Remembrance Day for the Victims of the Berlin Wall in Germany (Gedenken an die Opfer der Berliner Mauer)

As a result of the Yalta Conference in 1945, the leaders of the USSR, Great Britain and the USA decided that the capital of Germany would be divided into four occupation parts. The eastern sector of Berlin became Soviet, and the other three became allied countries. It was planned that after the end of World War II the city would become a single whole. But that did not happen. Until November 1982, Berlin, like the entire German people, remained divided into two camps: socialist and capitalist. The operation to construct a border redoubt in the form of a concrete fence was referred to in documents as “Chinese Wall-2.” The decision to build a fortification that divided the city into two parts was made by the People's Chamber of the GDR on August 11, 1961. Construction began on August 13, 1961. The Berlin Wall became a symbol of the division of Europe, the confrontation between two political systems and the Cold War. Over the years of the fence's existence, according to various sources, from 125 to 192 East Germans died while trying to escape. Therefore, August 13 is celebrated as the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Berlin Wall. The Germans who fled the GDR died not only because of the shots of the border guards. There are much more victims of the Berlin Wall, about 600 people. This number includes people who committed suicide in Germany, like the military man Hans Conrad Schumann, due to depression and the inability to communicate with relatives from the socialist camp. Victims of the division of Berlin into two parts also included people who suffered fatal accidents while fleeing. A gloomy symbol of the history of the twentieth century. caused the death of 8 GDR border guards. Initially, the western side of the city was surrounded by barbed wire. Then they began building a wall of concrete blocks 3.6 m high. The length of the fence, fortified on the eastern side with stripes with spikes and anti-tank hedgehogs, was 160 km. The Berlin Wall was rammed, like driver Harry Deterling, who dispersed a train with carriages in December 1961 and arrived with passengers in Germany. The most famous was the escape of a group of pensioners through the 40 m long "old people's tunnel", dug from the chicken coop of one of them. The latest victim of an illegal attempt to leave the GDR was Winfried Freudenberg. He died in March 1989 during a flight to Germany in a homemade hot air balloon. The fall of the wall, or rather its official demolition, and the dismantling of border fortifications, which began in 1990, became the final chord of a drama that kept hundreds of thousands of Germans in suspense. Along with the opening of the Iron Curtain, freedom came to East Berlin, incl. movement. The destruction of the wall allowed relatives to see each other and reunite families who could not even dream of this during the Cold War. Gedenken an die Opfer der Berliner Mauer calls to honor the memory of all who were victims of the inhumane division of one people into two warring camps. The confrontation, which lasted for decades, crippled the lives of thousands of people. The descendants of West and East Germans who live today in one state with a capital that is no longer divided into parts, as in 1945-1990, should not forget about this tragedy.