Anti-vehicle trenches length: 105.5 km (65.6 mi) Contact/signal fence length: 127.5 km (79.2 mi) Column track width: 7 m (7.7 yd) Column track length: 124.3 km (77.2 mi) Number of watch towers: 302 Number of bunkers: 20
Technical details
Size	155 km (96.3 mi)

This article is part of a series about Walter Ulbricht
Personal life Cult of personality Early political career Communist Party of Germany German Revolution of 1918–1919 Murder of Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck Ulbricht Group Merger of the KPD and SPD German Economic Commission Comecon First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party SED 1950 1954 1958 1963 1967 1971 Government and policies Constitution of East Germany 1949 1968 National Front of the GDR New Course 1953 uprising Creation of the LPG Warsaw Pact State Council Berlin Wall New Economic System Economic System of Socialism Legacy Ulbricht Doctrine Ostpolitik Erich Honecker Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde Family Lotte Ulbricht Beate Ulbricht
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Eastern Bloc
Republics of the USSR Armenia Azerbaijan Byelorussia Estonia Georgia Kazakhstan Kirghizia Latvia Lithuania Moldavia Russia Tajikistan Turkmenia Ukraine Uzbekistan
Allied and satellite states Afghanistan Albania (until 1961) Angola Benin Bulgaria China (until 1961) Congo Cuba Czechoslovakia East Germany Ethiopia Grenada Hungary Kampuchea Laos Mongolia Mozambique North Korea Poland (until 1989) Romania Somalia (until 1977) South Yemen Vietnam (North Vietnam, PRG) Yugoslavia (until 1948)
Related organizations Warsaw Pact Comecon Cominform World Federation of Trade Unions World Federation of Democratic Youth
Dissent and opposition Anti-Soviet partisans Albania Bulgaria Croatia Poland Romania Serbia Ukraine Guerrilla war in the Baltic states Soviet occupation Estonia Latvia Lithuania Operation Jungle Protests and uprisings Poland 1944–1989 Poznań 1956 1980–89 Plzeň 1953 East Germany 1953 Georgia 1956 Hungary 1956 Novocherkassk 1962 Prague 1968 Invasion Moscow Czechoslovakia 1976–90 Romania 1977 Kazakhstan 1986 Brașov 1987 Tbilisi 1989 Ukraine 1989–1991 Baku 1990 Lithuania 1991 Riga 1991
Cold War events Marshall Plan Czechoslovak coup Tito–Stalin split Berlin Blockade Korean War Secret Speech Sino-Soviet split Albanian–Soviet split De-satellization of the Socialist Republic of Romania Berlin Wall Cuban Missile Crisis Vietnam War Cuban intervention in Angola Afghan War 1980 Moscow Olympics 1984 Los Angeles Olympics Gulf War
Fall Singing Revolution Polish Round Table Agreement Revolutions of 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall January Events Barricades in Latvia Breakup of Yugoslavia Yugoslav Wars End of the Soviet Union Post-Soviet conflicts Fall of communism in Albania Dissolution of Czechoslovakia
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The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer, pronounced [bɛʁˌliːnɐ ˈmaʊɐ] ^ⓘ) was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; West Germany) from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the German Democratic Republic (GDR; East Germany).^[a][1][3] Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government of the GDR on 13 August 1961. It included guard towers placed along large concrete walls,^[4] accompanied by a wide area (later known as the "death strip") that contained anti-vehicle trenches, beds of nails and other defenses. The primary intention for the Wall's construction was to prevent East German citizens from fleeing to the West.^[5]

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 (German: Antifaschistischer Schutzwall, pronounced [antifaˌʃɪstɪʃɐ ˈʃʊtsval] ^ⓘ). The West Berlin city government sometimes referred to it as the "Wall of Shame", a term coined by mayor Willy Brandt in reference to the Wall's restriction on freedom of movement.^[6] Along with the separate and much longer inner German border, which demarcated the border between East and West Germany, it came to symbolize physically the Iron Curtain that separated the Western Bloc and Soviet satellite states of the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.^[7]

Before the Wall's erection, 3.5 million East Germans circumvented Eastern Bloc emigration restrictions and defected from the GDR, many by crossing over the border from East Berlin into West Berlin; from there they could then travel to West Germany and to other Western European countries. Between 1961 and 1989, the Wall prevented almost all such emigration.^[8] During this period, over 100,000^[9] people attempted to escape, and over 5,000 people succeeded in escaping over the Wall, with an estimated death toll of those murdered by East German authorities ranging from 136^[10] to more than 200^[7][11] in and around Berlin.

In 1989, a series of revolutions in nearby Eastern Bloc countries—in Poland and Hungary in particular—caused a chain reaction in East Germany.^[12] In particular, the Pan-European Picnic in August 1989 set in motion a peaceful development during which the Iron Curtain largely broke, the rulers in the East came under pressure to cease their repressive policies, the Berlin Wall fell and finally the Eastern Bloc collapsed.^[13][14][15] After several weeks of civil unrest, the East German government announced on 9 November 1989 that all GDR citizens could visit the FRG and West Berlin. Crowds of East Germans crossed and climbed onto the Wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere. Over the next few weeks, souvenir hunters chipped away parts of the Wall.^[7] The Brandenburg Gate, a few meters from the Berlin Wall, was opened on 22 December 1989. The demolition of the Wall officially began on 13 June 1990 and was completed in 1994.^[1] The fall of the Berlin Wall paved the way for German reunification, which formally took place on 3 October 1990.^[7]

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