47 things you didn't know about the Berlin Wall
1. It was built while Germany slept, in one night , between August 12 and 13, 1961.
two. East Germany began by closing the checkpoints, leaving only 12 open, and erecting a temporary wall.
3. August 13 became a 155 kilometer fence.
Four. The construction was carried out under the armed surveillance of the GDR defense forces: Volkspolizei, border police, National People's Army and brigades (it is estimated that more than 14,500 troops ) .
5. The wall also went “underground”, creating a kind of ghost stations (but packed with GDR military) as the GDR could not stop the circulation of the western lines, but it could block them, creating this empty ride on rails.
Construction of the Wall at the Brandenburg Gate in August 1961
6. The first defector from the GDR was Conrad Schumann , who escaped to the Western side on August 15, 1961, when the wall was still a barbed wire fence.
7. The photographer Peter Leibing captured the moment of the escape that is remembered today in the form of a sculpture on the same section of the wall through which Schumann managed to escape: Bernauer Strasse.
8. It ended up being more than a four meter wall topped by barbed wire and 300 watchtowers: also a moat known as "death strip" , a road through which cars, surveillance dogs and armed soldiers passed.
9. There were three checkpoints, Alpha, Bravo and Charlie . The latter, Checkpoint Charlie, is today an open-air museum that tells the stories of those who tried to cross the wall.
10. To this day, there is still no building in some sections of that “devil's strip”, as in Bernauer Strasse , where there is also a commemorative monolith to the victims who tried to cross without success.
eleven. In Bernauer Strasse the wall ran directly in front of the buildings , a graphic and radical example of how this wall affected the urban layout and families.
Western families waving across the Wall at Bernauer Strasse
12. Here is the plaque dedicated to the oldest victim of the wall, the octogenarian Olga Segler, who jumped from her apartment on Bernauer Strasse to reach the western part.
13. Also the Berlin Wall Memorial , full of plaques that remember the places where epic escapes were attempted.
FILM LEAKS
14. Harry Deterling led what he called the last train to freedom ”Together with seven family members and 19 other citizens: he accelerated the subway car to maximum power and managed to break the wall. They all came out unharmed.
fifteen. The engineer Bernd Boettger built a mini submarine with which he managed to cross the Baltic from Graal-Müritz in the East to Denmark, in 1968.
16. Two couples together with four children built a hot air balloon with sheets, curtains, scraps... and propane pumps that they modified to take flight. They managed to cross on May 3, 1978.
AND MOVIES
17. This balloon getaway inspired the movie night leak .
18. But for a film about the 'wall of shame', the sky over berlin (Der Himmel über Berlin), by Win Wenders, where two angels, Bruno Ganz and Otto Sander , fly over the divided city being only visible to the eyes of the pure of heart.
19. Humor was decisive in portraying the 'two Berlins' as in One two Three, by Billy Wilder, where a communist merchant tries to introduce Coca Cola to the other side of the Iron Curtain.
twenty. Most current Goodbye Lenin , a film in which two sons try to hide from her mother, a fervent communist who has just woken up from a coma, the fall of the wall.
'The sky over Berlin'
twenty-one. Only one raid was allowed since 1962: 100,000 citizens from the west were able to visit their family from the east at the end of the year.
22. But the waters did not calm down. The most numerous (and successful) attempt: 57 people managed to cross through a 150 meter tunnel in October 64.
23. Photography was decisive in showing the horrors of the wall: like the one taken of the young Peter Fecher dying “on the other side of the wall”. It is said that more than 30 shots were heard when he tried to cross it.
Families communicating through the Wall
24. Between the dance of data, the Berlin Public Prosecutor's Office considers that they were 270 people those who fell trying to cross the Wall.
25. The last person who died trying to cross the wall on February 5, 1989 was twentysomething Chris Gueffroy . That same year, on November 9, the fall of the wall would take place.
26. And then there is the case of Rene Seiptius, who tried to cross the wall in 1981 and was injured by GDR bullets. He survived, but continues to appear as "dead" in the lists of deceased, being named in successive tributes to the victims.
27. John F. Kennedy he visited the wall in AD 63 and uttered the famous quote: Ich bin ein Berliner! (I am a Berliner!) as a form of support for citizens on the fifteenth anniversary of the construction of the wall.
28. Years later, in 1987, ronald reagan challenged Gorbachev to tear down the wall with the famous phrase: “Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!".
29. The end of the wall was also nocturnal: on the night of November 9, 1989, after 28 years, the Die Wende , "The change".
The night of the Fall of the Wall
30. The fall of the wall was the result of a mistake : Schabowski, a member of Democratic Germany, responded to an Italian journalist who the union of the two Berlins would be “immediate” , when he actually meant “the next day”. People acted for him.
breaking down the wall
MUSIC, TEACHER
31. A cellist entertained the destruction: the teacher Mstislav Rostropovich, an inhabitant of the West.
32. On Saturday night, 24 hours after the fall of the wall, Nirvana had a concert scheduled during their European tour. Pissed off by the endless traffic without knowing what was happening, they played in front of 227 people, not the expected 600. Shit happens.
33. U2 dedicated their famous Achtung Baby (recorded at the Hansa studios in Berlin, just 450 meters from the Wall) in this time of change (and by the way, of musical rupture of his style).
Times of change
3. 4. Twenty years after the fall of the wall, U2 organized a memorial concert ... The organization had to build 'another wall' to avoid the irruption of fans without tickets.
35. But what really makes an impact is David Hasselhoff's performance on the wall on New Year's Eve '89: a milestone. A near-attempted homicide by a killer flare.
36. Eight months after the fall of the Wall, Roger Waters (of Pink Floyd), Marianne Faithfull, Van Morrison, Scorpions or Cindy Lauper, they reinterpreted the disc TheWall by Pink Floyd.
37. The heavy ballad ** 'Winds of change' by Scorpions**, became a hymn of the time, a hymn to the social and political changes of the moment.
38. In 'Heroes' (the song and the album were recorded at the Hansa), David Bowie sings to a couple separated by the wall.
39. And one entire playlist so you can enjoy the spirit of the fall of the wall.
THE WALL TODAY
40. The trace of the wall is today signposted in a long double line of cobblestones in the streets of Berlin.
41. on the bridge Oberbaumbrucke was one of the border crossings that is remembered today with the artistic work of Thorsten Goldberg, a light installation that reads "Rock, paper or scissors" ( "Stein, Papier, Schere" ) .
42. There are also vestiges of the black history of the wall, such as the wooden cross that lies in the same place where Paul Schultz (18-year-old student) tried to escape Christmas '63 to see his family, between Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg.
43. From dividing countries to becoming a museum of outdoor street art : the Eastside Gallery , on Mühlenstrasse, is the longest surviving section of the wall in Berlin and made canvas.
East Side Gallery, the largest museum of Street Art
44. The first brush stroke was given by the artist Thierry Noir "so as not to go crazy". About 100 more artists followed.
Four. Five. In 2013, David Hasselhoff returned to the charge : this time accompanied by personalities such as **Roger Waters (Pink Floyd) ** to protest against the demolition of part of the wall for real estate purposes.
46. Part of the Berlin Wall is located in New York, at 520 Madison Avenue, in Paley Park.
47. Revenge is always better shooting art : Leonid Brezhnev, former Soviet leader, gives a passionate kiss to his counterpart from the former German Democratic Republic, Erich Honecker. ZAS EN TODA LA BOCA.
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