Berlin 1945

1
The Berlin Wall A Photographic Memoir
Berlin 1945 80 of the citys buildings had
been destroyed.
2
In 1945, Germany was divided into four zones, one
for each occupying power. Similarly, Berlin was
divided into four sectors. This Tripartite
Agreement The original three powers, the USA,
Russia and the UK, made room for liberated
France placed Berlin under the Aliied Control
Committee. Germany did not rule Berlin, nor could
German troops and airlines enter. Access by road
and air was guaranteed. It was meant to be a
temporary arrangement But the Soviets had no
inten-tion of relinquishing power and allowing
Germany to re-unite. They wanted to deny the
Allies access to Berlin and, by assuming power
over the Allied sectors, to drive the West
completely out of their zone. They blockaded
Berlin to try achieve this. The Berlin Airlift
thwarted this attempt. West Berlin was to become
a thorn in the flesh of the Soviet zone, since
its citizens could emigrate by simply entering
the Allied sectors and flying out to West Germany.
Occupied Germany1945
3
Checkpoint Charlie
By 1949, the three western powers had formed the
BDR German Federal Republic, West Germany, out
of their zones. The Soviet zone had become the
DDR German Democratic Republic, East Germany.
The three western sectors had become West Berlin,
the Soviet sector, East Berlin. The temporary
division of Germany and Berlin was to last for
forty years. No-one, perhaps not even Walter
Ulbricht, could have foreseen the course that
events were to take during that era, though he
had surely already formulated plans by 1949. The
DDR broke all the Tripartite provisions for
Berlin they made it their capital, stationed
their troops there, and flew their own airline in
and out of Schönefeld airport in their
sector. Despite the different occupying forces,
the city remained a single entity until 13th
August, 1961. After this, West Berlin, sealed off
from the rest of the Soviet Zone, effectively
became an island in the middle of East Germany.
The Two Germanys1949-1989
4
The Stalinallee, a street of massive blocks of
flats for workers, was a typically gigantic
socialist project of its time. In this DDR
propaganda photograph, citizens look down its
massive perspective with hope for a bright and
prosperous future. It was from this project that
workers rose up against the hard-line Stalinist
government of Walther Ulbricht after Stalins
death in March 1953. They had high hopes for
liberalisation in the DDR, but rebelled against
raised work-norms by 10 and repression.
Inset One of the posters of the time,
advertising the project. East Germany confidently
expected to overtake the prosperity of the West
within 10 years, and such projects were meant to
exhibit the bright and promising future of
socialism.
5
Violent scenes in the Alexanderplatz as Russian
tanks roll in, to be fought by courageous
workers armies with sticks and stones! The
Soviet Union at one point thought they had lost
their zone, but to their utter surprise, the West
did nothing to intervene, and the DDR survived.
But by this time the hollowness of the DDR
governments claim to popular support had become
clear. 1953 proved that the SED owed its survival
to the power of the occupying Soviet forces.
6
East Berliners flee Soviet tanks and troops. The
Soviets fired into the crowds, and strafed the
border zones to prevent escapes into West Berlin.
While the Red Army was putting down the uprising,
Ulbricht and the rest of the regime were cowering
under the protection of the Soviets, who despised
them for it. RIAS Radio in the American Sector
says that there is no leadership left in the
DDR, said the Soviet comander contemptuously in
their presence. Well, that seems just about
true. Bertholt Brecht, DDR author, who supported
the suppression of the uprising, later came to
regret it, and wrote the poem on the next slide
7
The Solution After the uprising of 17 June The
Secretary of the Writers Union Had leaflets
distributed in the Stalinallee Stating that the
people Had forfeited the confidence of the
government And could win it back only with
redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier In that
case for the government To dissolve the
people and elect another? Berthold Brecht
8
In the early days before the Wall, sector
boundaries were marked only by signboards such as
the one on the right which says You are now
entering the American sector. On the reverse
side it says You are now leaving the American
sector. Just within the Russian sector, the East
Germans have erected their own sign The end of
the democratic ! sector of Greater Berlin is
one metre away. Considering the record of the
Soviet Union compared with the USA, the sign is
ironic, to say the least.
9
(No Transcript)
10
1
2
The massive, carefully-planned Operation Rose
began at midnight on Sunday 12th August, 1961. It
was only at dawn on Monday 13th, that its extent
became apparent. 1 The first visible sign in
the centre that the border had been sealed
barbed wire across the Potsdamer Platz, with
armed sentries placed every 2 metres to stop East
Germans escaping. 2 A Grenzer border guard
looks on as the barrier is erected. Does he
support it, or is he regretting it?
11
Uncertainty is also written on the faces of these
two young sentries. What are they really
thinking? Even amongst supporters of the DDR, the
sheer finality of the division caused by the Wall
must have evoked some very mixed feelings.
12
Monday 13th August 1961 West Berliners look on
as the first barrier is strengthened. The
feelings of both NVA soldiers and onlookers seem
to be profoundly mixed. Who is laughing and who
is mocking?
13
A deeply symbolic photograph - the Pariser Platz
and Brandenburg gate as seen through the rolls of
barbed wire with which the East German government
sealed off the border on 13th August 1961. One of
the main reasons for the success of Operation
Rose was that, fearful of provoking a war, the
Allied occupation forces prevented West Berliners
from breaking down the barriers. Allied armoured
cars were stationed just behind the photographer.
14
The tragedy of Bernauerstrasse. The houses were
in East Berlin, but their front doors opened onto
a street in West Berlin. These people are
escaping to the West by climbing through the
windows. They are already in West Berlin. The
East German Government soon sealed off the doors
and windows, first with barbed wire, later by
bricking them up. The house fronts themselves
eventually became part of the Wall.
15
Tuesday 15th August 1961 Conrad Schumann jumps.
He was followed by eighty-eight more sentries. He
settled in West Germany and raised a family.
After the Wall came down, he returned to his
native Saxony to visit his estranged family, but
was not made to feel welcome. He returned home
and hanged himself.
16
A Hero of the Wall
This is without doubt one of the most moving of
all the Wall photographs. On Tuesday 14th August,
1961, a 19-year-old NVA sentry opens up the
barbed wire barrier letting through a child to
rejoin its parents, from whom it has been cut
off. The fear in the sentrys face is palpable.
He was arrested and shot for this act of heroic
generosity and he could have been in no doubt
that this was the likely consequence of his
actions. Sadly, history has not recorded his name.
Nationale Volksarmee, National Peoples Army
Another famous Wall character, right
20-year-old Private Hagen Koch. He mapped the
Wall for the DDR on 15th August, 1961. At
Checkpoint Charlie, he straddled the border and
painted the now infamous white line demarcating
the division between East and West Berlin. He was
issued with a new pair of boots for his trouble.
After the fall of the Wall, ironically, it was
Koch, by then middle-aged, who was appointed to
auction off its sections!
17
The first fixed barbed-wire fence is erected.
Only across the actual city centre were concrete
walls built. The fenced barriers were
nevertheless potentially lethal to the would-be
border crosser.
18
Until the border was sealed, Berlin was
functionally still one city, despite the division
into sectors. In this photo, the confusion
created by Monday 14th August is apparent on the
faces of the people. The man on the eastern side
of the fence left is on his way to work in the
West, and is starting to realise that he will
never see his place of employment again. The
woman on the western side right is questioning
the East German sentries, and looks angry. The
initial reaction of West Berliners was, in fact,
anger not only at the Communists for their
division of the city, but also at the West for
its acquiescence in the division.
19
(No Transcript)
20
Within three days of sealing off the border with
barbed wire, the East German government began to
build the first Wall proper, of cinder blocks,
topped by y-shaped brackets carrying barbed wire.
Here, distressed West Berliners stand on ladders
in a desperate attempt to see loved ones on the
eastern side.
21
Turning 180º from the previous slide, this is
what the West Berlin onlookers in the
Bernauerstrasse saw happening. The motor-cyle
police are West-Berliners. The first, barbed-wire
barrier still stands in front of the cinder-block
Wall.
22
The cinder block Wall under construction. The DDR
used a human barrier of sentries to prevent its
citizens crossing over in the interim between the
removal of the wire and the building of the Wall.
In this and the next photograph, Westerners were
able to do little more than stand impotently and
watch.
23
The cinder-block Wall under construction. In the
background, the y-brackets and barbed wire have
already been mounted on the finished structure.
In the foreground, building continues. This is
one of the sections of Wall that divides a street
in half look carefully in the background, and
cuts across another street, the Eisenstrasse
foreground.
24
This photograph captures perfectly the precarious
situation of the Wall in earlier days. East
German soldiers affix barbed wire to the hastily
and shoddily built cinder-block wall, protected
by NVA sentries on the Western side. These men
are still on DDR territory, which extended beyond
the Wall. Note how the West Berliners just stand,
watching the process.