Ned Richardson-Little Profile picture
Aug 13, 2018 13 tweets 4 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
#GDR #OTD 1961 – Construction of Berlin Wall begins - it will stand for the next 28 years. (1)
Berlin was already a divided city, but thousands still commuted daily across the East-West border until 1961 (2)
A huge outflow of refugees from East Germany to the West, as well as problems with currency controls and daily border crossers, prompted the construction of the Berlin Wall (3)
Construction workers at the Berlin Wall were closely guarded by military and worker militias (4)
Temporary barriers put hastily in place were vastly expanded in the coming years. The Berlin Wall soon became Walls (5)
By the time it was torn down, the Berlin Wall was 155km long with 302 towers, 20 bunkers (6)
The first casualty of the Berlin Wall was Ida Siekmann who died jumping from a 4th floor apartment trying to cross the border (7)
The last death was Winfried Freudenberg on March 8, 1989; he died trying to cross the Berlin Wall in a hot air balloon (8)
140 Berlin Wall deaths total: escapes attempts, border guards, and accidental deaths due to the militarized border (9)
The SED called it the “Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart” as it ostensibly defended against Western invasion (10)
In West Berlin, it was simply called the “Schandmauer” or “Wall of Shame” (11)
For more on the 140 who died due to the Berlin Wall, check out historyned.blog/2015/08/24/of-…
On the long fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, check out historyned.blog/2015/11/10/an-…

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More from @HistoryNed

Sep 13, 2018
A brief tour through the scandalous history of the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV). It has had 12 directors since its founding in 1950 – seven have had to resign before they could finish their term. #Maaßen
The first head of Verfassungsschutz defected to East Germany in 1954. The next year he defected back and claimed he was kidnapped. He was imprisoned on charges of treason
Hubert Schrübbers, second President of the BfV had to resign in 1972 when it was exposed that he had been in the Nazi SA and worked as a jurist in the legal persecution of the Third Reich.
Read 12 tweets
May 5, 2018
For #marx200 let's take a look at the actual demands of the Communist Party in 1848 as written by Marx, Engels and others. marxists.org/archive/marx/w… It's fascinating how many of these demands are now considered bog standard parts of a modern advanced state.
1. United Germany, check. 2. Universal franchise except for criminals, check 3. Paid elected representatives, check 4. Universal arming of the people, only in the US I guess 5. Free access to justice, semi-check 6. Abolition of feudal fees, check.
7. Mines nationalized and large scale scientific agriculture, no and yes 8. & 9. Nationalization of peasant debt and rent, not really relevant anymore 10. No private banks, this one is still radical.
Read 9 tweets

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