In 1961, East
Germany erected a wall -- initially barbed wire, eventually concrete --
in the middle of Berlin to prevent its citizens from fleeing the
communist country to West Germany during the height of the Cold War. It
has been reported that 136 people died while trying to escape, but the
total number is unknown. The wall finally came down at the beginning of
November in 1989, part of the reunification of East and West Germany.
Here are images from this past weekend’s recognition of the construction
of the wall 50 years ago, as well as historic images. -- Lloyd Young (30 photos total)
A
nun walks in front of a line of wreaths during the commemoration of the
50th anniversary of the construction of the Berlin Wall at the Berlin
Wall Memorial at Bernauer Strasse in Berlin Aug. 13. Germany marks the
50th anniversary of the day communist East Germany sealed itself off
behind the Wall. Germany had been divided into capitalist western and
communist eastern sectors after the end of World War II. At the height
of tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, the East
German regime started building the wall through the capital on Aug. 13,
1961. (Markus Schreiber/Associated Press)
German
Chancellor Angela Merkel, Berlin's Major Klaus Wowereit, Germany's
President Christian Wulff and Axel Klausmeier, Director of the Berlin
Wall Foundation, lay down floral wreaths during a commemorative ceremony
of the construction of the Berlin Wall at the Bernauer Strasse Memorial
in Berlin on Aug. 13. Berlin marked the 50th anniversary of the
building of the Berlin Wall with a memorial service and a minute of
silence in memory of those who died trying to flee to the West. (Carsten
Koall/AFP/Getty Images) #
A
man took a photo at the Berlin Wall Memorial at Bernauer Strasse in
Berlin, during the commemorative ceremony of the construction of the
Berlin Wall on Aug. 13. Berlin marked the 50th anniversary of the
building of the Berlin Wall with a memorial service and a minute of
silence in memory of those who died trying to flee to the West. (Michele
Tantussi/AFP/Getty Images) #
Sylvia
von Scheidt reacts at the Berlin Wall Memorial at Bernauer Strasse in
Berlin Aug. 13. Germany marks the 50th anniversary of the day communist
East Germany sealed itself off behind the Berlin Wall. Germany had been
divided into capitalist western and communist eastern sectors after the
end of World War II. At the height of tensions between the United States
and the Soviet Union, the East German regime started building the wall
through the capital on Aug. 13, 1961. (Markus Schreiber/Associated
Press) #
A
person walks across the plaque and a line of bricks that show where the
Berlin Wall used to stand at the Berlin Wall memorial site in Bernauer
Strasse, Aug. 9. The German capital is preparing to mark the 50th
anniversary of the building of the Berlin Wall, which was erected on
Aug. 13, 1961. (Thomas Peter/Reuters) #
An
artist performs between iron bars during a rehearsal in Berlin,
Germany, Aug. 8. The performance "Between the bricks" directed by Jo
Parks will be shown during the remembrance celebrations for the 50th
anniversary of the building of the Berlin Wall on Aug. 13. The iron bars
symbolize the Berlin Wall and are set up where the original Wall stood
at the Wall Memorial at Bernauer Strasse. (Markus Schreiber/Associated
Press) #
Defecting
East German soldier Hans Conrad Schumann leaps over a barbed wire
barricade at the Bernauer Street sector into West Berlin on Aug. 15,
1961. Schumann made his break for freedom to join his family which had
fled earlier to West Berlin. Schumann, who was immortalized in this
photograph as he leapt across the barbed wire fence that became the
Berlin Wall, hanged himself from a tree June 20, 1998 near his garden,
police said. (Peter Leibing/Assocaited Press/Contipress) #
East
German tanks lined up at Warschauer Bridge in Berlin, Germany Aug. 13,
1961. Crossing points between East and West Berlin were heavily guarded
after Communists prevented East Germans from crossing into the West
sector in an effort to stop heavy flow of refugees. (Peter
Hillebrecht/Associated Press) #
An
inscription "from USSR mit love" on the Berlin Wall Oct. 13, 1976. The
Berlin Wall might be history but the debate over its construction 50
years ago still weighs heavily on Germany's collective consciousness as
seen in an unseemly political row. With two regional elections set for
September 2011, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) has lashed out at the
left-wing Linke party, a sometime ally, for recently defending the
building of the Wall. (Ralph Gatti/AFP/Getty Images) #
The
sculpture 'Mauerdenkmal 1000' ('Wall memorial 1000') by artist Florian
Brauer, on the so-called 'death strip', (no man's land), at the former
Berlin Wall site in Bernauer Strasse June 16, 2011. The sculpture, which
is part of events the German capital is holding to mark the 50th
anniversary of the building of the Berlin Wall, is based on the scene
when East German citizen Peter Fechter was eventually carried away by a
GDR border guard, an hour after he was shot by guards on Aug. 17, 1962
as he attempted to climb over the Wall to West Berlin. Severely wounded,
Fechter fell back onto the border strip at the base of the Berlin Wall
and lay there bleeding to death without medical assistance. West Berlin
police were not permitted to intervene, nor did the border troops of the
western Allies at Checkpoint Charlie get involved. He was not carried
away by GDR border guards until almost an hour later. (Fabrizio
Bensch/Reuters) #
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