On paper, the constitution of East Germany was similar to that of West Germany. The authority rule was to lie in the parliament, the People’s Chamber. All citizens over 18 were given the right to vote. But elections in East Germany lost all meaning because the government chose candidates and voters merely came out to demonstrate their “approval.” Participation was often less than voluntary, as many workers were marched to the voting places. The election results were guaranteed. In fact, all important decisions were made by the government, and no dissent was allowed.
With the two governments and their officials in place, the curtain was ready to go upon a difficult forty-year struggle.

The Wall of the Shame

Until August 1961 the border between East and West Germany is opened and daily half a million people cross the border from one part of the city into the other. Many East Berliners go into the cinema or discos in the West. Women get the first seamless panty hoses in the West, tropical fruits are only available there. By early 1961, as many as 1,000 people a day, flee East German communism for a better life in the capitalist West. At the same time, the leaders of the Communist parties meet in Moscow from August 3 until Aug. 5, 1961 and they decide to close the open border between East and West Berlin to “protect citizens of East Germany from capitalism.”

Shortly after midnight on August 13, 1961, police and soldiers in Communist-controlled East Berlin moved swiftly through the streets of the darkened city, taking up positions on roads leading to the West. Within hours, all traffic had been blocked. Trains had stopped running. Telephone connections between East Berlin and the West had been cut. Then, over following weeks and months, a massive concrete and barbed-wire barricade rose along the border between East Berlin and West Berlin. The city of Berlin, once proud capital of Germany, was divided by an impenetrable barrier that was patrolled by day and night by armed soldiers and guard dogs. The wall was unlike any barrier in history. Instead of being built to keep people out, its purpose was to keep people in.

Escape to the West
As the Wall grew higher and higher, the desire of many East Berliners to escape confinement also grew.