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Berlin Wall

The Berlin Wall (1961-1989) was a guarded, concrete wall between West Berlin (controlled by the Western Allies) and East Berlin (the Soviet sector of Berlin and the capital of East Germany). It was constructed by East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic, and was described by its government as a barrier protecting its people from “fascist elements.” The Berlin Wall closed off the population flow between East Germany and West Germany. Between 1949 and 1961 about 2.5 million East Germans had fled to the West. By the 1980s the Wall, including electrified fences and fortifications, extended 28 miles (45 km) through Berlin and a further 75 miles (120 km) around West Berlin. It came to physically symbolize the Iron Curtain that separated Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War. The Berlin Wall was demolished in 1989 as a result of the wave of democratization in East Europe, and was followed by the unification of Germany in 1990.
 

 

KHRUSHCHEV THREATS

THE WALL GOES UP

THE WALL FALLS

 
 

SOVIETS IN BERLIN

EVEN SANTA

WORKERS ARISE

 
 

DESTROYING PEACE

Conrad Schumann was immortalized in this photograph as he leapt across the barricade that would become the Berlin Wall. The photo was called “The Leap into Freedom”. It became an iconic image of the Cold War.

THE LEAP INTO FREEDOM

East German soldier helps a little boy sneak across the Berlin Wall, August 13, 1961.

SOLDIER HELPS LITTLE BOY

 
 
West Berlin citizens hold a vigil atop the Berlin Wall in front of the Brandenburg Gate on November 10, 1989, the day after the East German government opened the border between East and West Berlin.

VIGIL ATOP THE BERLIN WALL

East German VOPO, a quasi-military border policeman using binoculars, standing guard on one of the bridges linking East and West Berlin, in 1961.

EAST GERMAN VOPO WITH BINOCULARS

A woman and child walk beside a section of the Berlin Wall.

WOMAN WITH CHILD

 
 
Reverend Martin Luther King, American civil rights leader, invited to Berlin by West Berlin Mayor Willy Brandt, visits the wall on September 13, 1964, at the border Potsdamer Platz in West Berlin.

MARTIN LUTHER KING

Two East Berliners jump across border barriers on the Eastern side of border checkpoint at Chaussee Street in Berlin in April of 1989. They were stopped by gun wielding East German border guards and arrested while trying to escape into West Berlin. People in the foreground, still in East Berlin, wait for permits to visit the West.

A JUMP ACROSS THE BORDER

An East Berlin border guard, cigarette in mouth, points his pistol to the scene where two East Germans were led away after failing to escape to the west at Berlin border crossing Chausseestrasse. Eyewitnesses reported the guard also fired shots.

EAST GERMAN GUARD

 
 
A man hammers away at the Berlin Wall on November 12, 1989 as the border barrier between East and West Germany was torn down.

THE WALL IS TORN DOWN

West Berliners crowd in front of the Berlin Wall early November 11, 1989 as they watch East German border guards demolishing a section of the wall in order to open a new crossing point between East and West Berlin, near the Potsdamer Square.

THE WALL FALLS

East and West German Police try to contain the crowd of East Berliners flowing through the recent opening made in the Berlin wall at Potsdamer Square, on November 12, 1989.

EAST AND WEST GERMAN POLICE

MEETING ON THE ELBE

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This website was produced by the Center for Slavic, Eurasian and East European Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

This project is sponsored in part by the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Eastern Region Program, coordinated by Waynesburg University.

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