Construction of the Berlin Wall (1961): A City Divided Overnight

The construction of the Berlin Wall began on 13 August 1961, when East German soldiers, police and militia sealed the border between East and West Berlin overnight with barbed wire and roadblocks. Over the following days and months the barriers were replaced with concrete walls, watchtowers and a guarded “death strip”. Built to stop the mass flight of East Germans to the West, the wall divided the city for 28 years and became the most famous symbol of the Cold War.

Background: an open door in a divided city

After the Second World War, Germany and Berlin were divided into four occupation zones. In 1949 the Western zones became the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and the Soviet zone the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). Berlin, deep inside East German territory, remained under four-power status: West Berlin was tied to West Germany, while East Berlin became the GDR’s capital. The Berlin Airlift of 1948–49 had already shown how contested the city was.

East Germany closed its main border with West Germany in 1952, but within Berlin people could still cross between sectors by foot, tram or the underground. West Berlin became the main escape hatch. Around 2.7 million people left East Germany between 1949 and August 1961, according to commonly cited figures, many of them young, educated and skilled: doctors, engineers, teachers and workers. After the crushing of the East German uprising of 1953 and the collectivisation of agriculture in 1960, the outflow grew.

Causes: the Berlin crisis of 1958–61

In November 1958 Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev demanded that the Western powers leave West Berlin and turn it into a “free city”, threatening to hand control of access routes to East Germany. The crisis dragged on, and at the Vienna summit with President John F. Kennedy in June 1961 Khrushchev renewed his ultimatum.

The East German leader, Walter Ulbricht, had for months urged Moscow to let him close the Berlin sector border. At a press conference on 15 June 1961 he answered a question from a West German journalist with the now famous words “Nobody has the intention of building a wall”. The flight only increased: about 30,000 people left in July 1961 alone.

On 25 July Kennedy declared in a televised speech that the United States would defend its rights in West Berlin, including its presence there and free access to the city, but said little about East Berlin. Moscow read this as a sign that a border closure within Berlin would not lead to war. In early August, at a meeting of Warsaw Pact leaders in Moscow, Khrushchev gave Ulbricht the go-ahead.

What happened on 13 August

Planning was handled in great secrecy by Erich Honecker, then the party secretary responsible for security. Barbed wire, posts and other materials had been stockpiled in advance. On the evening of 12 August Ulbricht signed the orders, and shortly after midnight on Sunday 13 August units of the Volkspolizei (People’s Police), border police, the factory militia known as the Combat Groups of the Working Class and soldiers of the National People’s Army began closing the border. Soviet forces stood by in the background.

The operation was presented by the East German government as a defensive measure. A decree published that morning spoke of protecting the GDR against “aggressive” and “revanchist” forces in West Germany and West Berlin, and East German citizens were told that they would now need special permission to cross into West Berlin.

Within hours, roads were torn up, barbed wire was strung along the sector boundary and most crossing points were shut. S-Bahn and U-Bahn connections between the two halves of the city were cut, and stations on the border were closed. Berliners woke to find themselves separated from relatives, friends, jobs and schools across the street. On 12 August alone about 2,400 people had crossed to the West; within days the flow fell to a trickle of desperate escapes.

From barbed wire to concrete

From 15 August construction crews began replacing the wire with walls of concrete blocks and hollow blocks, topped with barbed wire, under armed guard. In Bernauer Strasse, where the fronts of houses formed the border, residents jumped from windows into West Berlin until the doors and windows were bricked up. The famous photograph of the young border guard Conrad Schumann leaping over the wire to the West was taken there on 15 August.

The first deaths came soon. On 22 August Ida Siekmann died after jumping from her window in Bernauer Strasse, and on 24 August Günter Litfin became the first person shot dead by border guards while trying to swim across a canal near the Reichstag. Over the following years the system was steadily extended: a second inner wall, a cleared strip with patrol roads, lights, watchtowers, dog runs and alarm fences. The final “fourth-generation” wall of prefabricated concrete slabs was introduced from 1975.

Key people

• Walter Ulbricht (1893–1973), leader of the East German Socialist Unity Party, who pressed for the border closure.
• Erich Honecker (1912–1994), Central Committee secretary for security, who organised the operation and later led East Germany.
• Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971), Soviet leader, who approved the closure.
• John F. Kennedy (1917–1963), US President, who protested but accepted the wall rather than risk war.
• Willy Brandt (1913–1992), Governing Mayor of West Berlin, who demanded a strong Western response.

For ordinary Berliners the division was a personal catastrophe. Families were split, couples separated and tens of thousands of East Berliners who had commuted to jobs in West Berlin lost them overnight. West Berliners were soon barred from visiting the East; only after the first pass agreement at Christmas 1963 could many of them see relatives again, and then only for a few days.

People tried every means of escape: jumping from windows, swimming canals, crashing vehicles through barriers, hiding in cars and digging tunnels under the border. Many succeeded in the early months, but each escape led to further strengthening of the defences, and guards were under orders to stop escapes, if necessary by shooting.

Western reaction

West Berliners were shocked and angry, and many felt abandoned by the Western powers, whose first response was slow and limited to diplomatic protests. Willy Brandt wrote to Kennedy urging action. The West German chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, campaigning for an election, did not visit Berlin until 22 August, which damaged his standing.

Kennedy concluded that the wall, unpleasant as it was, was less dangerous than a war: it confirmed the division of the city but did not threaten Western access to West Berlin. To reassure Berliners he sent Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson and General Lucius Clay, the hero of the airlift, to the city, and ordered a US Army battle group of about 1,500 men to drive along the autobahn to West Berlin, where it arrived on 20 August. Tension peaked in October, when American and Soviet tanks faced each other at Checkpoint Charlie (see Checkpoint Charlie standoff).

By the numbers

Myths and facts

• Myth: The wall was built in a single night. On 13 August the border was closed with barbed wire, fences and troops. The first concrete wall went up in the days that followed, and the fortifications were rebuilt and expanded for decades.
• Myth: The wall was built to keep Westerners out. East Germany officially called it the “Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart”, but its purpose and layout, with guards facing inward and orders to stop escapes, show that it was meant to keep East Germans in.
• Fact: Western access was never cut. Unlike in 1948, the Soviets did not block Western traffic to West Berlin, which is one reason the Western powers did not try to remove the wall.

Timeline

• 1958, 27 November: Khrushchev issues his Berlin ultimatum.
• 1961, 4 June: Khrushchev repeats his demands to Kennedy at the Vienna summit.
• 1961, 15 June: Ulbricht says nobody intends to build a wall.
• 1961, 25 July: Kennedy’s televised speech on Berlin.
• 1961, 3–5 August: Warsaw Pact leaders meet in Moscow and approve the closure.
• 1961, 13 August: The sector border is sealed with barbed wire and troops.
• 1961, 15 August: Concrete construction begins; Conrad Schumann escapes.
• 1961, 20 August: A US battle group arrives in West Berlin.
• 1961, 24 August: Günter Litfin is the first person shot dead trying to escape.
• 1961, 27–28 October: US and Soviet tanks face off at Checkpoint Charlie.

Why it matters

The Berlin Wall stopped the drain of people that threatened East Germany’s survival and stabilised the GDR for almost three decades, but at a great human cost and as a public admission that the regime could keep its citizens only by force. It froze the division of Germany and Europe into concrete. When it was opened on 9 November 1989 (see fall of the Berlin Wall), its collapse became the defining image of the end of the Cold War.