On This Day in History: August 13

The Berlin Wall goes up

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It was East Germany that constructed the Berlin Wall, partially because leaders behind the Iron Curtain saw President Kennedy as weak and figured they could get away with it.

--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: August 13, 1961--

Why is it that countries such as the “German Democratic Republic,” AKA the eastern part of Germany behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War, felt the need to lie so blatantly by putting the word “Democratic” in their name? Looking at you, North Korea.

Anyway, JFK was not a strong president, at first. He screwed the swine with the whole Cuban Bay of Pigs thing in April 1961, and his reputation was hurting. Two months later at the Vienna summit, he met with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and made the blunder of admitting that the U.S. wouldn’t actively oppose the building of a wall. JFK further showed weakness by admitting to the New York Times that he’d fucked up by saying so. Sure, it’s great to admit you made a mistake, but when you’re jockeying for position with a brutal superpower dominated by an oppressive cockwaffle like Khrushchev (although he wasn’t near as bad as Stalin had been), revealing such weakness is inadvisable. It’s what led to the Cuban Missile Crisis the following year.

German leader Walter Ulbricht was a good little commie, spending the Nazi years in exile. He was running East Germany in 1961, and in June of that year said, “You know what? I don’t think we need a wall.” Two months later he, along with Nikita, were both, “Fuck it. Let’s build that wall.”

And so, they did.

At midnight on August 13, 1961, East German police and army closed the border between East and West Berlin, splitting families and friends apart, and construction of the wall began. In order to control it, the wall was built inside the East German border. It began with the stringing of many miles of barbed wire, but soon more permanent installations, including concrete walls and guard towers, were built to divide the city and the nation. The eastern PR campaign asserted that the wall protected them from western fascism.

Thousands successfully defected from east to west during the wall years using a variety of sneaky methods. Border guards were ordered to shoot all who attempted, even women and children. More than 100 people were killed in attempted crossings between 1961 and November 9, 1989, when the wall finally fell.

Get the book ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY SH!T WENT DOWN.