BERLIN AND THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

"Berlin is the testicles of the West, every time I want the West to scream, I squeeze on Berlin." - Nikita Khrushchev

Side view of a surviving section of the Berlin Wall

Upon my return to the ship from the trip to Berlin, a friend asked what item I found most memorable in Berlin. I had to think about that, because nothing in particular stood out. Instead, everything stood out: the most memorable thing in Berlin was Berlin itself.

This city is so very different from the other European cities I’ve been seeing. Berlin seems to be new. As in, it was built mostly in mid-century (as in twentieth century) or later.  Of course, Berlin is not new. It first appears in recorded history in 1244, and from there came a criss-cross of Germanics, Slavs, Swedes, the Hohenzollers, Frederick III, von Humboldt, and Bismark. Somewhere in there was Prussia. Then, in 1918, Berlin became the capital of the first German republic. Then things went downhill—way downhill—after that.

We all know the history. WWI, and the punishments imposed on Germany in its aftermath. The rise of Nazism. WWII; the bombings; the fall of Berlin; the death of Hitler; the partition of Germany and Berlin; the construction and eventual destruction of the Berlin Wall; the reunification of the east and west and the rise of Berlin as the power center of Europe. The turmoil of the twentieth century and the changes of the early twenty-first century encapsulated in one city.

Famously, 80% of the buildings in Berlin were destroyed in WWII, with an estimated 90% of that destruction coming in the final 14 days of the war. That is why Berlin is so new. It had to be rebuilt. But first, Germany was divided up among the allies, who created sectors of influence. The Soviet Union had the largest sector, East Germany. Within that territory stood Berlin, but the other allies—the U.S., Britain, and France—would not abandon that city. So Berlin itself was divided into East and West, with the USSR controlling the East and the rest controlling the West.

However, in a dispute over currency in use in West Berlin just three years after the end of the war, the Soviets blockaded West Berlin, refusing to allow access to it by the three allies by road, rail, or sea. So, those three countries, together with Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, organized an airlift of necessities, flying into West Berlin some 9 million tons of food, fuel, and items like toilet paper. The USSR did not block this effort, for fear of generating a new war. Although more than 35 people were killed in the airlift, none died from hostile acts, but instead from the dangers inherent in such an operation during a time when airplanes were still relatively new.

plane used in the Berlin airlift

Eleven months after it started, the Soviet blockade came to a negotiated end, as did the airlift.

But this did not end the tensions, which continued to grow over the following decades. Initially, travel between the east and west continued in much the way that travel happens across borders. However, in the 1950s, an exodus of people from East to West Berlin took place, as the western portion of the city was largely rebuilt with modern structures and its economy strengthened, while the east remained in difficult straits, with rubble still abounding and new building being the cold, Soviet-style cinder block structures.

The problem was that the vast majority of those moving to the western part of the city were under age 25. Realizing that East Germany was, in essence, losing its future, its leaders decided to put an end to that movement.  On August 13, 1961, the border was declared closed, and erection of a wall around West Berlin was begun. The wall consisted of an inner border area, with the usual barbed wire and guarded zones, and then an outer wall. Guards were posted in towers along the wall, with checkpoints at various intervals with heavy security on both sides, with the security on the eastern side primarily concentrating on keeping people in, not out. Officially, 138 people were killed trying to get across the wall. In reality, hundreds of others died while trying to get through the inner perimeter.

Mock-up of Checkpoint Charlie (the third
checkpoint--C for Charlie) at the site where
it once stood

The real Checkpoint Charlie building,
now at a museum

When the border was closed on that day in 1961, families were split. If you happened to be on one side of the wall, and your spouse or child on the other, too bad. The person on the east side could not go to the west side. While some of this resolved in the months and years that followed, some were never reunited.

Most emblematic of this was the area around the Brandenburg gate. That gate symbolized Berlin’s strength, as it was the structure through which past Prussian generals passed upon military victory. Napoleon had taken as a prize the statue that sits atop the gate. Getting it back was a major morale booster for Berliners after Napoleon was defeated. But then, in 1961, it became a symbol of division, as the inner wall stood on the eastern side of the gate and the Wall itself stood to its west.

Brandenburg Gate

Then came the fall of the wall. On November 9, 1989, an announcement that the wall would be open for crossing was reported, and people began massing at the wall’s six checkpoints. With no orders about what to do, the guards opened the gates and let people through. In the days, weeks, and months that followed, the wall was bit-by-bit destroyed. Many of the photos that are seared in our memories from November and December of that year were taken in the area around Brandenburg Gate, which has now become a symbol of freedom and unity.

By the middle of 1990, Germany was once more unified into one country, and the long struggle to make it one country, and Berlin one city, began. Ironically, as one travels through the city today, it is the eastern end of the city that is shiny and new, and west Berlin starts to look a bit aged at this point. This is because the west did its rebuilding in the 1940s and 1950s. The east did much of its rebuilding in the past couple of decades.

Today, pieces of the wall stand here and there to remind us of the past, as do some bullet-ridden columns and buildings so that WWII is never forgotten. Today’s Germany has deep, rich origins, but its twentieth century history is the part that is focused upon, at least in Berlin. Because it should not be forgotten.

A piece of the Wall, kept in remembrance

Today, artists' word can be found on a
part of the wall that still stands