NationStates Jolt Archive

I'm doing a history day project on the Berlin Wall. Does anyone have firsthand experience on the building or collapse of it? Or at least pretty good knowledge on the topic???

Haha, what division/state/category?

I'm actually working on my History Day project right now.

Oh...reading your title i hoped, we were actually building one.

Well you sure depressed me. =(

I'm doing a history day project on the Berlin Wall. Does anyone have firsthand experience on the building or collapse of it? Or at least pretty good knowledge on the topic???
At least one person on here (Laerod) was there when it fell and helped break pieces off.

But I don't think anyone on here actually built it. But what do you want to know?

Oh...reading your title i hoped, we were actually building one.

Well you sure depressed me. =(

as did I suppose I will have to put away my Lego bricks:(

note: never make some random stuff up in a history project I did that with my Irish independence coursework by saying all Irish history is in a drunken blur which has caused a wall to be built hired by ninjas from India

needless to say it wasn't too funny reading my 10...oh who am I kidding 2 page essay in front of the class

At least one person on here (Laerod) was there when it fell and helped break pieces off.

But I don't think anyone on here actually built it. But what do you want to know?

I would like to have this Laerod give a discription of the wall and how it affected him/her please, for I have to get a eyewitness account for my homework.

PS I wont be online until tomorrow night.
Minnesota, take a stand, and the topic is the rise and fall of the Berlin wall.

I would like to have this Laerod give a discription of the wall and how it affected him/her please, for I have to get a eyewitness account for my homework.

PS I wont be online until tomorrow night.
Wouldn't a google search be easier? I'm sure there's tons of these accounts all over the internet if you looked hard enough.

Then again I've never looked.

Wouldn't a google search be easier? I'm sure there's tons of these accounts all over the internet if you looked hard enough.

Then again I've never looked.


Yah, I've done that but I need a personal account to sate the teacher's bloodthirst.

Goodnight!
Keep posting though

Yah, I've done that but I need a personal account to sate the teacher's bloodthirst.
Wow your teacher is MAKING you get a primary source? That's a touch teacher.

Your doing History Day?

What division and category? Are you going to actively compete?

I would like to have this Laerod give a discription of the wall and how it affected him/her please, for I have to get a eyewitness account for my homework.
You could send him a telegram on NS. Keep in mind though that he was much younger then.

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9986073&postcount=20
Don't use pictures without consent from the owners though (so contact Laerod first and ask)

I'm doing a history day project on the Berlin Wall. Does anyone have firsthand experience on the building or collapse of it? Or at least pretty good knowledge on the topic???

My family is from Berlin and I was there when it collapsed. I had family on both sides of the wall.
I even have part of the wall from c.p. Charlie hanging on my wall.

What do you need to know?

My family is from Berlin and I was there when it collapsed. I had family on both sides of the wall.
I even have part of the wall from c.p. Charlie hanging on my wall.

What do you need to know?

Thank god...

Okay I would be humbled if you could answer my blagh blaghblagh...

1) How did the wall change or effect your life?
2)What lead up to the building of the wall?
3) If you were in East Germany, did you trie to escape??? and if you are on West Germany, how did you help people flee???


Oh and my teacher makes us get 2 primary sources and 1 witness/expert

Remeber to say that David Hasselhoff was the main reason for the wall coming down.

Remeber to say that David Hasselhoff was the main reason for the wall coming down.
dont hassel the hoff

hehe...

But he sang during its destruction. So he says he's the staple holding them together.:confused:

1) How did the wall change or effect your life?
2)What lead up to the building of the wall?
3) If you were in East Germany, did you trie to escape??? and if you are on West Germany, how did you help people flee???
And you want eye witnesses for all that? :eek:

The lead up to the building of the wall had been a time of Germans fleeing the East for the Capitalist West, due to the difference in living standards. But you'll find that for example on Wiki (don't use wiki as a quoted reference though, and check with other websites if you're not sure).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall#Construction_of_the_Wall

As far as escaping goes...believe it or not, but the majority of Germans never got involved with escape plans. Those who did though did everything from Hot Air Balloons to Tunnels.
And some tried to climb and run for it, and most of those were shot. :(

But I need a realy juicy answer.

But I need a realy juicy answer.

does no one remember david hasselhoff singing atop the wall? does no one remember his sweet vocals bringing the world to tears? as if he had nothing to do with the wall coming down. i think not.

I'm doing a history day project on the Berlin Wall. Does anyone have firsthand experience on the building or collapse of it? Or at least pretty good knowledge on the topic???

David Hasselhoff was there. He sang songs. Germans are weird. :(

Thank god...

Okay I would be humbled if you could answer my blagh blaghblagh...

1) How did the wall change or effect your life?
2)What lead up to the building of the wall?
3) If you were in East Germany, did you trie to escape??? and if you are on West Germany, how did you help people flee???


Oh and my teacher makes us get 2 primary sources and 1 witness/expert

1. I'm not from Berlin myself, but I grew up in the divided Germany (in the West, about 40 km south of the border to Eastern Germany)
I can't say that I felt an "effect" before it fell. It was just there. When I was born, it had been standing for 13 years and people had gotten used to it pretty much. It was just part of everyday life.
It was a tourist attraction for some. At the Checkpoint Charlie, there was this wooden platform, you could climb up there and gaze across the wall onto "the East". I found it rather scary when we went there on a class trip. On the western side, the wall was brightly coloured with graffiti, on the eastern side you could see this vast strip of no-mans-land, with barbed wire, military patrols with dogs, watchtowers... it looked harsh and forbidding, inhumane to say the least.
Every now and then, you had a story of a daring escape in the papers. People tried flying across the border in a balloon, others dug the famous tunnel under the wall (there's been a movie about that, and several very good documentaries. I'm sure you could find something online as well), they hid in the trunks of cars or under the seats.
To get into Berlin from the West, you had to drive along transit roads through Eastern Germany, and your car got searched when you entered and when you left them. You couldn't stop on the way, as far as I remember. For our class trip, we had taken the train. The first stop after the border was a 2 hour delay in Probstzella, where the train was thouroughly searched. They even took of the roof of one of the wagons, because one of the dogs had alarmed them (there was nobody there in the end, it's just an example of how strict things were).

The daring escapes are the minority, though. Most of the people who left Eastern Germany did so legally. You could request a "Ausreiseantrag", a request to leave the country. That would then entail the Stasi checking your background for EVERY little detail they could find, it would inevitably mean loosing your job and might get you imprisoned for a few month even. But if I remember correctly, there were quotas on how many people per year could leave Eastern Germany, so if you were lucky you wouldn't even have to wait long. It did help if you had family in the West.

2. The main reason for the building of the wall around East Berlin was economical. People would leave across the border that went through Berlin in droves, and the Eastern authorities could do little to stop them. A large number of Eastern Germans worked in the West, but lived in the East. Basically, the East started to find it difficult to get enough workers to keep their economy going. In addition, a large number of Western Germans shopped in the East, in state-subsidised shops, which was further damaging to the Eastern economy which already struggled with rebuilding the country under socialism and meeting the Russian demands of reparation.
So the Eastern German government under Walter Ulbricht started building the wall on the 13th of August 1961, without so much as a warning beforehand.
They would wall over windows of houses that stood directly on the borderline, while people were jumping from windows that were still open to make sure not to end up on the wrong side of the wall.
I don't know if your teacher will allow wikipedia as a source, but there are some pics and maps that might come in handy here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall).

3. I was in the West, so there was no need for escape really. Although it has to be said that a good number of people from the West did migrate to the East over the years , for various reasons. The majority was trying to get to the West from the East, but a minority also went from to the East from the West.
I never helped anybody escape, nor did anybody I know.

Thank god...

Okay I would be humbled if you could answer my blagh blaghblagh...

1) How did the wall change or effect your life?
2)What lead up to the building of the wall?
3) If you were in East Germany, did you trie to escape??? and if you are on West Germany, how did you help people flee???


Oh and my teacher makes us get 2 primary sources and 1 witness/expert
I could provide you with some thoughts, I never helped anyone flee, though.
I think your teacher is misconceiving this matter. How does he think was life during the wall existed? Is he thinking that the majority of Western Germans stood on the wall, trying to help Eastern Germans flee? Has he ever been there? I had my grandparents in Weimar (East Germany) (I was born and grew up in West Germany) and for that reason often visited the former DDR (GDR). Only crossing the border by car was an experience and did last several hours, mostly. They checked every detail of the car (I once was not allowed to import a Mickey Mouse comic - it's capitalist crap - so they confiscated it).
I remember a situation where another West German found himself next to his totally dismantled car (they unrigged the backseats and the carpeting) and it was his job then, to fix it up again ...You were not allowed to import any West German products - apart from precious few exceptions).
You had to state the reason for your journey and where you want to go to and were not allowed to use routes apart from the ones that you've stated.
Although the "Berlin wall" is the famous one - not at last because it separated a metropolis- it was only a very, very small part of the whole wall whixh seperated the rest of the country. Berlin wall was some 160 kms long, the wall that separated West and East was about 1,400 kms long and as "safe" as the Berlin wall, with watchtowers and the so called "Todesstreifen" (Death zone). By the way, Berlin was not the only place that was separated, but there were several villages as well.

Now I try to answer your three questions -as good as I can and as far as I'm concerned ...

1.) After I was born "only" in 1967, the wall already existed and was daily business for me. Nobody ever thought that this situation may change during their life times. Even only six or eight month before the wall was finally teared down, nobody could envision what will happen. In my generation there were no feelings like "They are our brothers - we are one nation" - we grew up with two German countries and the other one (GDR) was unalluring for a visit without familiar background (and additionally it was not easy to get a visa just for touring around without any family connections). And of course we all were influenced by media and GDR was an enemy in the end. They spoke the same language, but they appeared as strangers to us (consider: I'm speaking for my generation, not the elderly who knew only one Germany when they were young). It was something like Austria for the poor - of course this comparison is flawed.
As long as we had two different Germanies (Germanys?:confused: ), life seemed to be easier, safer. There were the allies - who were considered as friends, mostly. I, for my part never felt threatend, I appreciated the presence of the -in my case, I live in Bavaria- US Army. For me, West Germany was something like a child of the United States - it was fed and all important decisions were made by the "parents". The reunification then appeared to me like the fledging of my country and the cutting of the umbilical cord. Now we have the responsibility. Now it is ourselves who will get threatened and no longer our friends, the allies.
The first day the East Germans were allowed to leave their country I served tea at our main station (It was a service from the "Johanniter" - something like the Red Cross - where I used to work for at this time). It was in the beginning of December and they all wanted to visit our Christmas market and of course the shopping miles. It was an incredible feeling - everybody knew we are experiencing history in these days. The East Germans were stunned and I've seen a lot of tears and speechless people. It was deeply moving these days, but the disillusion followed much too fast. Today, 15 years later we stare at the wreckage of our happiness. Everything spiraled downward. Unemployment, crime rate, bad future prospects, anxiety for losing your job, excessive national debt and lack prospect of improvement is paralyzing many people and a lot of people are wishing themselves back to the times when West Germany was only soemthing like Americas little kid.

2.
After my post is already too long anyway, I'd suggest to research known historical facts via Google or maybe one of these link may help:

http://www.dieberlinermauer.de/berlinwallhome1024/berlinwallhome1024.html
http://www.berliner-mauer-dokumentationszentrum.de/index_e.html
http://www.berlin.de/rbm-skzl/mauer/index_e.html

3.
I did not help people flee and I do not know one single person who did. It was a very small minority, often with good contacts to at least one of the German Governments or intelligence corps. You can see a lot of documentaries in German TV. It's part of the new Germany. There's not one day passing by without boatloads of documentaries about the 3rd Reich, the FRG/GDR situation, the Wall and so on. There is such a lot of stuff I could provide you with, but it would go beyond the scope ...

You do have a very demanding teacher - I commiserate with you ;)
Additionally expecting two primary(!) sources and a witness is ... phew!!!!

If a teacher in Germany would demand that from a German pupil, it would already be hard work (as long as I got it right, that the witness should witness about helping to flee)!
Otherwise you already found what you were looking for: me and Cabra West with his/her brilliant post.

Good luck anyway!:)


EDIT: I just asked my colleague your first question. He's born in 1952 and said the same: His life was NOT influenced by the wall, it was taken as a given fact. And he never helped someone flee nor does he know anyone who did.

2nd EDIT: I asked four more colleagues and all answered the same:
No influence to their lifes due to the wall - they didn't even think about it, it was just there. And -you guess- no one helped someone flee ...

http://berlin-wall.org/

This link is to a site put together by a woman who married the Berlin Wall.

I am not kidding.

Thank you all!

P.S.

"http://berlin-wall.org/

This link is to a site put together by a woman who married the Berlin Wall."

Wow... "best and Sexiest wall ever!"

Scary..

I would like to have this Laerod give a discription of the wall and how it affected him/her please, for I have to get a eyewitness account for my homework. Well, I was 5 when we took it down. It affected my life a wee bit, though as a West German/American, it didn't do as much to hinder my travel as it did the East Germans. What I remember is that we had friends in the East that couldn't come visit us because of it and that we had to go and visit them.
That's the parts that I witnessed.
History: East Germany closed its borders to the West in order to curb the masses of people flooding there. The loophole remained Berlin, as it was still open to anyone traveling from the East.
My Grandparents and mom took that way and ended up in the Notaufnahmelager Marienfelde (http://enm-berlin.de:8080/enm/pages/eng.jsp)(Marienfelde Refugee Center), like most others fleeing through Berlin. The East German SED (Socialist Unity Party) tried to figure out a way to stop that, to which their head, Walther Ulbricht said: "No one has the intention of building a wall." on June 15, 1961. August 13, 1961 they build a wall. It was a big shock to eveyone and some people took the last chance to run across the closing border with narry but the close on their backs.
To the East Germans, the Wall was known as "Antifaschistischer Schutzwall" (Anti-fascist Rampart) and was supposedly meant to keep West Germans out of the DDR. The guards on the Wall had a "shoot to kill" order concerning anyone that tried to flee the DDR (who were known as "Republikflüchtlinge", Republic Deserters fits best for that).
The Wall came down in the climate of Perestroika and Glasnost initiated by Gorbachew. Prior to the fall, Hungary opened its borders to Austria, allowing thousands of East Germans to use this as an avenue of escape. A few thousand refugees stormed the compound of the West German embassy in Prague and were then given permission to come to West Germany.
In an attempt to "save" the DDR, Honecker was ousted and the SED attempted to reform the DDR, one measure being the loosening of travel regulations. Günter Schabowski, a member of the Central Committee of the SED, announced this on television on November 9, 1989, and the masses of people swarming to the checkpoints overwhelmed the guards and they eventually let everyone through.
And thus, within a matter of a few months, everyone was swarming to the wall and chipping out pieces of it.
Here's a picture of me, my little brother, and my dad sawing an iron bar from the wall (http://img296.imageshack.us/my.php?image=robinunddieeisenstange5gg.jpg)(The blue hat is me)

I'm doing a history day project on the Berlin Wall. Does anyone have firsthand experience on the building or collapse of it? Or at least pretty good knowledge on the topic???
I cut out a piece of the wall myself back in '89 when I visited Berlin. On the westside of the wall.

Remeber to say that David Hasselhoff was the main reason for the wall coming down.
I wouldn't have been suprised if West-Germans had fled to the east and build the wall higher then ever.

I would like to have this Laerod give a discription of the wall
It was long, high of concrete. With lots of graffiti on the western part.