‘Democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in’ 
John F. Kennedy 

1961 

Whilst elsewhere in the Eastern Bloc it is impossible to cross out into the west, the one place where that is possible is Berlin where citizens of East Germany can freely cross to West Berlin and then on to West Germany and free Europe. 

Between the introduction of the Eastern Bloc emigration restrictions and the erection of the wall, 3.5 million East Germans cut around the restrictions and defected to the west. 

In June President Kennedy told Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev that he, and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) would not pull out of West Berlin. What he failed to say however was that he would not actively oppose a physical barrier between East and West Berlin 

On 1st August the Kremlin gave the all clear for the East German government to sign an order to close the border into West Berlin at midnight on 13th August. By the morning all 97 miles of the border encircling West Berlin were closed. 

East German troops began to tear up the streets running next to the border making them impassable for vehicles and installing barbed wire topped fences. This date would henceforth be known as barbed wire Sunday. 

Construction on the permanent structure of the wall was initiated on 17th August. The wall ran completely inside East German territory, so to not spark accusations of trying to invade. The wall, for the majority of the time was only very slightly inside East Germany. 

During the time that the wall was being constructed, East German and Soviet soldiers lined the wall with orders to shoot anyone who tried to defect. 

As well as the wall being constructed, additional watchtowers and other defences such as minefields and chain fences were constructed along the main East German border with the west.

Although the Iron Curtain was a trans-continental political and metaphorical barrier, The Berlin Wall came to be the physical symbol of the Iron Curtain. 

The October crisis 

On 27th October 1961 the United States rolled tanks up to Checkpoint Charlie as a show of strength. In response, the USSR did the same. For 16 hours the world held its breath. Until Kennedy rang Krushchev, after which slowly but surely the tanks rolled back. Bar the Cuban Missile Crisis the following year, this was the closest in the Cold War period that the world came to nuclear armageddon. 

The Checkpoints

Until 1990 there were nine border crossings between East and West Berlin. These allowed foreign officials in and out of East Berlin. Regular citizens could also use these checkpoints, provided they had the correct paperwork. Different checkpoints could be used by only people of a certain nationality or office. 

The most famous, or, infamous was Checkpoint Charlie situated in the American Sector of West Berlin. It had the sign that read ‘YOU ARE LEAVING THE AMERICAN SECTOR’ in various languages.  Checkpoint Charlie could also be used for westerners to access the Friedrichstraße Station. 

The Berlin Wall was, without a doubt, the beating heart of the Iron Curtain. After the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the Iron Curtain fell swiftly afterwards. 

Find out more about the fall of the Iron Curtain in the third and final instalment of the Iron Curtain trilogy on The Curious Times website later this week.