History lesson required on East v West Germany during Cold War please.

SexyGreyFox · 26 Oct 2017 at 21:26

So I get that after WWII, Germany was divided between USA, France and Britain who were West Germany and the Soviets who were East Germany.
I also get that in 1961 the East decided to build a wall around the West part of Berlin that was in the Soviet side of Germany so that East Berliners couldn't get to West Berliners.

Here's what I'm not getting -
Was it just to stop East Berliners getting into West Germany or East Berliners not getting into the West?
Why didn't the East Berliners make their way to the East/West German border and take their chances there?
Surely the border might have been easier to get through rather than the Berlin Wall and all it's security!

Sorry if I'm sounding a bit thick but I'm not the brightest button.

mjt · 26 Oct 2017 at 21:35

Wall was very much erected to keep the East Germans in.

They were all spied on by the Stasi and would have been shot or blown up by mines trying to escape. There were lots of attempts to make it across the border smuggled into cars and the like. Remember going to the Checkpoint Charlie museum on a school trip for German A level; quite interesting!

The BBC published an interesting good article about music in East Germany recently.
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-40447191

Wikipedia has some interesting stuff about the inner border esacpes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_attempts_and_victims_of_the_inner_German_border

Attempts to flee across the border were carefully studied and recorded by the East German authorities to identify possible weak points. These would be addressed by strengthening the fortifications in vulnerable areas. The East German Army (NVA) and the Ministry for State Security (Stasi) carried out statistical surveys to identify trends. In one example, a study was carried out by the NVA at the end of the 1970s to review attempted "border breaches" (Grenzdurchbrüche). It found that 4,956 people had attempted to escape across the border between 1 January 1974 and 30 November 1979. Of those, 3,984 people (80.4%) were arrested by the People's Police in the Sperrzone, the outer restricted zone. 205 people (4.1%) were caught at the signal fence. Within the inner security zone, the Schutzstreifen, a further 743 people (15%) were arrested by the border guards. 48 people (1%) were stopped – i.e. killed or injured – by landmines and 43 people (0.9%) by SM-70 directional mines on the border fence. A further 67 people (1.35%) were intercepted at the border fence (shot and/or arrested). The study highlighted the effectiveness of the SM-70 as a means of stopping people getting across the fence. A total of 229 people – just 4.6% of attempted escapees, representing less than one in twenty – made it across the border fence. Of these, the largest number (129, or 55% of successful escapees) succeeded in making it across the fence in unmined sectors. 89 people (39% of escapees) managed to cross both the minefields and the border fence, but just 12 people (6% of the total) succeeded in getting past the SM-70s

Also, this (unverified) article claims that there were, at their peak, 47,000 border troops!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_Troops_of_the_German_Democratic_Republic

mjt · 26 Oct 2017 at 21:43

Just saw in another thread you're in Berlin. Go to the Stasi museum!
http://www.stasimuseum.de/en/enindex.htm

SexyGreyFox · 26 Oct 2017 at 21:45

mjt said:
Wall was very much erected to keep the East Germans in.

Pretty sure the Wall was built around West Berlin.

SexyGreyFox · 26 Oct 2017 at 21:46

mjt said:
Just saw in another thread you're in Berlin. Go to the Stasi museum!
http://www.stasimuseum.de/en/enindex.htm

I'm back but could easily do another 3 days.

mjt · 26 Oct 2017 at 21:48

SexyGreyFox said:
Pretty sure the Wall was built around West Berlin.

Well yes. W Berlin was an enclave in the GDR. But the wall wasn't exactly designed to keep the Westerns out, was it? Westerners could travel in and out of Eastern Europe, albeit with quite a bit of faff. Eastern Europeans to the West, not so easily.

SexyGreyFox · 26 Oct 2017 at 21:53

@mjt

Thanks for the other links, I will work my way through them and it's making more sense.

mjt · 26 Oct 2017 at 21:55

It's fascinating, if rather scary. Eastern Europe was a pretty ****** up place after WWII, and it's a shame that quite a few of the countries either never changed, or are regressing.

SexyGreyFox · 26 Oct 2017 at 22:13

I'm now after a really good documentary on the whole issue.
I attended quite a few museums over in Berlin but still think stuff was missing or wasn't answered.

Sankari · 26 Oct 2017 at 22:24

I remember the day when the Wall came down. Watched it live on the news. Never thought I would live to see it. Simply unreal.

mmj_uk · 26 Oct 2017 at 22:35

Communism doesn't work if people can escape to live under a better system, which is basically everything else. Plus in terms of genocide Communist regimes are unrivalled.

Andy90 · 26 Oct 2017 at 22:36

My Father was out there in 1961 when they decided to build the wall. He was in the R.E.M.E attached to the Lifeguards. He always said that the World came incredibly close to World War 3 when that wall went up. It would have only taken someone with an itchy trigger finger on either side to have started it. People were apparently running from East to West and diving over barbed wire. A lot of people over the years died trying. The Stasi basically kept people in check with fear. You defect - then we cause problems for your family.

Apparently this is a very good read.

Anne Applebaum, Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Iron-Curtain-Crushing-Eastern-1944-1956/dp/140009593X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1509053669&sr=8-1&keywords=Anne+Applebaum,+Iron+Curtain:+The+Crushing+of+Eastern+Europe,+1944-1956

and

Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Postwar-Hi...Judt,+Postwar:+A+History+of+Europe+Since+1945

Vonhelmet · 26 Oct 2017 at 22:43

Watch Goodbye Lenin! and The Lives of Others.

SexyGreyFox · 26 Oct 2017 at 23:27

Andy90 said:
My Father was out there in 1961 when they decided to build the wall. He was in the R.E.M.E attached to the Lifeguards.

This is a long shot but ask your Dad if he knew a fellow National Service REME soldier who also played in rock n roll bands for the troops called Dennis Poole.
My Dad was also in Germany but when they found out he could play they used his talents to mostly entertain.
They called themselves The Planets and made up of REME soldiers.

Tunney · 26 Oct 2017 at 23:50

Stasiland by Anna Funder is a fascinating and accessible read on the subject. It contains some really heart-breaking stories of families being split up when the wall came down but there’s also a number of people interviews on both sides who wish the wall was still standing.

dowie · 26 Oct 2017 at 23:54

I remember my old history teacher talking about a school trip he took some pupils on many years before in the 80s, apparently they'd gone to visit the wall and the East German guards had just shot someone who had tried to escape, the guy was lying there and wasn't dead yet but no one from the West German side was able to help them. The whole story of how the wall came down is pretty crazy and the protests at/storming of the Stasi offices etc.. later on. It is crazy to think that there are still plenty of mass murderers who have gotten away with it and are still alive and free in Germany, not so many Nazis left as they've mostly died out but plenty of former secret policemen who haven't been held accountable.

The other interesting aspect is Putin, the Stasi had a plan for how they'd run an East German state in the event of a return to democracy, essentially as a democracy at face value but corrupted and run behind the scenes by Stasi officer - due to the way events transpired they didn't get to carry it out... however Putin who was in East Germany as a young KGB officer now seems to be running Russia in the way the Stasi envisioned for a 'democratic' post communist East Germany

Stretch · 27 Oct 2017 at 00:00

It's a fascinating subject. I'm just old enough really remember a time when there was a world only a few hundred miles away which was completely alien and off limits.

I've done a lot of reading/watched videos etc. There some really good ones about life behind the iron curtain and escape attempts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2GRQP7K0iY&index=1&list=PLE72D6AF263BEAC69

The Berlin subway/rail system is one of the most interesting issues. Some trains would carry West Berliners right through East Berlin territory, but obviously wouldn't stop at the stations. Similarly, East Berliners would stop trains to try and escape, until the Stasi tightened things up.

mmj_uk said:
Communism doesn't work if people can escape to live under a better system, which is basically everything else. Plus in terms of genocide Communist regimes are unrivalled.

The Communists would say the system only works if everyone stays and works for the greater good.

Stretch · 27 Oct 2017 at 00:36

SexyGreyFox said:
So I get that after WWII, Germany was divided between USA, France and Britain who were West Germany and the Soviets who were East Germany.
I also get that in 1961 the East decided to build a wall around the West part of Berlin that was in the Soviet side of Germany so that East Berliners couldn't get to West Berliners.

Here's what I'm not getting -
Was it just to stop East Berliners getting into West Germany or East Berliners not getting into the West?
Why didn't the East Berliners make their way to the East/West German border and take their chances there?
Surely the border might have been easier to get through rather than the Berlin Wall and all it's security!

Sorry if I'm sounding a bit thick but I'm not the brightest button.

A secure border existed along the entire length of the east/west divide, not just in Berlin or even Germany. Whilst it was less secure outside of the main population centres close to the border, it was still formidable, and you shouldn't underestimate just how difficult it was to move around in the East in general. Fellow citizens were encouraged to spy on each other, essentially making the whole country a spy network. There were also regular road checks, if you were lucky enough to own a car. If you look suspicious in the open country side, you were very likely to get caught, and the punishments were severe.

Stretch · 27 Oct 2017 at 01:58

This is also a good video about life in the GDR and the history of the wall if any one is interested

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fwQv5h7Lq8&t=5s

dowie · 27 Oct 2017 at 02:18

one really interesting topic to look into is the military liaison teams that were sent to East Germany, there were a certain number of UK, US and French military personnel who were allowed to be attached to liaison missions in the GDR (AFAIK the UK had something like 30 or so) - they were allowed to move around most of the country so long as they were in military uniform and in their clearly marked car

the whole thing despite being fairly overt turned into an surveillance/espionage thing, with 3 man teams of British military personnel playing cat and mouse around the East German countryside trying to shake off any Soviet counter intelligence types, East Germany police, border guards etc..

seemingly they did get to sneak around on plenty of occasions and take plenty of pictures of Soviet military equipment, explore parts of Soviet military locations (and risk getting shot in the process) etc...