The Berlin Wall enclosed West Berlin from August 13, 1961 to November 9, 1989, cutting a line through the entire city center. It was supposed to prevent East Berliners and citizens of East Germany from fleeing to the West, but the Wall was unable to entirely stop the mass of people from fleeing. Consequently, in 1961, the SED, the ruling Communist Party in East Germany, began adding more border fortifications to the Wall, creating a broad, many-layered system of barriers. In the West people referred to the border strip as the “death strip” because so many people were killed there while trying to flee. With the downfall of East Germany in 1989, the Berlin Wall that the SED had for so long tried to use to maintain its power, also fell. The fall of the Wall marked the definitive end of its dictatorship.

THE BERLIN WALL MEMORIAL

On the border strip that had been located in East Berlin, an open-air exhibition uses the situation on Bernauer Strasse to explain the history of division. The memorial consists of the Monument in Memory of the Divided City and the Victims of Communist Tyranny as well as the Window of Remembrance. The grounds also include the Chapel of Reconciliation and the excavated foundations of a former apartment building whose façade functioned as the border wall until the early eighties.

The Visitor Center and the Documentation Center with a viewing platform are located on the other side of the street that belonged to the western part of the city. The exhibition “Border Stations and Ghost Stations in Divided Berlin” is shown inside the Nordbahnhof S-Bahn station.

THE VISITOR CENTER

The Visitor Center across from the Nordbahnhof S-Bahn station is the starting point for registered groups and visitors to the memorial.

Real German Experience

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Berlin Wall

Berlin Wall

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