VoltSixty years ago, on August 13, 1961, the East German leadership closed the department’s borders. This is Sunday night, and Berliners hope to be busy on the weekend. More than 10,000 people and border police tore up sidewalks and asphalt, erected roadblocks, and pulled barbed wire through the city. Sector crossing points will be blocked, and many S-Bahn and U-Bahn stations will be closed. The 7,000 soldiers should prevent a breakthrough to the West, and the Soviet army is also on standby.
The People’s Police armed with machine guns prevented the terrified East Berlin residents from making any active protests or resistance. Citizens in the west are also very upset. The police there prevent them from getting too close to the border facilities. However, in the next few days, many East Berliners fled the barbed wire. On August 14, the Brandenburg Gate was closed as a fan-shaped intersection. Three days later, construction workers began to replace the barbed wire with walls made of hollow blocks.
This is the response of the Social Democratic leadership to the mass exodus of workers and peasant countries in the fall of 1949. By August 1961, 2.8 million people had left East Germany. The SED leadership drew up a plan to build the wall Walter Ubricht Since 1958. But Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev opposed it until the summer of 1961 when he changed his mind. The wall is 155 kilometers long and separates the city of Berlin and separates people from each other.
The border defenses continued to expand, the border zone was built, houses and churches were demolished and bombed. In the mid-1970s, a new wall made of concrete retaining wall elements was built; it is more than 3 meters high and 1.20 meters wide. The inland wall was erected, and it was almost impossible for landmines and spontaneous combustion systems to cross the border. Many people who tried to escape paid the price of their lives.
This wall has stood for 28 years-but now it has been four years, and it no longer exists. Today, there is hardly anything that reminds us of this cruel division and the terrible symbol of the Cold War. What should I do if the wall suddenly comes back? What would it be like to cut off Berlin’s death zone again with border fortifications, 302 watchtowers, and death zone? What does it mean if barbed wire, concrete, and death zones suddenly change life in the pulsating capital?
Berlin photographer and designer Alexander Kupsch (Alexander Kupsch) unveiled the “Wall” exhibition. It stands up again! “, in which he merged the historical records of the Berlin Wall into the current photos. Now he has produced new components. The photos of border facilities taken by the leaders of East Germany are superimposed and collaged with the current UAV images in Berlin. The result is to inspire the audience. Dealing with pictures of the split of cities and countries, this split lasted for nearly three years: because this wall seems to exist again.
