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The East German government sought to defuse the situation by relaxing the country's border controls with effect from 10 November 1989; [165] the announcement was on the evening of 9 November 1989 by Politburo member Günter Schabowski at a somewhat chaotic press conference in East Berlin, who proclaimed the new control regime as liberating the ...
Hundreds of thousands of East Germans found an escape route across the border of East Germany's erstwhile ally, Hungary.The inner German border's integrity relied ultimately on other Warsaw Pact states fortifying their own borders and being willing to shoot escapees, including East Germans, around fifty of whom were shot on the borders of Polish People's Republic, Czechoslovak Socialist ...
Immediately after news of East Germany's somewhat mistaken announcement on the removal of border controls by Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) official Günter Schabowski was broadcast at 8:00pm on 9 November 1989, [1] thousands of East Germans began gathering at the Bornholmer Straße border crossing, demanding that border guards immediately open its gates to let them through to West Berlin.
In August 1967, East Germany erected 2,622 distinctive border markers or "barber's poles" (Grenzsäule or Grenzpfähle), each located about 500 feet (150 m) apart. They were made of concrete and painted with the black, red and gold colours of the German flag. Some can still be seen in situ today.
Most travel routes from West Germany to East Germany and Poland also used this crossing. The border crossing existed from 1945 to 1990 and was situated near the East German village of Marienborn at the edge of the Lappwald. The crossing interrupted the Bundesautobahn 2 (A 2) between the junctions Helmstedt-Ost and Ostingersleben.
The GDR side of the Inner German Border had by far a more complex system of fortifications and border controls than the Federal Republic of Germany (). 1.393 kilometers (0.866 miles) long and between 50 and 200 kilometers deep, the German portion ran from the Baltic Sea to Czechoslovakia with the entire "Iron Curtain" extending from the Arctic to the Black Sea.
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From 1945 onwards, unauthorised crossers of the inner German border risked being shot by Soviet or East German border guards. The use of deadly force was termed the Schießbefehl ("order to fire" or "command to shoot"). It was formally in force as early as 1948, when regulations concerning the use of firearms on the border were promulgated.