196113 August 1961 · Berlin

Building of the Berlin Wall

East German workers using cranes to raise the Berlin Wall in November 1961 — Archival image: US National Archives. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

After millions of East Germans had fled west, many of them through Berlin, the regime sealed the sector border overnight on 13 August 1961, first with barbed wire and then concrete. Families were cut apart, and people died trying to cross. In October, American and Soviet tanks faced each other at Checkpoint Charlie for about sixteen hours in a dispute over Allied access.

Sites

Site 1: Berlin Wall Memorial, Bernauer StraßeWall remnants, the death strip and a window of portraits of those killed.Map ↗
Site 2: Marienfelde Refugee Center MuseumReception camp that took in refugees from the East before and after 1961.Map ↗
Site 3: Checkpoint CharlieSite of the October 1961 tank stand-off, with an open-air exhibition.Map ↗

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Also in Berlin

More from the Cold War

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