Divided Berlin
How did Berlin come to be a divided city after the war? Find out about the Wall and escape
stories connected with it (1961-1989). Then watch this short video:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=LdZVsFjWnbI&feature=related
Write a short voice-over, commenting on the pictures.
How did Berlin come to be a divided city? It is impossible to understand this without
understanding the factors which led to the division of Germany after World War II
Germany in the aftermath of World War II
The fall of Berlin in April 1945 marked the end of World War II in Europe. At the Potsdam
conference in July/August 1945 the division of Germany into four zones occupied by the four
Allied powers France, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States was confirmed.
Berlin, situated deep in the middle of the zone occupied by the Soviet Union, was divided into
four sectors and was granted Four-Power Status which meant that each of the four allied powers
had equal rights in the city: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Occupied_Berlin.svg
It was also decided that the most important goals to be achieved in Germany should be denazification, de-militarisation and democratisation.
The Division of Germany and Berlin
Growing tensions between the Soviet Union and the three western Allies culminated in the
failure of the Allied Control Council which had attempted a Four-Power rule over Germany. One
factor was that the Soviet Union introduced a very different economic strategy for its zone by
abolishing private ownership of industries and land on the basis of communist principles. By
contrast, the three western Allies supported policies which would allow Germany to recover
economically and stabilise politically. The Marshall Plan
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/mwh/ir2/trumandoctrineandmarshallplanrev1.s
html aided economic recovery and the Berlin Airlift
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/mwh/ir2/berlinblockaderev1.shtml
secured free access from West Germany to West Berlin.
It was already clear then that the integration of the three western zones (later the Federal
Republic of Germany) into a western political structure (ultimately NATO) could only be achieved
through the division of Germany into East and West Germany. In 1949, the Federal Republic of
Germany was founded, by politically uniting the western (British, American and French) zones.
In the same year, the German Democratic Republic was founded in the eastern zone controlled
by the Soviets and, though nominally independent, remained a satellite state of the Soviet Union
until 1989. In 1952, the borders between East and West Germany were closed, as was the
border between West Berlin and East Germany, but since Berlin remained under the FourPower Status, the border between East and West Berlin stayed open until 1961.
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The years between 1949 and 1961 saw a tightening of communist rule in East Germany. In
1953, riots by East German building workers against working conditions were suppressed by the
Red Army, and with ever-increasing border travel restrictions from East to West the GDR hoped
to stem the growing numbers of East Germans who wanted to leave the GDR for life in the west.
By 1961, around 20% of the GDR’s population had managed to escape, leaving the state facing
economic ruin. But even as late as 15 June 1961 Walter Ulbricht, then General Secretary of the
leading Socialist Party (SED), said to journalists that no-one was thinking of erecting a wall; he
implied, however, that measures would be taken to stem the flood of refugees from East to
West.
The building of the Wall in Berlin: a symbol of the Cold War
The building of the wall began on 13 August 1961, in the middle of the holiday season and at a
weekend. First, there were only stones and barbed wire, soldiers and armoured military
vehicles. One photo went around the world on 15 August, of Conrad Schumann, who became
the first East German soldier defecting to the West: jumping over the barbed wire to freedom.
But soon the wire grew into a wall built solidly with concrete blocks, with a ‘death zone’ behind it,
patrols with dogs, guns and shoot to kill orders guarding it day and night. Watchtowers were
dotted along it. The Wall went through residential areas where apartment houses were
evacuated and were either pulled down or had their windows looking out over the west blocked.
The “Wall” became a powerful symbol of the Cold War between the two superpowers that
politically divided the world. In Berlin, the Soviets and the US Americans eyed each other most
coldly across an inhumane frontier. In everyday life, it cruelly divided friends and families:
Germans, all or most of them, caught up in post-war world politics.
In 1962, a young East German, Peter Fechter, was shot trying to climb the Wall, and died
entangled in barbed wire, still on GDR territory, watched by the world’s media. The East
German border guards would not help him, and no-one from the west could, without risking their
own lives. http://www.berlin.de/mauer/gedenkstaetten/peter_fechter/index.en.php
In the following decades many East Germans lost their lives trying to escape to the west from
communist GDR. They jumped from buildings bordering on the wall into the West, they dug
tunnels, came hidden in the boot of a car, flew with rickety contraptions over the border – they
were very inventive when it came to finding ways of escaping from a regime which they
perceived as harsh and inhumane. Some of these events are reflected in this You Tube film:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=LdZVsFjWnbI&feature=related
“Berlin Wall 1961 – 1989”
The film starts off with showing facts and figures on the Wall, typed out on a black background in
a rickety font suggestive of script written on an old-fashioned typewriter of the sixties. Does this
mean to imply some kind of authenticity or is this just used to create a kind of period
atmosphere? A little internet research shows the figures must be taken from this web-page:
http://www.dailysoft.com/berlinwall/history/facts_01.htm. It is difficult to verify these figures
without extensive research, but the sources cited on this web page seem to be reliable. But
even reliable sources may become outdated. A more recent article suggests, for example, that
the number of people killed at the Wall was actually much higher than the 192 cited here, that it
was actually more than a thousand: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1673538,00.html
There is no voice-over, the facts and figures are meant to speak for themselves, and so are the
pictures. We see the wall being built, breeze blocks being put one on top of each other,
windows blocked up with bricks, mortar oozing out from between them. We see barbed wire,
armed border guards and armoured vehicles; we see Berliners waving to each other, a little girl
wiping away tears, on her face a curious expression of resentment. We see people gazing from
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East to West or from West to East, waving handkerchiefs, a man jumping from a window into a
safety blanket, we see signs warning of mines, a woman caught in barbed wire, struggling free,
running, being helped by others. We see the shocked face of a border-guard as an unnamed
runaway is carried away from the Wall, after he had been caught in barbed wire, unable to
escape. He looks dead, but is he? We see people standing in silence, a bell ringing, a memorial
stone to an unknown refugee. Then we are told there was a special day in November 1989, and
an official looking man reads out something on a GDR news Channel (DDR1), followed by
pictures of people talking to border guards at night, crowds surging forward, people dancing,
waving their hands, clearly jubilant. Crowds and border guards mingling, the German flag being
waved and people standing and dancing on the Wall. Then people hammering at the Wall, a
large block of the Wall being toppled over, and in the end a jubilant crowd and fireworks in front
of the Brandenburg Gate: clearly a night of glory, a historic moment.
How are we affected by the film?
Even if we had no idea what the Berlin Wall was meant to be and why it was there, the message
is clear; this was a shocking inhumane border, very painful for normal everyday people to live
with, a death-trap: this was wrong. The footage seems to be authentic – we see “Landesarchiv
Berlin” on the screen. But we have no way of understanding why the wall was built and what
made it come down. We don’t know who the people in the film are (who is the young man
carried away by border guards? Who is the official-looking man reading something out on GDR
television?). What the images in this film elicit is an emotional response, and a very clear one:
we are meant to feel horror, pity, outrage and then relief, joy, jubilation. This film doesn’t teach
us historical facts, it makes us feel something about the human side of historical circumstance
and political change.
Our emotions are also stirred by the sound-track: “Wind of Change” by the German pop group
“The Scorpions” http://www.the-scorpions.com/coppermine/index.php, a version with prelude
played by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, which underscores the parade of facts and figures
at the start of the film, perhaps giving weight and credence to what we see on the screen. Once
the lyrics start, though, uninformed viewers could get very confused. The song clearly talks of
another place than Berlin, in fact it’s Moscow, we hear about the river Moskva and Gorky Park, a
well-known landmark. Later on, the balalaika, a Russian instrument, is mentioned. But what we
see on screen is not Moscow, but Berlin.
The song is easy on the ear, the tune quickly remembered and emotionally soothing, nonaggressive, peaceful. It talks of children dreaming and a “glory night”, of “the magic of the
moment” http://www.elyrics.net/read/s/scorpions-lyrics/wind-of-change-lyrics.html . The
message the song wants to convey is clear: the wind of change is blowing, political change is in
the air. The change we see in the film at first is indeed dramatic change, but clearly not a
change for the better: a wall is being built, dividing peoples’ lives. The change for the better
happens only at the end of the film. It seems that the song was chosen as a soundtrack not
because it reflects what happens in most of the film, but because it prepares the viewers
emotionally for the fact that something better is to come.
Also, the song has a history of its own which viewers may or may not be aware of. It was written
shortly after the Wall came down, in 1990, inspired by a visit to Moscow by “the Scorpions” in
1989, and became an international hit in 1991. In 2005 the Germans voted it “song of the
century” and it is often used on TV when footage of the fall of the Berlin Wall is shown.
Germans know it also as the “song of reunification” and connect the phrase “wind of change” up
with the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the end of the Cold War. Clearly this is why
the maker of the You Tube film chose it as the soundtrack, not because it tells us something
relevant, but because it has become associated with a momentous event in German history and
as such elicits particular emotions.
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Going further
Milestone events which contributed to the fall of the Wall
President JF Kennedy’s speech in front of the Rathaus Schöneberg on 26 June 1963 is seen as
an important landmark in the politics which would eventually lead to a thawing out of relations
between East and West. In this speech, Kennedy draws on an historical analogy between the
citizens of the Roman Empire and the citizens of Berlin. Roman citizens remained Roman
citizens wherever they were, retaining the rights granted to them through that citizenship; the
words ‘civis Romanus sum’ (on Kennedy’s memory card:
(http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/american_originals/kennedy.html), meaning “I am a Roman
citizen” had enormous weight. In the same way, Kennedy says, Berliners are citizens of the free
West, with all the rights of a free citizen of the West. And as he counts himself in, he sees
himself also as a citizen of Berlin: “Ich bin ein Berliner”. It is touching to see that he had to write
the phrase out phonetically: Ish bin ein Bearleener” so as to pronounce it right.
More than two decades later, another US president came to Berlin, Ronald Reagan. On 12
June 1987, he gave a speech in front of the Brandenburg Gate which became later known as
the ‘Tear down this Wall’ speech. With an impassioned appeal he addressed the then leader of
the Soviet Union, Michael Gorbachev whom he had come to know personally: “Mr Gorbachev,
open this gate. Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” This happened, as we know, not
immediately, as this You Tube film suggests by rolling the two events into one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbE_9MdASDE&feature=related, but two years later.
Which events actually led to the opening of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989?
With the communist rule crumbling in Eastern Europe, things began to change. Throughout the
summer of 1989, East German citizens had been able to cross into the West through the newly
opened frontier between Hungary and Austria and also via the German Embassy in Prague.
A series of peaceful demonstrations, always on a Monday, had gathered GDR citizens together
in protest against travel restrictions. As the GDR authorities no longer had any way of stemming
the flood of citizens leaving, it gave permission for them to cross to the West. Crowds gathered
at the border posts in East Berlin after East Berlin's Communist party spokesman, Gunther
Schabowski announced this at a press conference in East Berlin, and then no-one could hold
them back any more.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/9/newsid_2515000/2515869.stm
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