achtung baby (!)
on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the berlin wall (and the week anniversary of the u2 concert debaucle), here are some interesting facts about the wall that you may not have known:
- construction of the wall began in 1961
- the wall was 87 miles long
- the wall materials changed over time (wire fence (1961) —>improved wire fence (1962–1965)—>concrete wall (1965–1975)—>reinforced concrete wall (1975–1989)
- there were only 8 border crossings, the most famous being checkpoint charlie
- westerners could visit east germany with a visa, though east germans could not visit the west
- over the life of the wall, 5,000 people escaped and there’s thought that about 200 people lost their lives trying to cross
- two years before the fall of the wall in 1987, then president ronald reagan made his famous speech urging then president gorbachev to ‘tear down the wall’
very little of the wall remains today. there are only a few spots littered about the city that remind us it was once there.
photo of the achtung baby album cover (album recorded in berlin, germany) via u2.com
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I was taking Russian 317 at the time the wall fell. It was amazing to be in class and having history written in that moment.