Walled in: The inner German border | DW English

For 28 years, a nearly insurmountable barrier kept people from fleeing East Germany. But then, the dramatic night of November 9, 1989, saw the fall of the Wall that divided Germany. Today, it is difficult to imagine what was bitter reality just a few decades ago.

For the first time, a realistic computer animation reveals the vast security system of Germany's inner border and the Berlin Wall, both of which were recreated virtually in the greatest detail.

[charlesdarnay]

In 1974, I was 16 years old, and an exchange student to Germany from Massachusetts (America). I spent most of that time around Osnabrück and Göttingen. However, during the summer, I was in a group of American students who were allowed to visit East Germany; supposedly we were one of the first such groups granted this experience. We had three weeks to visit East Berlin, Erfurt, Eisenach, Dresden, Leipzig, and Weimar. It was in effect, an advertisement for the DDR to prove to Westerners how "wunderschön" socialism was, and how "das Volk freut sich sehr" to be living in East Germany.

But every visit we made to each city, museum, restaurant, school, summer camp, youth hostel usw was pre-planned, staged, monitored and timed to a minute on a daily pre-printed agenda. We were given a bus, a bus driver, and a young tour guide who spoke English although, for the most part, she spoke to us in German, since that was the point of being an Austauschstudent.
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We could not explore any of the cities on our own. We were not supposed to talk to people unless they were a part of our approved agenda, including restaurant servers, museum guides, other guests at the youth hostels, etc. Everything was staged for us, and it was perfectly obvious that they were putting on a show for us. A day or two into this tour, we were advised by our group leader from Osnabrück to not speak to the bus driver, and keep conversations around him to a minimum, and neutral. Somehow it had been determined or suspected that he was an informer.

But staying in youth hostels made it nearly impossible to not interact with other guests and in each city we visited, word got around quickly that there was a group of Americans staying at the youth hostel and invariably in the evening there would be a few locals who came to hang around the youth hostel to see "die Amerikaner" and chat with us. Eventually, the conversations would turn hushed and whispered, and they'd want to know if we were willing to trade or sell any products from the West: t-shirts, jeans, cigarettes especially. In Dresden, I was hand-washing my clothes in the sink in a little shed behind the hostel one night, when one local came in, looked around as if he were looking for someone, but I was the only one in there. I am guessing he was probably 18 or 19, a few years older than I was at the time. He hesitated a moment or two, obviously nervous, and then asked quietly "Amerikaner?" 'Ja, " I replied. We made small talk for a few minutes, he asked if I liked Dresden, "Ja, schöne Stadt" I said. He had his eyes on one of my t-shirts which I had hung up to dry; it had a college name on it, I don't remember which one. Probably Harvard or Yale. But he kept eyeing that and offered me one of his cigarettes. Finally, he asked if we could exchange addresses, and when I got back to America, could I send him a t-shirt like that and some blue jeans, and he would send me anything I liked from the DDR. Well, I didn't want or need anything from the DDR, but I offered him the t-shirt, still damp drying on a hanger. He said he didn't have anything with him to trade, so I told him he could drop by the hostel the next day and just bring me a book or something unique that I could have as a reminder.

My god, I swear he had tears in his eyes when I gave him the t-shirt. "So cool!" he said in English, "Thank you." I'm guessing this was going to be a status symbol for him to show off among his friends. The next day, when we returned from yet another round of planned museums and other Soviet accomplishments and glorious triumphs over the "Faschismus, " there was a thin package for me at the youth hostel, wrapped in brown paper. It was a hard copy of "Der Struwwelpeter" - which I was not familiar with at all - and he had signed it "Dieter, Dresden, 1974." I've often wondered what happened to him.

There were other small events like that during that three-week trip, always on the sly; everybody in our group had some encounter to talk about. The day we left to go back to the West, our hostess guide took the train with us as far as the last stop before the border. We had gotten to know her well in spite of our bus driver, and she was a lot of fun. And the bus driver was no longer with us. At that last stop before the border, as we were hugging and saying goodbye, we all told her, "Komm mit, komm mit!" But she shook her head with a sad smile, wiped her eyes, and said "Wenn ich nur könnte..." I'll never forget that moment.

[markpearson]

I remember my first visit to Berlin. On the first day I stood on the observation platform overlooking the Brandenburg Gate, and could see the people stood a few hundred metres away on the other side. The following day i was on the other side looking west.I could see the platform I’d stood on the previous day with tourists upon it. Beyond the gate I could see the Victory Column in the distance. A group of Eastern European tourists turned up, They were stood alongside me, and I couldn’t help but think that this was the very edge of their world. They could see the Victory Column, but could never visit it. They could see the rear of the Reichstag building to the right, but could never see the front of it. I bought a city map in the east, and West Berlin was just a featureless grey blank on it, it could easily have been mistaken for a lake.

[muhammadshidqi]

Everyone was amazed by the berlin wall...

and me, my jaw dropped because this is an educational video.. and it has good graphics. And this was made in 2009.

[gotham]

I love how the animators got the tinny sound and smoky exhaust of the Trabant cars just right.

[robertmendick]

1982 movie: "Night Crossing". The movie is based on a true escape from East Germany to the west. A hot air balloon is secretly constructed. Lots of suspicious "snitch-type" neighbors, co-workers, and bureaucrats. Two families, 8 people total, use it to float across the border at 2am on September 16, 1979. Great movie I watched several times.

[followthesun]

The computer rendering of these scenes is simply amazing. Well done!

[chewyduck]

A literally jaw dropping video. I had no idea the wall was so complex.

[daddybeagleaz]

Very well done! I was in my 20s when the Wall came down, it's hard to believe that people could actually do this to each other no matter what the excuse.

[davidvanderven]

Nothing says utopia like the entire nation being a giant prison...

[tech]

This was the cold reality of divided Germany when I was growing up. Never imagined the wall would come down.

[Akademee]

Geez, this thing just kept getting progressively worse and worse.  Automatic shotguns?  What!?

[Rodisflawless]

One of the most interesting videos I've seen on YouTube. Thank you.

[markpearson]

I visited Berlin a couple of times in the 1980s when the wall was still standing. On one occasion I took the underground from the American to the French sector under the centre of East Berlin, passing through the dimly lit closed ghost stations on the way. I emerged in Bernauer Strasse and walked alongside the wall towards an observation platform. It was late at night and dark, except for the glaringly bright death strip, and there was nobody else around. I stood on the platform looking over the wall, taking photographs of the guards in the watchtower photographing me. It was a very eerie experience.

[Veslanjejezivot]

Great computer animation. Thanks for clarifying all the things regarding the wall.

[Kabutoes]

They always talk about the Berlin Wall but never the inner German Border

[brixmis]

Well done, I served there in the 80's Brit sector.

[ferdinandtugano]

Just wowed when I saw the date this video uploaded! Their expertise in 3d animation is way advanced!

[CamTroid]

My thoughts at 1:30:
"What, that's it? It doesn't seem like it would be that hard for someone to get ove-OH GOD"

[SonicVision]

It's 2022 and I am amazed by the spectacular computer animation in this. Got to see some of this IRL in 1981.

[ottovonostrovo]

My parents are Germans my mom is from the Ruhr and my father was born in Posen/West Preußen displaced after WW1 and raised in Pommern to parents born in Ost Preußen. In the early 70's I lived for a year in West Germany and visited Berlin where at one of the border crossings (might have been "checkpoint charlie??") I saw an older woman on the east side waving at a younger woman with child on the west side, both women were crying. I bet most Germans are thankful for unification!