Berlin Wall

A section of the Berlin Wall, Germany, preserved as a memorial to the division of the city into East and West Berlin. Most of the wall was dismantled in 1989 during the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe by jubilant demonstrators with hammers and picks.

Memorial to those killed crossing the Berlin Wall, Germany. Anyone trying to escape from East to West Germany was shot on sight.

Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin, in a picture taken before the Berlin Wall was dismantled. Checkpoint Charlie was the military ‘border’ between communist East Berlin and democratic West Berlin, and a potent symbol of the division of Germany during the Cold War.

The Berlin Wall, near the Brandenburg Gate. The Wall was built in the German capital in 1961, and became an icon of the division of Europe during the Cold War. In 1989–90, with the collapse of communism in Soviet-controlled eastern Europe, it was torn down.

The Berlin Wall in 1966, symbol of the Iron Curtain policy of isolation established after World War II by the Soviet bloc countries, against the western democracies. Built in 1961, it was fortified and heavily guarded at the border between East and West Berlin to stop East German citizens escaping to the West. After the collapse of the Communist regime in East Germany, the wall was breached in November 1989 and subsequently torn down by Germans anxious to reunite their country.

Dividing barrier between East and West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, erected by East Germany to prevent East Germans from leaving for West Germany. Escapers were shot on sight.

Berlin had been formally divided into East and West sectors following the Berlin blockade by Soviet forces June 1948–May 1949. From 13 August 1961 the East German security forces sealed off all but 12 of the 80 crossing points to West Berlin with a barbed wire barrier. It was reinforced with concrete by the Russians to prevent the escape of unwilling inhabitants of East Berlin to the rival political and economic system of West Berlin. The interconnecting link between East and West Berlin was Checkpoint Charlie, where both sides exchanged captured spies. On 9 November 1989 the East German government opened its borders to try to halt the mass exodus of its citizens to the West via other Eastern bloc countries, and the wall was gradually dismantled, with portions of it sold off as souvenirs. See Germany, reform in East Germany.