50 Fun Facts About Berlin Wall

On what date did East Germany begin sealing off West Berlin?

Streets were torn up and barbed wire strung overnight; the first concrete blocks followed on 17 August.

What did the East German authorities officially call the Wall?

West Berlin's mayor Willy Brandt preferred 'Wall of Shame'.

Roughly how many East Germans, about a fifth of the population, left for the West before the Wall went up?

The exodus was heaviest among engineers, doctors, teachers and other professionals, the so-called brain drain.

Which East German leader declared 'No one has the intention of erecting a wall' two months before construction?

He said it at an international press conference on 15 June 1961.

Which West Berlin mayor coined the term 'Wall of Shame'?

He led West Berliners' protests and even criticised Washington for failing to respond; Kennedy was furious.

What was the cleared, raked ground between the inner and outer walls known as?

Its sand or gravel showed footprints, offered no cover and gave guards clear fields of fire.

What was the nickname of the 'beds of nails' laid under balconies overhanging the border zone?

The defences also included over 116 watchtowers, 20 bunkers, dogs on long lines and anti-vehicle trenches.

The final 'fourth-generation' Berlin Wall was made of about 45,000 concrete sections each how tall?

A smooth pipe ran along the top to make it harder to climb; most surviving fragments worldwide are from this version.

Roughly how long was the Berlin Wall in total?

Around 43 km divided East and West Berlin; the rest sealed West Berlin off from the surrounding East German countryside.

Checkpoint Charlie took its name from what?

Checkpoints Alpha and Bravo were on the autobahn route from West Germany at Helmstedt and Dreilinden.

Checkpoint Charlie was the only crossing designated for which groups?

Soviet and American tanks briefly faced each other there during the Berlin Crisis of October 1961.

Where was Checkpoint Charlie's original guardhouse displayed after its 1990 removal?

A wooden shed served as the guardhouse until it was replaced by the metal container in May 1976.

What were the sealed East Berlin stops that Western trains passed through without halting called?

Three western lines ran briefly beneath East Berlin; both networks met at Friedrichstrasse.

Who was the first East German border guard to escape, jumping the barbed wire two days after it went up?

Peter Leibing's photograph 'Leap into Freedom' became one of the iconic images of the Cold War.

Ida Siekmann, the Wall's first fatality, died nine days after construction began doing what?

The nurse died the day before her 59th birthday; her building's front doors opened onto West Berlin.

Near which street was 18-year-old Peter Fechter shot at the Berlin Wall in 1962 and left to bleed to death?

Westerners could not help him for fear of drawing fire; the outcry forced the GDR to restrict shooting in public places.

Chris Gueffroy, the last person shot dead trying to cross, was killed in which month?

Winfried Freudenberg, the last to die in an escape attempt, crashed his home-made gas balloon a month later.

Tunnel 57, dug from a West Berlin bakery basement in 1964, was named for what?

At 145 metres long and 12 metres deep it was the longest and deepest of the Berlin escape tunnels; future astronaut Reinhard Furrer helped dig it.

Potsdam's Centre for Contemporary History has confirmed at least how many deaths at the Wall?

The Checkpoint Charlie Museum puts the toll well above 200; over 5,000 people succeeded in getting across.

Kennedy delivered his 'Ich bin ein Berliner' speech in June 1963 from the steps of which building?

He also told those who thought they could work with the communists, 'Lasst sie nach Berlin kommen'.

The story that Kennedy's phrase made him 'a jelly doughnut' is what?

The phrasing had been typed on his list of expressions a week earlier, complete with a phonetic transcription.

Reagan's 'tear down this wall!' speech at the Brandenburg Gate marked which occasion?

White House chief of staff Howard Baker thought the line 'extreme' and 'unpresidential', but Reagan kept it in.

Who was the speechwriter credited with the 'tear down this wall' line?

Chief speechwriter Anthony Dolan later attributed the line directly to Reagan himself.

Which East German leader predicted in January 1989 that the Wall would stand for another 50 or 100 years?

He resigned that October and was replaced by Egon Krenz; the Wall fell three weeks later.

Which rock star played 'Rocking the Wall' to 300,000 people in East Berlin in July 1988?

The GDR hoped it would ease pressure; instead it left East Germans hungrier for the freedoms he sang about.

Whose 2016 death drew a German Foreign Office tweet thanking him for helping bring down the wall?

His 1987 concert by the Reichstag was heard by crowds on the eastern side of the Wall.

Which SED spokesman mistakenly announced on 9 November 1989 that new travel rules took effect 'immediately'?

He had been handed the note shortly before and never told the rules were meant to start the next day.

Which journalist asked Schabowski the question that prompted his fateful answer?

Schabowski then repeated that it was immediate in an interview with Tom Brokaw.

Which crossing opened first on 9 November when commander Harald Jaeger gave in to the crowds?

Guards had first been told to stamp the passports of the 'most aggressive' people so they could never return.

Which August 1989 event on the Austria-Hungary border is credited with setting the fall of the Wall in motion?

Tens of thousands of East Germans then set off for Hungary hoping to cross west.

Who took over as East German leader on 18 October 1989, three weeks before the Wall opened?

His politburo took the decision on 9 November to let citizens exit directly through the crossing points.

On which date did the Brandenburg Gate section of the Wall reopen?

Full demolition began on 13 June 1990 and was finished in 1994.

On what date was Germany formally reunified?

The date is now Germany's national holiday, the Day of German Unity.

What bird-based nickname was given to souvenir hunters who chipped at the concrete with hammers and chisels?

Border troops at first tried to repair the damage the Mauerspechte caused, then gave up.

The East Side Gallery, the longest surviving stretch of the Wall, is how long?

In spring 1990 it was painted by 118 artists from 21 countries; it runs along the Spree in Friedrichshain.

Which American TV star sang 'Looking for Freedom' above the Wall on New Year's Eve 1989?

More than 500,000 attended; a small museum to him opened in a hostel basement in 2008.

Which German band played 'Wind of Change' at Roger Waters's 1990 Berlin staging of The Wall?

Cellist Mstislav Rostropovich played Bach; Waters had once said he would only perform The Wall outdoors 'if they ever take the wall down in Berlin'.

Which Havel crossing between Wannsee and Potsdam became known as the 'Bridge of Spies'?

The Havel narrows there formed the border between West Berlin and East Germany.

From late summer 1961 until December 1963, who was completely barred from entering East Berlin?

A 1963 Christmas pass agreement first eased the ban; the 1971 Four Power Agreement made regular visits possible.

Which Berlin Airlift hero did Kennedy send back to West Berlin as special advisor in 1961?

Vice President Lyndon Johnson went with him as a symbolic gesture of support.

How did Kennedy learn of the border closure on the day it happened?

He was angry at the lack of warning but relieved West Berlin's access routes had been left alone.

Which agency intercepted advance warning of the plan to close the intra-Berlin border?

Allied analysts had expected any barrier to go around the whole city rather than through it.

What was the East German term for illegal flight from the republic, which the Wall was built to stop?

Between 1949 and 1961 more than 2.5 million East Germans fled to the West.

A 2019 YouGov poll found what share of Germans wanted the Wall back?

Support was 14% in the West and 13% in the East.

Roughly how many East Germans successfully escaped over, under or through the Berlin Wall during its existence?

Methods included tunnels, hot-air balloons, sliding along aerial wires, ultralights and, early on, simply ramming a sports car through the first fortifications.

What was fitted along the top of the fourth-generation Wall to make it harder to climb?

Behind it lay signal fencing, anti-vehicle trenches, dogs on long lines, over 116 watchtowers and 20 bunkers.

Günter Litfin, the first person shot dead trying to reach West Berlin, was attempting to do what?

The 24-year-old tailor was killed on 24 August 1961, the same day East German police received shoot-to-kill orders.

An 80-metre stretch of the original westernmost Wall still stands at which Berlin site?

It sits on the former Gestapo headquarters, midway between Checkpoint Charlie and Potsdamer Platz; the East Side Gallery and Bernauer Straße hold the other long sections.

The 1982 film Night Crossing dramatised two families' 1979 escape from East Germany by what means?

The Strelzyk and Wetzel families crossed the inner German border on 16 September 1979; John Hurt and Beau Bridges starred in the film.

At which 1961 summit did Kennedy concede that the US would not actively oppose a barrier in Berlin?

Khrushchev read Kennedy's youth as weakness; the president later admitted his miscalculation in a candid interview with James 'Scotty' Reston.