63: Berlin Wall

63 years ago today (August 13, 1961) the East German and Soviet Communists built the Berlin Wall to keep East Germans from fleeing into West Berlin (closing the last remaining border as the Inner-German Border between West Germany and East Germany had been closed for years.)

(A West Berliner Woman looking at her Family member inside East Berlin while the Berlin Wall is still being built in August 1961. The two would never meet again in person.)

Barbed Wire Sunday (Stacheldrahtsonntag), is the name given to August 13,1961, when the East German Military and Police closed the border between East and West Berlin and East Germany and West Berlin and began the construction of what would become the Berlin Wall. The intention of closing the border was to prevent the migration of East Germans to the West.

 Prior to the establishment of the wall, approximately 3.5 million (or 20% of the population) East German citizens defected to West Germany, many through the Berlin border due to its lack of security. This posed a major issue to the East German Government as it was losing its substantial amounts of not just its workforce but also its intellectuals.

Results Despite the measures imposed, 800 people managed to escape East Berlin before the end of the day. They had to overcome barbed wire or jump through house windows at the sector border to succeed. However, only a few dozen managed to escape the following day.  The Berlin Wall had officially been established.

The Allies (the Americans, British and French) did nothing to stop the East Germans or the Soviets – even when innocent men, women and children were murdered in front of their eyes.

The East German and Soviet Communists separated whole families overnight: Husbands from wives, children from their Parents all in the name of building Communism. Many would never see each other ever again and a few lucky would have to wait nearly 3 decades to do so.

28 years later, when the Berlin Wall fell, on November 9, 1989; 100,000 people had attempted to escape over or under the Berlin Wall with 5,000 people succeeding, 200 were killed by the Communists and the rest imprisoned by the Communists.

The building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 was seen as a failure of Communism  - since the Communists had to build it and shoot their own people in the back to keep people from wanting to flee to freedom.

 The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was seen as the final nail on the coffin of Communism around the world (even today Communist countries like: Cuba, China, Vietnam, Laos and North Korea.) have to use Capitalism to finance their Communist Dictatorships.