Berlin Wall construction 60th Anniversary

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Recently, the 60th anniversary of of the construction of the Berlin Wall has been observed. It was built overnight on 13 August 1961, and came to symbolize the Cold War. It was once of the most hated structures ever, and the West Berlin side was full with graffiti. It was eventually demolished on 9 November 1989.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...f17_story.html

[oldmanwinters]

Anybody remember that Alvin and the Chipmunks episode?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6y6zQdq8h-I

[neatoman]

The few people who managed to escape to the western side, how did they manage to get out of the city? Remember, it was an enclave within the communist side, meaning you had to leave through East Germany to enter the rest of West Germany. I can imagine a loophole in which West German citizens where diplomatically allowed to travel directly between the city and the rest of West Germany, so all the East German refugees had to do was to obtain a West German passport. But you'd figure in that case East Germany would not recognise those as lagitimate, of course that could in turn be seen as a violation of diplomacy. Does anyone know for sure?

Anyway, I tend to view the Berlin wall as a symbol for why communism doesn't really work in practice and the lengths communists are ready to go to prevent their ideology from losing formal power. If you have to raise a wall, make a minefield, mount spotlights, add guard towers and authorise the patrol to shoot on sight... To prevent well educated people from getting to the inside of said wall, then clearly there is something wrong with how you run things.

[Sumac]

Originally Posted by neatoman

The few people who managed to escape to the western side, how did they manage to get out of the city? Remember, it was an enclave within the communist side, meaning you had to leave through East Germany to enter the rest of West Germany. I can imagine a loophole in which West German citizens where diplomatically allowed to travel directly between the city and the rest of West Germany, so all the East German refugees had to do was to obtain a West German passport. But you'd figure in that case East Germany would not recognise those as lagitimate, of course that could in turn be seen as a violation of diplomacy. Does anyone know for sure?

Before or after the Wall?
Before border was fairly lenient and people could cross relatively easy. To the point that some people could live in Eastern Germany and work in Western.
After the Wall was build, it were tunnels and, most likely, some illegal means to cross border, like using smugglers or something like that, I think.

Originally Posted by neatoman

Anyway, I tend to view the Berlin wall as a symbol for why communism doesn't really work in practice and the lengths communists are ready to go to prevent their ideology from losing formal power. If you have to raise a wall, make a minefield, mount spotlights, add guard towers and authorise the patrol to shoot on sight... To prevent well educated people from getting to the inside of said wall, then clearly there is something wrong with how you run things.

Modern Twitter commies don't realize it and think it was all, because, of evil CIA (capitalism) conspiracy.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Originally Posted by neatoman

The few people who managed to escape to the western side, how did they manage to get out of the city?

No idea, but they could probably travel by passenger train travelling directly from West Berlin into somewhere in West Germany. If the train only crossed railway tracks on East German territory, but never stopped at any station in East Germany, the railway cars wouldn't be investigated by East German police.

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by neatoman

Anyway, I tend to view the Berlin wall as a symbol for why communism doesn't really work in practice and the lengths communists are ready to go to prevent their ideology from losing formal power. If you have to raise a wall, make a minefield, mount spotlights, add guard towers and authorise the patrol to shoot on sight... To prevent well educated people from getting to the inside of said wall, then clearly there is something wrong with how you run things.

Great post, man.

[Prowler]

As someone born in 1990, naturally I have no memories of the Berlin Wall. The Cold War is basically just another piece of history to me. It didn't end THAT long ago, but it has always felt so distant to me.

European countries like Germany certainly felt more impacted by the Iron Curtain than Portugal. We were as far away as you can be in Europe from it. So the wall coming down didn't really impact us much directly except for receiving some Ukrainian, Russian, Romanian and Moldovan immigrants throughout the 90s.

Agree with neatoman.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Originally Posted by Prowler

European countries like Germany certainly felt more impacted by the Iron Curtain than Portugal.

Berlin is 20th Century history within one single city. The German Empire and World War I, the German Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany and World War II, West–East Germany and the Cold War and finally reunited Germany.

[Sumac]

Originally Posted by Original TMNT Cartoon Fan

Berlin is 20th Century history within one single city. The German Empire and World War I, the German Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany and World War II, West–East Germany and the Cold War and finally reunited Germany.

Good way to put it.
Its crazy how much stuff can happen over just one century.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Here are some interesting facts about the history of East Germany. I was already aware of most of it, but not the video gaming-related content.






https://gigazine.net/gsc_news/en/201...rnany-gamingq/