Memorial Day on the tragedy of the Berlin Wall in Germany

On August 13, 1961, at 1 a.m., under the supervision of units of the Border and People's Police and the National People's Army, the cordoning off of the more than 160 km long border between East Berlin and the GDR to West Berlin began. The eastern part was hermetically sealed off from the west by barbed wire, wooden barricades and anti-tank barriers. In the period that followed, a brick barrier was built: the Berlin Wall.

The wall was expanded in several steps to form a staggered and militarily secured restricted area. It finally consisted of front and rear walls, patrol lanes, control and protection strips, observation towers, signal fences and lighting systems.

With the construction of the wall, the GDR government tried to prevent the mass flight of the population and the imminent collapse of the economy.

More than 2.6 million people had fled the GDR between the founding of the GDR and August 1961. The regime's existential crisis was characterized by a lack of popular support and a permanent economy of shortages.