History UsefulNotes / BerlinWall

Within the [[{{Commieland}} Communist nation]] (and UsefulNotes/WarsawPact member) of UsefulNotes/EastGermany was the isolated Western exclave of West UsefulNotes/{{Berlin}}, the Allied-occupied remnants of the former capital of UsefulNotes/NaziGermany and by then the epicenter of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar. West Berlin was not a part of UsefulNotes/WestGermany -- its residents couldn't serve in the West German military or vote in federal elections. But it was still connected to West Germany, and it was a little node of freedom within the Eastern Block of the UsefulNotes/IronCurtain. If you could get to West Berlin, you could get to anywhere in the West. And for a time, many East Germans did exactly that, and some died trying.

Bits of the wall ended up all over the world, including at UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan's Presidential Library in Simi Valley, UsefulNotes/{{California}}, UsefulNotes/GeraldFord's Presidential Library (we're asking the same question) in Grand Rapids, UsefulNotes/{{Michigan}}, the gardens of UN Headquarters in New York City, the Newseum in UsefulNotes/WashingtonDC, next to the Baker Institute at Rice University, and in Seoul, the capital of ''another'' country divided in two by a "wall" of sorts, even to this day. There is also a bit of wall in Schengen, Luxembourg, where the treaty establishing open border in most of Europe was signed. And there are still little bits of it in Berlin, most famously the East Side Gallery, as well as a few panels in the Potsdamer Platz.

* The Collector's Edition of ''VideoGame/WorldInConflict'' came with a piece of the Wall and a certificate to prove its authenticity.
** And the Soviets' initial offensive at the start of the AlternateHistory begins when they tear down the wall. With explosives. So their tanks can roll through...

* ''WesternAnimation/AlvinAndTheChipmunks'' featured an episode about the Wall, with Alvin [[AllJustADream dreaming]] about a Chipmunks concert shaking the Wall to its foundation.
** Ironically this came out about a year before the real Wall came down.

Within the [[{{Commieland}} Communist nation]] (and UsefulNotes/WarsawPact member) of UsefulNotes/EastGermany was the isolated Western exclave of West UsefulNotes/{{Berlin}}, the Allied-occupied remnants of the former capital of UsefulNotes/NaziGermany and by then the epicenter of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar. West Berlin was not a part of UsefulNotes/WestGermany -- its residents couldn't serve in the West German military or vote in federal elections. But it was still connected to West Germany, and it was a little node of freedom within the Eastern Block of the UsefulNotes/IronCurtain. If you could get to West Berlin, you could get to anywhere in the West. And for a time, many East Germans did exactly that, or died trying.

Until 13 August 1961, when the East German regime put a stop to it by building a wall separating the two halves of the city. And in doing so, they provided some of the most powerful evidence of the oppression going on in communist satellites of the [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn Soviet Union]], because while most walls are designed to keep people out, this one was designed to keep people ''in''.

Until 13 August 1961, when the East German regime put a stop to it by building a [[WallsOfTyranny Wall of Tyranny]] separating the two halves of the city. And in doing so, they provided some of the most powerful evidence of [[DirtyCommunists the evils of communism]], because while most walls are designed to keep people out, this one was designed to keep people ''in''.

Within the Communist nation (and UsefulNotes/WarsawPact member) of UsefulNotes/EastGermany was the isolated Western exclave of West UsefulNotes/{{Berlin}}, the Allied-occupied remnants of the former capital of UsefulNotes/NaziGermany and by then the epicenter of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar. West Berlin was not a part of UsefulNotes/WestGermany -- its residents couldn't serve in the West German military or vote in federal elections. But it was still connected to West Germany, and it was a little node of freedom within the Eastern Block of the UsefulNotes/IronCurtain. If you could get to West Berlin, you could get to anywhere in the West. And for a time, many East Germans did exactly that, or died trying.

* The 1985 spy film ''Film/{{Gotcha}}'' where college student played by Anthony Edwards gets seduced by a mysterious East European woman (Linda Fiorentino) into traveling to East Berlin. His attempt to get back into West Berlin - going through a humiliating body search at Checkpoint Charlie - is one of the funnier moments in the movie:

Within the Communist nation of UsefulNotes/EastGermany was the isolated Western exclave of West UsefulNotes/{{Berlin}}, the Allied-occupied remnants of the former capital of UsefulNotes/NaziGermany. West Berlin was not a part of UsefulNotes/WestGermany -- its residents couldn't serve in the West German military or vote in federal elections. But it was still connected to West Germany, and it was a little node of freedom within the Eastern Block of the UsefulNotes/IronCurtain. If you could get to West Berlin, you could get to anywhere in the West. And for a time, many East Germans did exactly that, or died trying.

* Its fall is one of the events the titular character in ''Film/AustinPowersInternationalManOfMystery'' watches on tape to drive home [[FishOutOfTemporalWater just how much he missed]] in the thirty years he was kept cyogenically frozen, along with the Apollo Program and Liberace turning out to be gay.

And the wall itself might not exist, the physical divisions it caused still do, especially the wider Inner German Border. Although much of the transit system has been reconnected, there are still some obvious "holes" in the network (which the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Unification_Transport_Projects German Unification Transport Projects]] only partially addressed). The building style is totally different between East and West. The local wildlife still follows the pattern of the border even when no physical trace of it is left. And you can [[https://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2013/apr/21/astronaut-chris-hadfield-berlin-divide you can still see the impact of the wall from space]]. Bottom line, for as lucky as we were that the wall didn't make it to three decades of existence, the damage it did is proof enough of the harm caused by heavily militarized borders.

* [[PunkInTheTrunk Smuggling oneself in someone's trunk]], often a diplomat's car. The East Germans were so used to this that they could spot this by measuring the headlight angles of the driver's [[TheAllegedCar Trabant]], knowing that the weight of a body in the back will compress the springs in the back and raise the front -- and thus the headlights.

* Steinstücken, a small settlement in the far southwest, surrounded entirely by Potsdam and almost a kilometer from the main city limit. When the Wall was first built it was cut off from the west and the US Army command had to arrange a "little airlift" (as opposed to the "big" airlift of 1948) to bring supplies in. Even after the GDR backed down and allowed residents to pass through on the one road to and from the rest of West Berlin they had to go through border checks at either end of the access road until 1972 when the street was swapped for some garden allotments also detached from the main part of West Berlin.

* Checkpoint Bravo, along Autobahn 115 between Berlin-Dreilinden and Drewitz (Brandenburg), in the southwest corner of Berlin. This was the beginning of several Transit routes through East Germany to "mainland" West Germany, with the most heavily-traveled one and the only one open to the Western Allies going to Helmstedt near Hanover. (Checkpoint Alpha was at Helmstedt).

* Checkpoint Charlie was the only road crossing point between the two Berlins for non-Germans, named [[MilitaryAlphabet Charlie]] because it was the third crossing. It was on the border between the American and Soviet occupation zones, and was the site of a stand-off between those countries' tanks in the early 1960s. Nowadays, the location is commemorated with a big sign, an incredibly tacky museum (that's been there since 1962), and a number of street stalls selling GDR memorabilia, most of which are just reproductions. Fun fact; since Berlin rearranged its ''Stadtbezirke'' (boroughs) in the early '00s, the course of the Wall in this part of the city has no legal significance as a political boundary whatsoever.
* Checkpoint Bravo; Along Autobahn 115 between Berlin-Dreilinden and Drewitz (Brandenburg), in the southwest corner of Berlin. This was the beginning of several Transit routes through East Germany to "mainland" West Germany, with the most heavily-traveled one and the only one open to the Western Allies going to Helmstedt near Hanover. (Checkpoint Alpha was at Helmstedt).
* Steinstücken; A small settlement in the far southwest, surrounded entirely by Potsdam and almost a kilometer from the main city limit. When the Wall was first built it was cut off from the west and the US Army command had to arrange a "little airlift" (as opposed to the "big" airlift of 1948) to bring supplies in. Even after the GDR backed down and allowed residents to pass through on the one road to and from the rest of West Berlin they had to go through border checks at either end of the access road until 1972 when the street was swapped for some garden allotments also detached from the main part of West Berlin.

* Checkpoint Charlie was the only road crossing point between the two Berlins for non-Germans, named [[MilitaryAlphabet Charlie]] because it was the third crossing. It was on the border between the American and Soviet occupation zones, and was the site of a stand-off between those countries' tanks in the early 1960s. Nowadays, the location is commemorated with a big sign, an incredibly tacky museum (that's been there since 1962), and a number of street stalls selling GDR memorabilia, most of which are just reproductions. Fun fact; since Berlin rearranged its' ''Stadtbezirke'' (boroughs) in the early '00s, the course of the Wall in this part of the city has no legal significance as a political boundary whatsoever.

!!!Famous Wall Locations

* The otherwise forgettable 1968 comedy ''The Wicked Dreams of Paula Schultz'' features a unique method of defection, with the title character, an East German Olympian, pole-vaulting over the Berlin Wall (the existence of the death strip is ignored). In the process, [[ReluctantFanserviceGirl she loses her clothes on the Wall's barbed wire]]. Yes, it's that kind of movie.

* An episode of Anime/LupinIIIPartII involved a hang glider escape [[Recap/LupinIIIS2E3 over the Wall]].

* In the opening credits of the {{Anime/Patlabor}} TV series, [[http://imgur.com/EbqRwQ5 we see military Labors (mechas) with]] [[UsefulNotes/WeAreNotTheWehrmacht Bundeswehr]] insignia standing guard at the Berlin Wall.

[[AC:FanFiction]]

* Briefly visited in Chapter 3 of ''FanFic/TheConversionBureauColdWar'', where an American patrol squad in West Germany gets ambushed by PER terrorists.
* In ''FanFic/MakeAWish'', Harry visits the Berlin Wall's museum and finds out there is a magical section - turns out several Russian wizards put wards on the Wall. When a couple of German Aurors following Harry (who they think is a super-powerful wizard called Mr Black) enter the museum later, the museum guide slightly misleads them over the conversation she had with "Mr Black", and they find a picture with a man that has a strangely blurred face - which leads them to think "Mr Black" may have been there, destroying the Wall along the East Germans.

* Arthur Dent in ''Radio/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' responds to a comment that the border between genius and madness is very thin by glibly claiming that so is the Berlin Wall. Ford Prefect instantly corrects his grammar to [[EarthShatteringKaboom "was"]], which is even more HilariousInHindsight.

Within the Communist nation of UsefulNotes/EastGermany was the isolated Western exclave of West UsefulNotes/{{Berlin}}, the Allied-occupied remnants of the former capital of UsefulNotes/NaziGermany. West Berlin was not a part of UsefulNotes/WestGermany -- its residents couldn't serve in the West German military or vote in federal elections. But it was still connected to West Germany, and it was a little node of freedom inside the oppressive Eastern Bloc. If you could get to West Berlin, you could get to anywhere in the West. And for a time, many East Germans did exactly that, or died trying.

* Friedrichstraße station, which as mentioned served as the border crossing point for rail travelers. It was in particular a way to travel between East and West by train, and the station became (and to some extent still is) a veritable maze of corridors as people moved from East to West, or West to East, or even West to West (between the S-Bahn and U-Bahn). Some of those corridors were secret and used by the GDR to smuggle operatives into West Berlin. The Western side had an Intershop, which was an East German duty-free shop which only accepted Western currencies and sold higher-quality goods typical of a duty-free store (''e.g.'' alcohol and tobacco), thus providing revenue to the East Germans from Westerners who weren't even planning to enter East Germany[[note]]East Germans could shop there, too, starting in 1974 when they were allowed to possess foreign currency[[/note]]. The border crossing became known as the Tränenpalast or "Palace of Tears", as it was where Western visitors would say goodbye to those not permitted to cross.
* Bernauer Straße, a street which was in the West but whose houses were in the East. The GDR solved this problem by literally walling the windows shut. The residents were forced to jump from the upper-storey windows; the first fatality linked to the wall was a woman who jumped to her death on this street, and the years have provided several dramatic images of people jumping from windows into the waiting arms of West Berliners and rescue workers. Today, there's an on-site museum that's much less tacky and much more chilling than the one at Checkpoint Charlie.
* Checkpoint Bravo; Along Autobahn 115 between Berlin-Dreilinden and Drewitz (Brandenburg), in the southwest corner of Berlin. This was the beginning of several Transit routes through East Germany to "mainland" West Germany, with the most heavily-traveled one and the only one open to the Western Allies going to Helmstedt near Hanover. (Checkpoint Alpha was at Helmstedt).
* Steinstücken; A small settlement in the far southwest, surrounded entirely by Potsdam and almost a kilometer from the main city limit. When the Wall was first built it was cut off from the west and the US Army command had to arrange a "little airlift" (as opposed to the "big" airlift of 1948) to bring supplies in. Even after the GDR backed down and allowed residents to pass through on the one road to and from the rest of West Berlin they had to go through border checks at either end of the access road until 1972 when the street was swapped for some garden allotments also detached from the main part of West Berlin.

* Checkpoint Charlie was the only road crossing point between the two Berlins for non-Germans, named [[MilitaryAlphabet Charlie]] because it was the third crossing[[note]]Checkpoint Bravo was in the southwestern corner of Berlin at Dreilinden and the beginning of the Transit autobahn through East Germany. Checkpoint Alpha was at the other end of it, crossing into "mainland" West Germany at Helmstedt.[[/note]]. It was on the border between the American and Soviet occupation zones, and was the site of a stand-off between those countries' tanks in the early 1960s. Nowadays, the location is commemorated with a big sign, an incredibly tacky museum (that's been there since 1962), and a number of street stalls selling GDR memorabilia, most of which are just reproductions.

* Music/DavidBowie's "Music/HeroesDavidBowieAlbum" is meant to be about two lovers at the Wall.

* [[UsefulNotes/BerlinUAndSBahn Two U-Bahn lines and one S-Bahn line]] operated by Western transit authorities[[note]]There's a weird story behind this -- because the S-Bahn is part of the German national railway network, run by the modern UsefulNotes/DeutscheBahn, it was not self-contained and connected to the East German railway network outside of West Berlin. Initially, the East German railway operated the West Berlin S-bahn, but it was subject to heavy boycott and eventually transferred to the West in 1984.[[/note]] ran through East Berlin territory, and they paid East Germany 20 million (Western) Deutschmarks a year for this privilege. Almost all the stations in GDR territory were closed, with the trains not stopping there and their street-level entrances sealed off -- but they were dimly lit and clearly patrolled by border guards. This gave them the name "ghost stations". The only exception was the Friedrichstraße station, which served as a border checkpoint and transfer station for West Germans. The "ghost stations" retained their Nazi-era look up until the fall of the wall, including the adverts on the walls. Maintenance on the lines in East German territory was difficult, and if a train broke down, the passengers had to wait for the border police to escort them out.

* Checkpoint Charlie was the only road crossing point between the two Berlins for non-Germans, named [[MilitaryAlphabet Charlie]] because it was the third crossing[[note:Checkpoint Bravo was in the southwestern corner of Berlin at Dreilinden and the beginning of the Transit autobahn through East Germany. Checkpoint Alpha was at the other end of it, crossing into "mainland" West Germany at Helmstedt]]. It was on the border between the American and Soviet occupation zones, and was the site of a stand-off between those countries' tanks in the early 1960s. Nowadays, the location is commemorated with a big sign, an incredibly tacky museum (that's been there since 1962), and a number of street stalls selling GDR memorabilia, most of which are just reproductions.

* Checkpoint Charlie was the only road crossing point for non-Germans, named [[MilitaryAlphabet Charlie]] because it was the third crossing. It was on the border between the American and Soviet occupation zones, and was the site of a stand-off between those countries' tanks in the early 1960s. Nowadays, the location is commemorated with a big sign, an incredibly tacky museum (that's been there since 1962), and a number of street stalls selling GDR memorabilia, most of which are just reproductions.

* An episode of Anime/LupinIIIRedJacket involved a hang glider escape [[Recap/LupinIIIS2E3 over the Wall]].

* The amount of angst/romance/family fanfics about the Berlin Wall between Germany and Prussia in the ''Anime/AxisPowersHetalia'' fandom is unsurprising. Most of the fan-stories involving the pairing have at least some portion of it, or a reference to, the Berlin Wall.