BERLIN WALL—I Escape to West is getting harder

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32703, 4 September 1971, Page 12

BERLIN WALL—I Escape to West is getting harder

(By

MAX HASSEL)

Throughout the hot summer of 1961 the rumours mounted, and as they grew, the stream of East Germans passing through the divided city of Berlin to seek a new life in the West swelled to 1000 a day.

In the previous 10 years, nearly 15 million East German workers had gone West, putting the economy of the German Democratic Republic into nearbankruptcy.

A drastic solution was necessary, but few in the West—or, for that matter, in the East could have dreamed how drastic that solution was to be.

In July, the East German Communist party boss, Walter Ulbricht, angrily denied that any partition of Berlin was being planned. “We have absolutely no intention of building a wall,” he said at a rare press conference. “The building workers of our capital are too busy.” Western intelligence seemed to think so too. “We can’t confirm these rumours,” a spokesman for the British authorities in Germany told a journalist in the first week of August. Brutal scenes “But we don’t think three is anything in them. I have a way of being right about these things. You have nothing to worry about.” Less than a week later, on August 13, 1961, the Berlin Wall had split the city and, 10 years later, divides it still. Today it is 100 miles long with a guard for every 10 yards, and it bristles with machine-gun posts, trip wires mines and electric fences.. It is a wall of death which, in the last 10 years, has claimed at least 200 victims and some of the most brutal scenes to take place in peace time have occurred there. Nearly 4000 East Berliners have successfully got over, under or through the wall to a new life in the West, and another 4000 have been caught while trying to do so. Blood-money They have fled in trains and tractors, been tied under cars, lowered on ropes and hidden in refrigerators. They have tunnelled through graveyards, concealed themselves in the stomach of a stuffed cow, and simply walked up to the wall and climbed over it. But every year it has become harder to escape. Last year fewer than 60 got out alive. The “super-wall” which is replacing the original cement blocks and barbed wire seems to be proving too much for the courage and ingenuity of would-be escapers. The days of the spectacular mass escapes during the first three years of the wall’s existence would seem to be over for good. In the early years, the wall, which sealed off 129 roads, was little more than four-foot-high posts and a tangle of barbed wire, and relied largely on the sharp-shooting of the police who guarded it They were paid bloodmoney—it was claimed they got about £lO per corpse—and the first payment was made just 11 days after the wall went up. Rebuilt, fortified An unidentified man was shot dead while attempting to scale the wire near Checkpoint Charlie. The next day East German police opened fire on an angry crowd which had gathered at the checkpoint to protest at the murder. Some frontier guards just couldn’t face having to fire on fellow Germans. In December, a 22-year-old East German policeman became the first of 450 who were to defect to the West. He took a party of six through the wire on Christmas Eve. A woman in the party got stuck in the wire and a baby began to cry, but they all got across safely. After 73 people had tunnelled to safety near the Brandenburg Gate early in 1962 the wall was drastically rebuilt and fortified. Now it was 12ft high and built of steel and concrete. It stretched 28 miles and was guarded by 30,000 troops. “Impregnable” “The wall is impregnable,” boomed East German loudspeakers. “Do not waste your lives in trying to prove it” At once, West German students set about proving them wrong. Gerard Neber, a 21-year-old undergraduate, spent days in a West Berlin public library learning about explosives and, with the help of other students, made half a dozen bombs. Trial explosions in June, 1962, showed that the bombs would work, and July 14 was chosen as the day on which the wall would be blown down near the Brandenburg Gate. The bomb failed to go off. but another attempt made a week later blasted a small hole in the concrete. Next day Neher set off another bomb, but something went

wrong and it seriously injured a fellow student. Neher conceded that the wall had won, and called off further attempts. By 1963, even the most enthusiastic of the West German escape groups—a stud-ent-run organisation called “Operation Travel Agent” —was beginning to admit that the era of great escapes was over. The wall was beginning to look more harmless—flowers and shrubs were planted and blockhouses prettily painted. In fact it was more deadly than ever. It was the beginning of a six-year plan to make the wall completely escapeproof, with a defensive strip 150 yards wide ringing the city, intended to make the wall into what the East Germans • called "an up-to-date frontier of international standard.” First of the improvements was the addition of concrete pipes to the top of the wall, and a double tow of tank traps and other obstacles, progressively more difficult. With typical German thoroughness, some of East Germany’s best athletes conducted experiments to ensure that the obstacles world trap the most agile escaper. The number of Alsatian dogs was increased to 800—

they were said to be fed on raw meat and ox-blood. Guards had orders to shoot them immediately should they break loose. Observation towers were armed with anti-tank guns and infra-red devices for use at night. Undoubtedly the completed wall—still being worked on in some northern sections of the city—will be the most deadly man-trap ever devised.

First the would-be escaper must scale a sft fence and a sft alarm barrier which sends signals to the nearest

watchtower. Then he must pass through a corridor patrolled by Alsatians. - After this is a series of trip wires, which send up warning flares, and a manned bunker. Beyond these is a watch-tower flanked by an asphalt road. Armoured trucks are constantly on patrol. Beyond is a floodlit antitank ditch and a strip of steel spikes. Now all that is left between the fugitive and West Berlin is a 15ft wall topped by thick piping. But perhaps even deadlier

than this elaborate man-trap are the parts of the wall where there are no apparent fortifications. When Hermann Dobler, a West Berlin businessman, took his girl friend cruising in his boat on the Teltow canal, he unknowingly crossed the EastWest border that runs through the canal. He was shot dead by an East Berlin guard. For the wall of death, for all its sophistication, has never been able to discriminate between the innocent and the guilty.