The Berlin Wall

On August 13, 1961 Berliners woke up to witness troops of the GDR/East Germnay build a wall dividing their city in two.

The GDR in the days leading up to August 13 had denied all rumours that a wall was to be built.

Between 1961 and 1989 East German authorities successfully managed to build a fortification between the Federal Republic of German and the German Democratic Republic that was impenetrable.

And then one November night in confusion and error the Wall came tumbling down.

In the summer of 1985 had anyone foretold what was to happen a short four years later they would have been considered to be delusional, though a Protestant priest working in Goerlitz, a city on the GDR Polish border, told a group of students from a West Berlin university that East Germany was bankrupt in every respect and its days were numbered.

As the Germans invaded Russia in 1941, Stalin made a radio broadcast to the nation in which he said: “History shows us that there never have been invincible armies.”

Wise words indeed. And a sense of irony too.