American Reacts To How the Berlin Wall Worked 

The inner-German border was additionally secured with automatic firing systems and 1.3 million mines.

Little "fun"fact: When Trump back then announced that he would "build a wall and make the mexicans pay for it", a new founded german company called Heidelberg Cement stepped in with an actual offer to help - since germans know how to build walls. We also had several jokes back then that we actually built a border wall and made the russians pay for it. There are all kinds of most crazy stories how people escaped from the east. My favourite still is the guy who fled by swimming and surfing and he actually made it to the west - after the reunion. When he came to what he remembered as western Germany and was told that the border is no more... that must have felt somehow disturbing.

First of all: H*tler was an Austrian. And secondly, the wall did not only separate West from East Berlin, but it divided the entire country. If you want to know more about the balloon escape story, there's a movie about it, which was produced in cooperation with the two families Wetzel and Strelzyk. It's called "Ballon" (balloon). In fact, those two families lived in a small Thuringian town close to where I grew up and my father knew them personally. And, funnily, they fled to the area in Bavaria right behind the border (around the town of Naila) in which me and my little family live right now. Here's the English trailer to the film: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-95LBIwTOR7Q.htmlsi=tSOTg_lBeb5KGc6t

my greatgrandma died on the other side of the wall alone, because her son, my grandpa could not see her after the building of the wall. that was the only time my mom ever saw him cry, she said.... and remember, the same wall was all along the german border to east germany. I grew up near there. my boyfriend of 1989 had half his family still on the eastern side of Berlin, and it was a crazy time, when they saw each other, after he fled with his mom, leaving his dad and sister behind....

Many of these soldiers tried not to hit them, but if it took too long, they really had to aim at them, because otherwise it would have been too obvious. Not all of them, but quite a few, did not want to kill the fleeing people.

I still have a large piece of the Berlin Wall. I lived right in front of it.

My Opa fled from East Germany. He searched the region near the fence where he wanted to climb over. After going through the forrwst and a swamp, with his stuff held over his head, he lost directions in the pitch dark new moon night. He exactly got to the forbidden zone in front of the control tower. But he made it. I'm really glad, ge made it.

The former border is now largely called the “green belt of Europe”. It is a nature conservation project that aims to preserve the Iron Curtain border strip across Europe, which was largely left untouched due to the Cold War. This “Green Belt” has a total length of over 12,500 km and extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north of Norway to the Black Sea on the border with Turkey, and runs along 24 European countries. Within Germany, some parts of the former border are now hiking and cycling trails. My family was also separated by the war and the borders. On my mother's side, my family originally lived near the city of Allenstein (now Olsztyn, Poland). A large part of the family managed to escape to the West at the end of the war (between 1943-1945). My grandmother couldn't escape with her three small children and after the Polish takeover she decided to "relocate" to East German Thuringia in 1947. (Anyone who didn't want to become a Polish citizen had to leave the area and could only go to East Germany) In 1954 she visited relatives in the West with her youngest child; the son was not allowed to leave the country with his wife because he was doing his military service. Thanks to the foresight and persuasion of a relative, my grandmother did not travel back to Thuringia.

My father fled to West Germany with his parents and brother. I can only imagine how frightened they must have been. My father never spoke much about it. Later, after the Wall came down, they found out that their neighbors had been spying on them on behalf of the Stasi. Shortly after they left, they were already being followed. It must have been very close that they managed to escape. I am grateful that I didn't have to experience this madness.

The sentence you said that humanity is totally crazy, no matter how intelligent and trained you are, was so right and refreshing to hear that I really have to love you for your honesty ...

He was Austrian

There is also an escape attempt from East Berlin where a tunnel was dug and where several adults and children were able to escape but the tunnel was told to the Stasi

An interesting fact about the fall of the border between East and West Berlin: When Günter Schabowski, the press speaker of the Central Committee, accidently announced, that people can now freely travel between East and West, it could've ended in a catstrophe. The Bordersoldiers at the wall still had the order to shoot anyone, who tries to cross over the border. No one told them, that people now can travel freely between East and West, but luckily, they were probably confused by all those people, who tried to cross the border

Im born 1969 in the west, but we have many family members in the east. When I first drive through the border with my parents I was 6 Years old and I was so afraid of the east border patrol that I can‘t help but crying from the moment we see the border. We stand in row for passing for 4 hours and I was constantly crying.

1975? I was 15. But I wasn't in Berlin. I never lived close to the border. Or I should say, the only border I ever lived close to was the border to Denmark. But I've more than once heard the story of how my mother's family made it across the border of (back then) the Soviet-occupied zone to the West, long before anyone thought about building that wall. Which eventually allowed my parents to meet in the school that 1997-2000 became known as the scenery of the German TV series _Die Schule am See._

I was in West Berlin with my school in 1976 and we had a one day trip to East Berlin then. The security measures to get there were unbelievable and frightening. Something I will never forget.

My father told me stories of people he saw jump the wall. He saw one use an excavator to jump over. some parts of the wall were better than others, yet still dangerous.

I love what you said at 3:35. So true.

Yes I existed in 1975. In 1981 I visited Berlin and saw the wall. Very deadly, scary and deviding.

Have a look at the rest of the border..it was more cruel than in Berlin..

Look for " The East German border. An explanation of how people were prevented from leaving this 'paradise'." by History on RU-vid. He explains about the inner German border. People tend to forget that it wasn't just the Berlin Wall dividing a city but that a whole country was divided. Fun fact about that video: I grew up in Thuringia (GDR back then) and now live in Bavaria. :D

I've been to the GDR once in the late 80's

Your comment at 3:50 is probably the true reason why aliens didn't contact us for now^^ ... The eastern part of Berlin did have watch towers to spot people running from the GDR, in the western part we did have sightseeing towers where we were able to watch the wall like a tourist attraction. I remember visiting west Berlin as a teenager standing on one of the towers watching the border and waving to the eastern border cotrol in their towers.

I lived in West- Berlin, when the wall was still there. For us Finns it was not so bad, we could visit East- Berlin easily. Some products and restaurants were cheaper as in West- Berlin.

Austria and South Germany are basically the same people. Check out the Austro Prussian war in which the North and South of todays Germany were at each others throats. There is not a country on this planet that has fought more wars than the Germans. Deutschland has the highest number of castles worldwide (estimated 25.000)and for good reason. Before the unification of the Holy Roman Empire, Germany was nothing but a mass of Dukedoms, Baronies and smaller Kingdoms. Germany and Austria have also greatly varied in size over the centuries. Germany and Austria are now way smaller than before.

8:48 Sorry, my dude, I can’t let that one go unanswered. Those two walls need more context than that and you’re simply not ready for it all yet .

6:42 what are you talking about?

Austrians seem to have this habit of exporting people to become leading conservative politicians elsewhere, in Germany or California...

I don't care if you build the wall to keep your own citizens in or the ones of your neighboring country out, it's messed up either way.

And it all was useless. In moment of really need they failed. What led to the reunification. And Billions of costs.

If you guys get trump back in power, you get the same