Wednesday 20 August 2014

Aug 20 1961 - East Germany Erecting Wall

A post taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then on that day ignoring hindsight or knowledge of how it ended.

Regardless of your ideology, when you have to build a 5 meter high wall to keep people from escaping, you are on shaky ground which is exactly what the German Democratic Republic have announced they are going to do in Berlin.
Calling it an 'Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart', the East German authorities argue that neighbouring West Germany had not been fully de-Nazified but really it has more to do with them seeing 3.5 million East Germans, 20% of the entire East German population, defecting from the East into West Berlin since 1945.
First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party and GDR State Council chairman Walter Ulbricht has announced that during the construction of the Wall, soldiers will stood in front of it with orders to shoot anyone who attempts to defect.
Additionally, chain fences, walls, minefields and other obstacles are to be installed along the length of East Germany's western border with West Germany and a huge no man's land will be cleared to provide a clear line of fire at any escapees.
The GDP has called any attempts to leave the GDR an 'act of political and moral backwardness and depravity' but building a huge wall to stop your own people escaping does sound like they are on the wrong side of it.

1 comment:

Liber - Latin for "The Free One" said...
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