Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis

by Jared Diamond

East Germans began fleeing to the West. Hence in 1952 East Germany sealed its borders to the West, but East Germans could still escape by passing from East Berlin into West Berlin, then flying from West Berlin to West Germany. The pre-war public transport system in Berlin (U-Bahn and S-Bahn) included lines that connected West and East Berlin, so that anyone in East Berlin could get into West Berlin just by hopping on a train. When I first visited Berlin in 1960, like other Western tourists I took the U-Bahn to visit East Berlin and to return to West Berlin. In 1953 dissatisfaction in East Germany blew up in a strike that turned into a rebellion, crushed by Soviet troops. Dissatisfied East Germans continued to escape to the West by way of the Berlin public transport system. Finally, on the night of August 13, 1961, while I was living in Germany, the East German regime suddenly closed the East Berlin U-Bahn stations and erected a wall between East and West Berlin, patrolled by border guards who shot and killed people trying to cross the wall