Notes
Notes on the Berlin Wall (so I don’t forget)
March 30, 2026
1. After Germany’s surrender in 1945, Germany and its capital Berlin were both divvied up by the Allies into four zones of influence: American, British, French, Soviet.
2. However, the Western Allies’ relations with the Soviet Union soon soured, and the Cold War began in 1947. In 1949, East Germany (German Democratic Republic) and West Germany (Federal Democratic Republic) consolidated into being. In Berlin, West Berlin became an enclave with zig-zag borders: surrounded by East Germany (including East Berlin) on all sides.
3. Many East Germans began fleeing to West Germany: almost three million did so between 1949 and 1959. This made the GDR look bad, and they made Republiks-flucht (fleeing the republic) a crime. Since East Germany’s borders were sealed, the only way out left was through Berlin: East Berlin, then clandestinely on to West Berlin, then West Germany. To stop this haemorrhage of citizens, the GDR blocked off all access to West Berlin overnight with barbed-wire fences on 13 August 1961. Overtime, these barriers took on ever more substantial and uncompromising forms and became a permanent wall. After some 28 years, it finally came down on 9 November 1989. The Cold War ended soon after in 1991.
4. Various ways people tried to jump the wall. How many died trying?
5. The absurdities of partition
Necessarily, West Berlin had a kind of special status. Was not really part of West Germany, and was administered separately. It remained under Allied occupation status. Hence the funny thing with Schonefeld Airport: where funniyl enough it was not really an ‘internatinoal’ airport. 1949 west germany was under allied powers control. 1955 germany became independent(?) but berlin was still under allied occupation status.
6. The Wall did not carry equal weight in the eyes of West Berliners and East Berliners. In Peter Schneider’s The Wall Jumper, he makes a point that in the West it became more of a metaphor, a bureaucratic obstacle: it was commonplace for West Berliners to be able to visit relatives and friends in the East who were not free to leave their side. Passafe from TWJ:
Once the initial panic died, the massive structure faded inscreasingly to a metaphor in the West German consciousness. What on the far side meant an end to a freedom of movement, on the rear side came to spymbolize a detested social order. The view East schrank to a view of the border complex and finally to a group-therapy absorption with the self: for Germans in the West, the Wall became a mirror that told them, day by day, who was the fairest one of all.
“As long as I have lived in West Berlin, I have treated the structure that is considdered a state border ovr there and a tourist attraction over here as simply an inconvenience.”
“By comparison, wthe state to the West, which claimed to be a society, seemed to me fr more violent and powerful, invisible but omnipresent.”
7. Today, what we might think of geographically as east Berlin and west Berlin does not necessarily correspond to what was once ‘East Berlin’ and ‘West Berlin’. Case in point: Neukölln, though geographically located in the eastern part of the city, was part of ‘West Berlin’. Honestly, this hadn’t struck me until I read Vincenzo Latronico’s Perfection, haha. Another clue: Neukölln has no trams! West Berlin removed much of its tram network—partly to make room for more cars?—while East Berlin kept them. Since reunification, the city has extended tram lines into some former West Berlin areas, such as Wedding and Mitte.
eter schndier; really like how he shows the logistics with such detail, a journalist’s detail, ithout spelling it out. it folds seamlessly into the narrative. never just information being plugged at you
—e.