Top 10 Infamous barrier walls throughout history - TopTenzNet
For 28 years, the Communist-controlled East Germany was cut off from the capitalist West Berlin enclave by a barrier of concrete, barbed wire and heavily armed guards.
The first barricades of what would become the Berlin Wall pushed in August 1961, after the number of East Germans to leave the GDR reached record highs through West Berlin for the next three decades, the barrier would divide families and neighborhoods that once divided the city.
Nov. 9, 1989, the Wall fell almost as quickly as it had appeared When a German official is prematurely announced the opening of the border, thousands of East Germans exalted directed to the wall and began tearing down piece by piece British academic Timothy Garton Ash describes the scene as the biggest street party in the world's history.
The wall was a deadly barrier during the three decades he was standing border guards were under strict orders not to hesitate to use your weapon even when attacks on the border occur with women and children, a secret service file is German 1973 read at least 138 people died trying to cross the border.
While some do it safely through, we do not know exactly how many people have reached the Western Some estimates claim that 5,000 East Germans reached West Berlin Wall by men, women and children snuck through the checkpoints, hidden in vehicles and tunneling under the concrete.
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the fall of the wall, we dug up 10 of the most brazen and courageous ways that people have tried to escape from East Germany.
The East German police use picks and shovels to tear the tracks used by Harry Deterling to drive a train in West Berlin December 5, 1961 AP Photo purchased.
Four months after the wall was erected, a young railway engineer in East Berlin spotted a gap in the barrier Harry Deterling discovered a disused railway that still ran in a suburb of East Berlin to West Berlin Deterling quickly signed drive the train on the route closest route and the last train to freedom December 5, 1961, Deterling has family and friends on board, drained air emergency brakes of the train, and steamed to full throttle into West Berlin, sending border guards scared flying once on the other side, one of the passengers rang the West Berlin police to inform We escaped with Germany being the East blocked the railway line the next day.
An armored vehicle image Engel hit after the Berlin Wall, 19 April 1963 Keystone-France Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images.
German soldier Wolfgang Engels was able to contribute to the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, but two years later he, too, traced his escape He wasn t the most laid plan local recounts the April 16, 1963, Engels stole an East German tank and smashed into the concrete barrier, crying, I'm not out of here in the West, everyone wants to come along the vehicle failed to break the wall Engels came out and tried to climb it, but got stuck on the barbed wire and was shot twice by border guards east German Finally West Germans who had been drinking in a nearby bar came to his aid and helped him off the barbed wire Engels later described as the Christian science Monitor how he regained consciousness on the bar counter When I turned and saw all Western brands of liquor on set, I knew that e I had done, he said.
Here is how Heinz Meixner drove his car Sprite without the windshield so that it would be small enough to operate in border posts in Berlin, Germany, around 1961 Archive Photos Getty Images express.
It was love that prompted bold system of Heinz Meixner While working in East Berlin, Austria fell for Margarete Thurau, but the authorities refused him permission to marry back in his home country Meixner decided to do and future mother-in-law in his own words, he hired a cab, removed the windshield and let some air out of the tires to make the vehicle even lower ground May 5, 1963, with Thurau and his mother hiding in the back, Meixner drove the car at the border crossing called Checkpoint Charlie When Meixner has reached the point of inspection, he dodged and trampled gas, bombing just under the barrier in West Berlin.
Hartmut Richter poses for pictures along remnants of the Berlin Wall Bernauer Strasse along 8 October 2014 ODD ANDERSEN AFP Getty Images.
In 1966, swam for four hours through the Teltow Canal aged 18, Hartmut Richter to evade border guards in East Germany and West Berlin to reach a swan attacked me, dogs barking I had to wait several times and diving until the coast was clear, Richter later told Agence France Presse that I had hypothermia and was exhausted when I finally did, and passed on the shore a few years later Richter returned to East Germany and began to smuggle out friends in the trunk of her car - more than 30 people have escaped with his help in 1976, he was captured and sentenced to 15 years in prison, West Germany secured his release after four years in prison.
East German patrol boats right as a West German Customs boat watches left on the east bank of the Elbe AP Photo S.
Ingo Bethke became familiar with the banks of the Elbe, north of Berlin, while serving as a border guard is German When he decided to flee East Berlin in 1975, Bethke returned to the river with a friend and a first air mattress, they had to navigate through a metal fence on the travel and wire and through a minefield But the pair will reach the river, where they paddled silently on the mattress in West Germany.
Family Ingo Bethke came under scrutiny by the East German authorities after his defection His brother, Holger, finally decided to follow the plot and an equally daring escape Holger trained in archery and found a large building overlooking West Berlin in May 1983, he sneaked into the attic and pulled a metal cable on the wall using a bow and arrow Ingo waiting on the other side and attached the wire to his car with a metal pulley mounted Holger ziplining above the wall and joined his brother in West Berlin.
Graffiti on the West Berlin side of the Berlin Wall 29 April 1984 JOEL ROBINE AFP Getty Images.
The two then hatched brothers their most audacious plan yet to release their third brother, Egbert They learned to fly, and painted two ultralight planes with red stars Soviet style In May 1989, they were ready, they dressed for military uniforms and stole the light planes on the wall in East Berlin, pick up a waiting Egbert and whisking back to West brothers had been separated for over a decade, I thought I had never seen my more brothers, but they came from the sky like angels and took me to heaven, Egbert later recalled.
West Berliners watch East Germans unload prefabricated concrete slabs to build the Berlin Wall at Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin, Germany, September 12, 1961 AP Photo Eddie Worth, File.
Aircraft mechanic Hans Peter Strelczyk got his inspiration for his escape from a TV program is German about the history of ballooning with his friend Gunter Wetzel, he made a hot air balloon to transport the two families in west friends built the propane cylinder engine and women stitched together to the ball bed linen after a first attempt, the two families finally soared on the wall September 16, 1979, landing 30 minutes failed in a thicket on West German soil.
Instead of Potsdam, a German soldier is far Shears in barbed wire at the top of the Wall Berlin, Germany, August 12, 1966 AP Photo Herrmann.
Trapeze artist Horst Klein was banned from occurring in East Germany because of his anti-communist beliefs So he used his tightrope to flee to West Berlin skills, I could not live longer without the smell the circus in my nostrils, Klein said newspapers at the time in December 1962, Klein scaled an electric pole near the Berlin Wall and, dangling over the guard patrols have its slightly way through a disused power cable hands numb from the cold, he fell from the rope and broke both his arms, but he landed in West Berlin inside.
A model of a drainage tunnel from East to West Berlin in the Underground Museum in Berlin, Germany, September 11, 2009 AP Photo Maya Hitij.
Several hundred East Germans escaped through a secret tunnel network under the Berlin Wall in 1962, ten East Germans elderly dug their way through Berlin which was dubbed later the old tunnel over two nights in 1964, 57 people escaped through another tunnel, which became known as the tunnel 57 This was the largest mass escape in the history of the Berlin Wall.
10 Great Escapes over the Berlin Wall The Huffington Post, great berlin wall.