It all began in 1945, at the end of World War II, when the Allies had divided Germany and its capital, Berlin, into four occupation zones. The eastern part of the country went to the Soviet Union, while the western part went to the United States, Great Britain and eventually, France.
To prevent the migration phenomenon and to control the eastern part, Nikita Khrushchev, Stalin's successor at the helm of the USSR, proposed and applied a fateful solution for this so-called "problem" –building the Berlin Wall. It commenced on August 13, 1961. The wall was stretching for about 103 mile, with 300 surveillance towers, with an armed guard who had the right to shoot anyone would have seemed suspect. Throughout its existence, the Wall has experienced …show more content…
The people who had the "right" to cross the border were restricted to a fairly low number. Thus, those who benefited from this were pensioners, persons visiting their relatives or people they crossed the border for work, such as musicians, truck drivers, artists, writers, etc. However, the escape from East Germany was not impossible. Even though at least 117 people were killed, fugitives managed to cross the border by jumping out of windows adjacent to the wall, climbing over the barbed wire, flying in hot air balloons, crawling through the sewers and driving through unfortified parts of the wall at high speeds.
After 28 years from the construction of the Wall, a series of protests have erupted across the East Germany in November 1989. On the 4th of the month, 500,000 people protested in East Berlin, their action lead immediately the significant growth of migrants from the east to the west.
On November 9, 1989, the head of the East German Communist Party, Günter Schabowski, announced that citizens of the Eastern Germany could cross the border whenever they pleased. In the days that followed, people from both sides came with sledge hammers to break a piece of the wall and keep it as a
To prevent the migration phenomenon and to control the eastern part, Nikita Khrushchev, Stalin's successor at the helm of the USSR, proposed and applied a fateful solution for this so-called "problem" –building the Berlin Wall. It commenced on August 13, 1961. The wall was stretching for about 103 mile, with 300 surveillance towers, with an armed guard who had the right to shoot anyone would have seemed suspect. Throughout its existence, the Wall has experienced …show more content…
The people who had the "right" to cross the border were restricted to a fairly low number. Thus, those who benefited from this were pensioners, persons visiting their relatives or people they crossed the border for work, such as musicians, truck drivers, artists, writers, etc. However, the escape from East Germany was not impossible. Even though at least 117 people were killed, fugitives managed to cross the border by jumping out of windows adjacent to the wall, climbing over the barbed wire, flying in hot air balloons, crawling through the sewers and driving through unfortified parts of the wall at high speeds.
After 28 years from the construction of the Wall, a series of protests have erupted across the East Germany in November 1989. On the 4th of the month, 500,000 people protested in East Berlin, their action lead immediately the significant growth of migrants from the east to the west.
On November 9, 1989, the head of the East German Communist Party, Günter Schabowski, announced that citizens of the Eastern Germany could cross the border whenever they pleased. In the days that followed, people from both sides came with sledge hammers to break a piece of the wall and keep it as a