Berlin Wall: Concrete that did much more than just crack.

I was eleven years old when the Berlin wall was brought to the ground and at the time, the Cold War was in full gear and I remember being excited that what I believed to be a symbol of evil and corruption was crumbling to the ground.

Twenty years later, I was able to visit the hip and happening town of Berlin and see, before my own eyes, the concrete wall that split the city.

I always thought the the wall was one section of concrete or brick and if you were on one side you were in East Berlin and the other side was West. This may have been the case during the early years of the wall, but for the majority of its life, there was a 100 meter "no-man's land" separating two walls - both of which residing in East Berlin. No Man's Land was later named the "death strip". At least 100 people were killed trying to escape East Berlin, however, there were about 5,000 successful escape attempts including a hot air balloon ride over the wall, and sewer excursion under the wall, and driving a sports car through the wall.

The Berlin Wall actually had four phases:

Wire fence (1961)
Improved wire fence (1962–1965)
Concrete wall (1965–1975)
Grenzmauer 75 (Border Wall 75) (1975–1989)

The Berlin Wall and the Intra-German Border 1961-89 By Gordon L. Rottman andChris Taylor gives the following description of the earliest form of the Berlin Wall.

The first, expedient walls were low, and made of a variety of different building
materials, such as bricks and concrete blocks. These were rapidly replaced with
prefab concrete slabs, blocks and beams. The workmanship was crude, with speed
being the major concern. Rubble buttresses bad to be built to support some
sections. Lookouts and guardposts began to appear. Steel hedgehog
anti-vehicle obstacles were placed on streets. Wooden towers began to appear
every 1000m with searchlights sweeping barbed wire, and broken glass was cemented atop the walls. Log and earth lookout bunkers were positioned between the towers. A car driven at speed could crash through these walls in many places, and some of them crumbled after heavy rain as there were no supporting foundations.

The "fourth-generation wall" known officially as Stutzwandelement UL 12.11 (retaining wall element UL 12.11) was the final and longest lasting version of the wall. It was built from 45,000 separate sections of pre-fabricated reinforced concrete each being 3.6 m high and 1.2 m wide. Each segment was 22 cm thick at the base and 12 cm thick at the top. The top of the wall was lined with a smooth sewer pipe 30 cm in diameter intending to make it more difficult to scale. Below is a blueprint of UL 12.11.

The cost to erect this new sophisticated wall from 1975-1980 was $3,638,000 USD.

On a side note, the current construction market in Berlin looked far from stagnant. Everywhere I turned there was another tower crane or construction site. Certainly much different than what is going on in major cities in the US.

I briefly thought about applying for some construction jobs in Germany since I saw so much going on, but I quickly realized that I didn't speak a lick of German and I ascertained that work in a field like construction which is heavily dependent on verbal and written communication would be quite difficult. Maybe I'm wrong, and if things get much worse I hope I am, because I may be on the next flight to Berlin.

Berlin Wall: Concrete that did much more than just crack.