58th Anniversary of the construction of the BERLIN WALL. The day the divided city truly became the “Divided City”. Prior to August 13, 1961 and after July 4, 1945, an ideological line divided the city into four parts; the US Sector, the British Sector, French Sector, and the Soviet Sector (East Berlin).
Under the leadership of the Soviet Union, the East German Communist Government began creating and actual barrier separating the three western sectors from the eastern sector of the once great city of Berlin as well as, Germany itself. As part of the Yalta Agreement, the city was to be occupied by the victorious allies of World War II. About two months after the end of the war in Europe, the US and British forces took over their respective sectors of Western Berlin. The French took over their sector a little later.
Between the middle of 1945, through the Berlin Blockade of 1948 to 1949, and on to the building of the Berlin Wall, there was a huge drain of the population that left the east to the west (Berlin and Germany). Fed up with the “Brain Drain” and the Western Forces refusal to leave Berlin, the East Germans began construction to prevent the citizens of East Germany from fleeing the nation.
Then from August 13, 1961 until November 9, 1989 (28 years later) there was even orders to shoot to kill any citizen of East German that attempted to cross the “Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart” (German: Antifaschistischer Schutzwall). While it is estimated that over 5,000 people successfully made it to West Berlin, at least 140 deaths also occurred.
The wall designed to keep its citizen in eventually fell on the evening of November 9, 1989. The two German nations united on October 3, 1990 and all the members of the Occupation Forces of Berlin departed the city four years later in 1994.
That’s change for you…