GERMANY: Germany remembers the victims of the Berlin Wall at a ceremony marking its anniversary

Record ID: 471870

  • Title: GERMANY: Germany remembers the victims of the Berlin Wall at a ceremony marking its anniversary
  • Date: 14th August 2006
  • Summary: (EU) BERLIN, GERMANY (AUGUST 11, 2006) (REUTERS) MEMORIAL STONE WHERE THE BERLIN WALL RAN THROUGH THE DIVIDED CITY REMAINS OF THE BERLIN WALL AT THE BERNAUER STRASSE MEMORIAL (THE BERNAUER STREET WAS SPLIT DOWN THE MIDDLE THROUGH THE WALL) PHOTO OF THE FIRST VICTIM TO BE KILLED TRYING TO CROSS THE WALL, GUENTER LITFIN, AS HIS BODY IS FISHED OUT OF THE RIVER BY EAST GERMAN BORDER GUARDS
  • Embargoed: 29th August 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Germany
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: History
  • Reuters ID: LVA7EADY7KKX6LCQVX4QGU1NOD73
  • Story Text: Germany remembered the victims of the Berlin Wall on Sunday (August 13) at ceremonies marking the 45th anniversary of the building of the Wall, the most notorious symbol of the Cold War, which divided East and West Germany for 28 years.
    German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaueble and Berlin's Lord Mayor Klaus Wowereit took part in a remembrance ceremony at the Wall Memorial Centre in the Bernauer Strasse, a street which was split in two through the wall, with the West on one side and the East on the other.
    A part of the notorious death strip has been preserved at the memorial centre, but there is little of the barrier left in the city centre today. A line of cobbled stones runs through the city, marking where the wall was, but the main symbol of the once divided city, the Brandenburg Gate, is also the emblem of its reunification.
    Seeking to stem an exodus to the West, the Communist government of the then German Democratic Republic started to construct the Wall on August 13, 1961.
    Border guards had strict instructions to kill anyone trying to escape and pictures of would-be escapees bleeding to death sparked condemnation from Western leaders.
    But on November 9, 1989 the border collapsed after an East German Politburo member accidentally announced checkpoints with the West were open.
    Mystery has surrounded the number of Wall deaths as East German authorities tried to conceal the numbers of people who wanted to escape. Some victims' families were not informed until after their relatives had died, if at all.
    At least 125 people were killed at the Berlin Wall, according to German state researchers who this week attempted to put a final figure on deaths at the East-West border, but others say there were many more which the figures discount.
    The number of "Wall Deaths" may rise, as a further 81 cases are investigated, but the final figure, due in 2007, is set to fall below some earlier estimates which have put the death toll at more than 200. The researchers have discounted 62 suspected Wall deaths which turned out to be suicides or to involve individuals who were shot but survived.
    Of the 125 confirmed Wall deaths, most were men between 16 and 30 years old. Some 93 were East Germans trying to escape. But others were shot even though they were not trying to flee and eight East German border guards were killed. Most incidents occurred between 1961 and 1969.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register