Clifford W. Mills - Angela Merkel, Third Edition

In this August 13, 1961, photo, East German soldiers construct barbed wire barricades to restrict travel between East Berlin and West Berlin. West Berlin townspeople observe the process. Eventually, this barricade became a 12-foot-high wall of concrete and steel, and prevented passage between the two areas for nearly 30 years.

Source: AP Images.

Since the end of World War II, Germany had been divided into two countries: East Germany and West Germany. Its capital, Berlin, had also been divided into East and West. The two superpowers responsible for the division, the United States (and its allies) and the Soviet Union, wrestled for power over the country and the world. The United States and its allies helped rebuild West Germany and West Berlin, and the Soviet Union controlled East Germany and East Berlin.

Berlin was a problem for both sides. The capital city was located almost 100 miles inside the German Democratic Republic (GDR), as East Germany was officially known. The two worldviews clashed most directly in the city due to different economies. It was soon clear that more jobs were being created in West Berlin, since businesses had more freedom to start up and grow. Many East Berliners began to move to West Berlin for its greater freedom and better jobs, and the flow of emigrants became an embarrassment for the Soviet Union and East Germany. The leaders felt they had to do something to save face. They were in a struggle for hearts and minds, and they were losing.

In a brutally efficient 24-hour operation that began on the night of August 12, 1961, Soviet soldiers sealed off East Berlin subways and train stations, tore up the streets, and began to build a 12-foot high wall of concrete and steel, which was topped with barbed wire and machine guns. The wall divided the city of Berlin, and no travel was allowed between East and West any longer. The Soviet Union and East Germany had solved the emigration problem in Berlin the only way they knew how.

Suddenly, 60,000 workers could no longer get to their jobs. The wall divided families. Lifelong friends were destined not to see each other again for the next 28 years. The Berlin wall became a symbol of tyranny and oppression. The planned economies and rigidly structured lives of those living under Communist rule in East Germany and in the Soviet Union seemed to be summed up in that one physical barrier. Over 250 people lost their lives trying desperately to climb it and reach the freedom that was only yards away. People on the western side could hear gunshots and cries from the eastern side.

The wall eventually extended for 97 miles around Berlin and its surroundings. Some sections of it were later fitted with state-of-the-art automatic weapons run by motion detectors that shot at anything that moved. The wall grew like a monster as layers and layers of brick were added over time, along with more barbed wire. The ground around it became a dead zone, a death stripe. When U.S. president Ronald Reagan famously urged the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987 to tear down the wall, few expected that it would happen.

The Schabowski news conference was televised in West Berlin only, but many people in East Berlin had televisions that could pick up signals intended only for the West. A young woman in East Berlin named Angela Merkel had been watching, but she was relaxing after her weekly session at her favorite sauna and was not really paying attention. She wondered if she had heard correctly that travel was now permitted. Surely such a world-shaking announcement would not come in a comment after an hour of talking. Merkel called her mother and blurted out, "If the wall ever falls down, we will go to the Kempinski and eat lobsters!" (Since the Kempinski was West Berlin's fanciest hotel, they had long dreamed of how wonderful a night there would be.)

One of Merkel's first memories was of her mother crying in church as the wall was being built. Her mother had known what hardship was to follow. Their lives in East Germany had been harsh and without luxuries. The family had at one time milked goats and cooked soup from stinging nettles to survive. Dinner at the Kempinski (only a few blocks away) seemed an impossible dream.

Merkel then did what many East Berliners did. She went outside and walked quickly to the nearest wall checkpoint to test the guards, to see if what she thought she heard was true. She must have expected to see tanks and the dreaded guards with their cold eyes and hard boots, as always. She approached the checkpoint tentatively with a few other people, and they were shocked when, instead of shooting, the guards allowed them all to walk right into the western sector. The East Germans entered a whole new world, a world with more color and life. Some would later say the first thing they saw was all the graffiti and art on the western side of the wall. Their side had nothing but warnings and faded bloodstains.

As the news spread, a small stream of people became a deliriously joyful rushing torrent. West Berliners flocked to each checkpoint to meet brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers. East Berliners pushed through the checkpoints, rushing into spontaneous reunions. Families clutched each other for the first time in a lifetime. Then, some younger East Germans started climbing onto the wall and tearing at it. First they used their bare hands and then they found hammers to batter away at the long-standing symbol of tyranny. West Berliners joined them in cutting down the barbed wire and hacking away at the concrete with sledge hammers and iron bars. These were the first acts of a joyful unification.

Today, the most visible evidence of the wall's existence is a red line or a double row of cobblestones where it once stood, winding through dozens of Berlin's streets. Tourists too young to have seen the wall often have a hard time imagining its soul-deadening powers. Souvenir fragments of the wall are found all over the world, including in museums and U.S. government buildings. They are reminders of 11/9.