30th ANNIVERSARY OF THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL

About:

• The Berlin Wall was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989.
  
  
• The Wall cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany, including East Berlin. The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, accompanied by a wide area that contained anti-vehicle trenches, "fakir beds" and other defenses.
  
  
• Construction of the Wall was commenced by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) in 1961. The Eastern Bloc portrayed the Wall as protecting its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the people in building a socialist state in East Germany.
  
  
• GDR authorities officially referred to the Berlin Wall as the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart. The West Berlin city government sometimes referred to it as the "Wall of Shame", in reference to the Wall's restriction on freedom of movement.
  
  
• It came to symbolize physically the "Iron Curtain" that separated Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.