One of my other areas of interest is East Germany, the former GDR, so I thought I'd share some info about it here! Berlin itself became a focus for the Cold War in the post war years 1946-49. In 1948, the Soviets formed a blockade of the Western sectors of Berlin, and aid had to be airlifted from Britain to feed those Germans living in the Western side of the city. The blockade ended the joint administration of the city. A city council was fromed in East Berlin on November 30th, and the capital split in two. The blockade ended on May 12th, 1949. On 23 May 1949, the Federal Republic of Germany is founded in Germany’s western sectors.The German Democratic Republic (GDR) is founded in the Soviet sector on 7 October 1949, with East Berlin as its capital. In the years that follow, West Berlin is an Island of the Federal Government, and a symbol of the *Imperialist West* surrounded by the GDR. Until the Berlin Wall was built in 1961, there was still movement between the two halves of the city. Eastern Berliners could cross into the Western sector to go to the cinema, theatre, meet friends and family, and even work. On August 13, 1961, the GDR starts construction on a wall that runs along the sector border and seals the two parts of the city off from one another. This is despite the GDR head of state Walter Ulbricht declaring that "there is no intention to build a wall" as late as 15 June of that year.
Construction began on the wall on August 13th, 1961. Prior to this, Hagen Koch, a Stasi member and technical draftsman was recruited by Erich Mielke, the minister for State Security to draw a line of white paint around the easter Sector of the city. This was finally where the wall was constructed. It cut through gardens and streets, and divided families. To begin with, the wall was a simple affair of bricks and barbed wire. People would attempt to jump from the windows of houses on the Eastern side, and hope to land unharmed on the pavement in the Western Sector. The GDR then bricked up the windows in buildings close to the wall. A second, more secure Wall was build in June 1962 in order to prevent people from escaping to the West. This was followed by a third in 1965, which consisted of concrete slabs between steel girder and concrete posts with a concrete sewage pipe on top of the Wall. From the year 1975 the third generation of Wall was replaced by the fourth generation. New concrete segements were used which were easy to build up and were more resistant to breakthroughs. Basic Facts (at the time of July 31, 1989) Total border length around West Berlin: 96 mi / 155 km Border between East and West Berlin: 27 mi / 43.1 km Border between West Berlin and East Germany: 69 mi / 111.9 km Border through residential areas in Berlin: 23 mi / 37 km Concrete segment wall: 3.6m (11.81 ft.) high, 66 mi / 106 km Wire mesh fencing: 41 mi / 66.5 km Anti-vehicle trenches: 65 mi / 105.5 km Contact or signal fence: 79 mi / 127.5 km Column track: 6-7 m (7.33 yd) wide, 77 mi / 124.3 km Number of watch towers: 302 Number of bunkers: 20 Persons killed on the Berlin Wall: 192 Persons injured by shooting: ca. 200 Part of the construction of the Wall was an area of sand, which could identify the footprints of the guard who had been on duty at the time of an escape, so that he could be reprimanded. More to come!
The Stasi (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit) was the GDR's secret service, established on 8th February, 1950. A system of continual surveillance and monitoring was administered from Stasi headquarters in East Berlin. The most notorious head of State Security was Erich Mielke, who ran the Stasi from 1957 with Markus Wolf as the head of the Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung (HVA) ~(General Reconnaissance Administration), its foreign intelligence section. the Stasi secret police employed one informer for every 6.5 citizens, a higher number of police informants per head of population than the Soviet Union, and its agents monitored every aspect of daily life. There was an informer in every school, office, factory and block of flats. They monitered what people ate, where they drank, who they spoke to, their telephone conversations and even who they slept with. After the Wall fell, and Stasi records were released to the public, some people found that even their husband/wife had informed against them. The Stasi kept records like no other. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Stasi agents attempted to burn or shred the files they had kept. They burned out every shredder in East Berlin in a matter of hours. They left behind 16000 bags (45 million pages) of shredded, torn documents, which are being pieced together by the BStU (Office of the Federal Commissioner Preserving the Records of the Ministry for State Security of the GDR) using new computer technology. There was even a file on Mielke himself! The Stasi were experts at surveillance, and could enter and wire a flat or home with listening devices in an hour, and the owners would never know. They also used the bizarre medium of small samples to catch criminals. These smell samples were in the form of jars containing an item of personal clothing for instance, or a cloth that had been rubbbed over a chair where someone was sitting which dogs would use to identify a person's scent. Various bugging devices, and smell sample jars are on display in the Stasi Museum. In the GDR, the use/ownership of type-writers, photocopiers or any other such device was forbidden, to ensure that anti-state publications could not be printed and circulated. A teenage girl who, along with her friend, printed anti-government posters with a child's toy printing set, was convicted when agents found two of the rubber letters in the pile of the rug in her room. She was imprisoned and interrogated at Stasi headquarters. Interrogation I will cover later! Stasimuseum Berlin - Stasi headquarters Erich Mielke - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Stasi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
