The Wall

after 13. August 1961

In the night of 13. August 1961 the army of the GDR closed all border crossings from East Berlin into West Berlin and construction workers threw up this wall which divided the city, which was already an island surrounded entirely by Communist East Germany and protected by the Red Army. For a photo of this event click here. The GDR called it the "wall of peace" which protected the German Democratic Republic and the freedom-loving, socialist peoples of eastern Europe from what they saw as a resurgent, militaristic, fascistic West Germany backed by the war-mongering United States and its NATO puppet states.

In the night of 9. November 1989, East Berliners culminated a general breakdown of the Communist system throughout the German Democratic Republic and eastern Europe in general. For a photo of the celebration that occured when East and West Berliners joined hands on top of the Wall, click here.

To begin a photo tour of Berlin, then and now click on the photo above and continue through the slide show by clicking on the subsequent photos.