Barbed Wire Sunday

Barbed Wire Sunday (Stacheldrahtsonntag), is the name given to August 13, 1961, when the East German military and police closed the border between East and West Berlin and began the construction of what would become of the Berlin Wall. The intention of closing the border was to prevent the migration of East Germans to the West. [1]

Prior to the establishment of the wall, approximately 3.5 million (or 20% of the population) East German citizens defected to West Germany, many through the Berlin border due to its lack of security. This posed a major issue to the government as it was losing its substantial amounts of not just its workforce but also its intellectuals.[2]

Timeline

Beginning at midnight, Walter Ulbricht directed the beginning of construction.[3] Under extreme secrecy, East German troops arrived at certain points to unload concrete, barbed wire, shovels, stone blocks and more.[4] Stasi agents were stationed throughout major intersections between the Soviet and Western sectors of Germany.

Around 4 a.m., radio reports of commotion in the streets were being broadcast in West Berlin. By 4 p.m., half a million Berliners from both the West and East congregated around the sector.[4] While police in West Berlin held back West Berliners who were calling for action, police in East Berlin were keeping its people away from the construction.

Results

That day, only a few hundred escaped, and only a few dozen the following day. The Berlin Wall had officially been established.

Notes
  1. "The Berlin Wall: A Secret History".
  2. "The rise and fall of the Berlin Wall - Konrad H. Jarausch".
  3. http://search.proquest.com/docview/1034949456
  4. "'BARBED-WIRE SUNDAY.': EBSCOhost". web.a.ebscohost.com. Retrieved 2017-04-13.


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gollark: Content-Security-Policy frame-ancestors.
gollark: We could also deploy secret Council web crawlers monitoring enGEORGED pages for keywords?
gollark: Yes.
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