Question about the Berlin Wall

[Mary70]

Berlin Wall experts: was it west Berlin that was surrounded by a wall? The wikipedia map seems to show this, and we just watched a youtube video about it. But I thought the west Berliners were free, and not the east Berliners. How could West Berlin be free if they were trapped inside a wall? Can someone please put this whole thing into simple terms for me! Thanks! ðŸ˜€

[regentrude]

West Berlin was an enclave surrounded by East Germany, but people from West Berlin could travel freely to West Germany and the Western World; they could get OUT. The wall was not designed to keep them in; they could cross East German territory.

The Berlin wall was to prevent East Germans from escaping to the Western world, i.e.from getting out of East Berlin into West Berlin, and there was a much larger wall preventing them from getting into West Germany. The sole purpose of the wall was to keep East Germans captive to their communist rulers.

[Mary70]

 Thanks you Regentrude. But one question remains: why didn't they cross into West Germany at this huge border? Was there another wall along east and west Germany as well as the iconic 'Berlin Wall'? If so it must have been enormous! I can't see how they could have kept people out. 

 

 

[regentrude]

Yes, there was a wall, or better, a fence, all along the inner German border. Barbed wire and guard towers and soldiers who shot to kill when you tried to escape. Absolutely tight. A few checkpoints for legal crossings where they inspected papers and searched vehicles. Very few escaped directly; some were smuggled in vehicles.

[regentrude]

The border was 800+ miles long.

From wikipedia:

East Germany decided to upgrade the fortifications in the late 1960s to establish a "modern frontier" that would be far more difficult to cross. Barbed-wire fences were replaced with harder-to-climb expanded metal barriers; directional anti-personnel mines and anti-vehicle ditches blocked the movement of people and vehicles; tripwires and electric signals helped guards to detect escapees; all-weather patrol roads enabled rapid access to any point along the border; and wooden guard towers were replaced with prefabricated concrete towers and observation bunkers.^[

 

 

Edited December 6, 2017 by regentrude

[Alessandra]

I remember flying into West Berlin. Iirc, there was a narrow air corridor, so difficult to avoid turbulence. I also remember jet planes breaking the sound barrier and making popping sounds over the city.

[Roadrunner]

Could West Berlin residents drvive to the rest of west Germany? That would make them free to travel through East, no? Who could control where they stopped?

[luuknam]

That fence on the border of all of the Soviet satellite states etc was called the Iron Curtain. 

[luuknam]

Could West Berlin residents drvive to the rest of west Germany? That would make them free to travel through East, no? Who could control where they stopped?

 

 

Again, intended to keep East Germans etc from getting to West Germany, not to keep West Germans out of East Germany. Basically, to prevent brain drain etc. 

[luuknam]

Brain drain is a serious issue for some countries - if you just let everybody with the means to leave get away, only the poorest and least educated/skilled people will remain, which makes your country even less desirable to stay in, etc. 

 

ETA: it's even an issue within countries, to some degree, with people leaving poorer regions, which then leaves that region worse off than if they stayed and started a business or w/e. 

Edited December 7, 2017 by luuknam

[Roadrunner]

Again, intended to keep East Germans etc from getting to West Germany, not to keep West Germans out of East Germany. Basically, to prevent brain drain etc.

I get that. I just wondered if they attempted to keep West German residents out of East as much as possible as well. Did you needed to get a special permit to drive through the East?

USSR controlled who got out and who got in.

[rdj2027]

Yes, we could travel to West Germany.  You had to go through border control leaving West Berlin and again when you came to the West German border.  You had to stay on a prescribed route, absolutely could not go over the speed limit and were only allowed to stop in certain places.  If you had children who had to use bathrooms outside those stops, you were out of luck.

 

Simply transiting we were never searched though (don't know about others), only when we entered Easter Germany to stay with relatives.

 

If you took the train, border guards would enter at the checkpoint, look at your travel documents, ask a few questions and the get off at the next station.  On the other end, border guards would hop on, check your ID and leave at the check point.

[rdj2027]

If you were just transiting, you did not a special permit other than what they gave you at the checkpoint.  If you entered to stay, you had to have an invitation from someone and then once there register with the local police office.  I grew up in West Berlin, all of our relatives lived in East Germany or East Berlin or some other Eastern Bloc country.

 

West Germans were also treated differently then West Berliners when it came to permits.  It was one of the reasons my parents bought a second place in West Germany because this way we could get West German passports rather than passports issued in West Berlin which made seeing relatives much easier.

[staceyobu]

I’m probably dumb for never realizing this until this post. I always thought Berlin was in west Germany!!!

[regentrude]

But if Berlin were in West Germany, the Berlin Airlift would not have made any sense because the Soviet Union could not have created a blockade.

Edited December 24, 2017 by regentrude