This day in 1961
 

The Berlin Wall. it has been torn down for more than a decade, but it is good to remember. More than 200 died trying to cross it. it wasn't only a physical wall separating the city, it was a mental image of all that the cold war stood for.

BBC story

I wonder how many made it through?

There was a museum at Checkpoint Charlie that documents a bunch of the escapes. It had some really cool exhibits. there were some tunnels dug, and some people smuggled through secret compartments in cars, and even a home-made hot air balloon. Although the balloon flight wasn't actually inside the Berlin city limits.

When I visited East Berlin as a tourist in the 1980's it was easier to enter and then return from communist East Berlin than it was for me to return to the good old USA last fall after being in Europe. Go USA! Kickin' butt! Only you can be stricter than the Berlin Wall guards.

When I was a kid in the fifties my Dad was stationed in Bad Hershfeld, Germany. It was the closest American Army base to East Germany. I even used to have a certificate from my elementary school that I had attended the closest American school to the Communist border. Back then you could drive to the border and look over fearfully (if you were 6) to THE OTHER SIDE. The border consisted of various watch towers and a plowed strip that seemed about a mile wide to my child's eyes. My Dad sauntered over to the plowed strip in full view of the East German guards and spat on it. I was terrified that we'd be gunned down for my Dad's flagrant show of disgust with the "Iron Curtain." In those days military families in Bad Hershfeld had to keep a suitcase packed and have a plan of escape should the Russians ever overthrow that border. My Mom's plan was to high tail it for Switzerland and talk her way across the Swiss border with her flawless Entlebucher Swiss dialect. I was to remain mute, so my Americanism would not be given away to anybody. My Dad was to stay behind at the base and fight off the evil Russkies. I always figured I'd sneak a way of staying behind with him and we stay on post and fight off the Commies to the last man - kind of like the Alamo. Ah, the good old days!