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Unlock This CourseOn 13 August 1961 East German troops and police closed the border between East and West Berlin, which had been open until then. They began with barbed wire, and within days builders were adding concrete blocks and bricks. Before the Wall, East Berliners could go to work, shop or visit relatives in the West. After it, they could not cross at all without special permission, which was rarely given. The Wall ran for about 155 kilometres around West Berlin, so it also cut the western half of the city off from the countryside of East Germany.
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Overnight, parents, children, husbands and wives could find themselves on opposite sides of a barrier. Contact by post and telephone was limited. Weddings, funerals and birthdays could no longer be shared. At Christmas 1963 West Berliners were allowed to visit relatives in the East for a short time, but East Berliners still could not go west.
Tens of thousands of East Berliners had worked in West Berlin, often for higher pay. After 13 August they lost those jobs and had to find work in the East. Some students at West Berlin schools and universities lost their places too.
On Bernauer Strasse the border ran along the front of apartment blocks. The houses stood in the East, but the pavement outside was in the West. In the first days people jumped from windows to reach the West. Ida Siekmann died on 22 August 1961 after jumping from an upstairs window, one of the first people to be killed at the Wall. The authorities then bricked up the windows, and later emptied and pulled down the buildings, moving the residents away.
The Wall was soon much more than one barrier. Over the following years the border grew into a layered system: an outer wall, a wide cleared strip, an inner fence, a patrol track, floodlights and watchtowers, and later dogs and ditches to stop vehicles. The cleared land in the middle became known as the death strip. Border guards had orders to stop anyone crossing and could use their weapons.
Guards were mostly young men, many of them recruits or, from 1962, conscripts, and the regime watched them carefully. On 15 August 1961 a 19-year-old guard, Conrad Schumann, leapt over the barbed wire at Bernauer Strasse and ran to the West. A photograph of his jump became famous. After cases like this, the regime moved guards between posts and checked on them more closely.
Many East Berliners still tried to get out, and the methods became more inventive as the border got stronger: climbing or jumping from windows, swimming across canals, hiding in vehicles, using forged papers, and digging tunnels. In September 1962 twenty-nine people escaped through a tunnel dug beneath Bernauer Strasse.
The risk was huge. On 17 August 1962 18-year-old Peter Fechter was shot while trying to climb the Wall near Checkpoint Charlie, a crossing point between East and West Berlin. He lay in the death strip for about an hour and bled to death, while East German guards did not help him and West Berliners could only watch. His death shocked people across the world. At least 140 people died at the Wall between 1961 and 1989.
Most East Berliners did not try to escape. They stayed, and had to live under a state that now controlled where they went and what they heard.
Do not say the Wall stopped everyone leaving. People kept escaping, but at great risk. Do not mix up the barrier and the death strip: the strip is the guarded zone between the barriers. And remember that Kennedy and the GDR gave opposite views of the same events, so ask who is speaking and why.
Extract C (a practice extract written for this lesson, in the style of a modern history book)
The Wall turned East Berlin into a prison. Families were split overnight, thousands lost their jobs in the West, and guards with orders to shoot made sure nobody left. East Berliners were powerless, and the government's talk of protection fooled nobody.
Source A: From a speech by President Kennedy in West Berlin, 26 June 1963.
... we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us. ... it is, as your mayor has said, an offense not only against history but an offense against humanity, separating families, dividing husbands and wives and brothers and sisters ...
Source B: From the East German newspaper Neues Deutschland, 14 August 1961, quoting a declaration by the Warsaw Pact (the Soviet-led alliance of Communist states) and reporting the first day of the Wall (translated).
The governments of the states of the Warsaw Pact understand, of course, that resorting to protective measures on the border to West Berlin will create certain inconveniences for the population ... All steps and measures necessary for the implementation went smoothly, thanks to the understanding and approval of the majority of the population of Berlin.
Study Extract C. Extract C suggests that the Wall made East Berliners powerless prisoners. How far do you agree with this interpretation? Use Extract C, Sources A and B and your own knowledge to explain your answer. [16 marks]
Extract C argues that the Wall made East Berliners powerless prisoners, and there is strong evidence for this. Source A, from Kennedy, says the West had 'never had to put a wall up to keep our people in' and that the Wall was 'separating families'. Kennedy was speaking to a Western crowd, but his words match the facts. Families on Bernauer Strasse were split, and Ida Siekmann died in August 1961 after jumping from a window. Tens of thousands of East Berliners lost jobs in the West. Extract C's claim about 'guards with orders to shoot' is supported by Peter Fechter, shot in August 1962 and left to bleed to death in the death strip. Even Source B admits 'certain inconveniences for the population'.
However, Extract C goes too far in places. Source B, from the East German party newspaper, claims the measures went smoothly 'thanks to the understanding and approval of the majority'. This is propaganda and cannot be trusted as a measure of opinion, because the regime controlled the newspaper. But Extract C's claim that East Berliners were 'powerless' also ignores evidence of resistance. People kept escaping, as Conrad Schumann did in August 1961 and as 29 people did through a tunnel in September 1962. Also, most East Berliners stayed and got on with their lives, so 'prison' does not describe everyday experience for everyone, and Extract C says nothing about those who accepted the state or had no wish to leave.
Overall I agree to a large extent. The Wall took away freedom of movement, broke up families and was enforced with deadly force, so 'prison' is a fair picture. Judged by how much power people had, the extract overstates the case, since East Berliners kept finding ways to resist, but the risks they took show how heavily the state controlled them.
What lifts it to the top level: it uses the extract and both sources for and against, adds precise own knowledge, and reaches a judgement against a clear criterion (how much power East Berliners had).
For a source from the regime, such as Source B, say what it claims and why the writer wanted to claim it, then test it against other evidence.