28 years after the 28-year-old Berlin Wall

On Saturday the Berlin Wall

had been gone for 10,316 days, also representing the number of days it had divided the city.

It was erected overnight on August 13, 1961. Between then and 1989 the East German authorities spent large sums of money on reinforcing the Wall and developing sophisticated means of making it almost impossible to cross from East to West Berlin.

140 people were killed attempting to cross from East to West Berlin, more were killed between 1961 and 1989 in attempting to cross the inner German border.

The Catholic diocese of Berlin was one of the few organisations that spanned East and West Berlin, with the Bishop of Berlin living in East Berlin. The diocesan cathedral, St Hedwig’s was and is in Bebel Platz, which was situated in East Berlin.