June 2002 - Nr. 6
Iron Curtain Through Germany
A Look Back After 50 Years
TWIG - May 26, 1952 is an historic date in German postwar history. On this day, the East German Council of Ministers enacted an "Ordinance on Measures to Demarcate the German Democratic Republic from the Western Occupation Zones of Germany." With that, an iron curtain fell across Germany, cutting off east from west, with the exception of Berlin. The fortifications at the border between the two halves of the city became a visible symbol of German division. In late May 50 years ago, train and street traffic between East and West Germany was virtually cut off, as gates and barricades went up all along the border. Dozens of train lines, highways and interstates, as well as thousands of regional and rural roads were closed. Just six rail lines and five streets were left accessible.
Under the code name "Operation Anvil," GDR border guards erected the first reinforcements. In the early hours of May 27, tractors began to clear a 30-foot-wide path through fields and meadows along the border. Trees and shrubs were torn up and houses razed, replaced by a provisional divider of barbed wire and poles. At the same time, the first group of people living in the border region were sent into exile. Within just a few days, "Operation Vermin" led to the removal of 8,175 "politically unreliable" individuals from their border homes to the East German hinterland. Within a few years, the pole-and-mesh divider had begun to rust and rot, prompting East German officials to lay mines and put up a double layer of barbed wire between concrete pillars all along the border. 600-foot-wide swaths of forest were flattened for a clear view of - and shot at - potential "border violators." Tremendous effort and great national pride were poured into expanding and maintaining the "anti-fascist barrier." In 1970, as part of a program to establish "new quality in the pioneering technical extension of national borders," spring guns were installed along the border. As late as 1988, just a year before the wall was crushed by the weight of history, the GDR had budgeted billions of marks for the "protection of national borders." On October 3, 1990, with German reunification, brought about in part by strong support from the U.S., the east-west border vanished altogether.
