1948 The Cold War freeze begins in earnest on June 24, when Russia
denies its former Western allies road and rail access to the sectors under
its control in landlocked Berlin. The West responds with an immense airlift
that, in the following year, delivers two million tonnes of provisions to
Berlin’s Tempelhof airport.
1949 The German Democratic Republic (GDR) is formally created on
October 7. Wilhelm Pieck is elected president of the socialist state.
1950 The notorious Ministry of State Security begins operations on
February 8. Modelled on the Soviet secret police, it seeks to root out
enemies of the state, using covert surveillance and a vast network of
unofficial informants within the GDR (some estimate that these may have
included as many as 2 million people).
1953 On June 17, construction workers strike over work hours at the
Stalinallee (today the Karl-Marx-Allee). East Berliners as well as citizens
from the West joint the protest marches. The East German Government looks to
the Soviets for help and in the resulting street fights, 153 people die.
Writing in support of the state, the playwright Bertolt Brecht — who had
moved to East Berlin after being shunned for his communist views in the
United States — argued that: “history will pay its respects to the
revolutionary impatience of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany.”
1961 On June 15, Walter Ulbricht, First Secretary of the Socialist
Unity Party, tells a press conference: “Niemand hat die Absicht,
eine Mauer zu errichten!” (No one has the intention of erecting a Wall).
After a conversation with the USSR leader Nikita Khrushchev, he appears to
have a change of heart, and on August 13 soldiers begin to encircle West
Berlin in barbed wire. Construction of a wall starts within 48 hours.
1961 After the closing of the border, there are only three designated
crossing points for diplomatic and other authorised personnel from the West:
Helmstedt at the border between West and East Germany, Dreilinden at the
border of West Berlin and East Germany, and Friedrichstrasse, between West
and East Berlin. The checkpoints are assigned phonetic names: Alpha, Bravo
and Charlie.
1962 On August 17, the 18-year-old Peter Fechter and his friend Helmut
Kulbeik dash to the 6ft wall, which they hope to climb over near Checkpoint
Charlie. Kulbeik escapes into West Berlin; Fechter is shot in the pelvis and
bleeds to death in full view of Western onlookers, as the East German guards
do nothing to help him. In 1997, two of them will admit to shooting at him,
receiving a sentence of 20 months’ probation for his manslaughter.
1963 On June 26, President Kennedy visits West Berlin, famously mixing
up his grammar to tell everyone he is pastry. Actually, that’s an urban
myth. There was nothing wrong with the declaration, “Ich bin ein
Berliner.”
1963 On June 26, President Kennedy visits West Berlin, supposedly
mixing up his grammar to tell everyone he is
1965 The GDR builds the Fernsehturm, a 365m tall TV tower close to
Alexanderplatz and visible over the wall. Unfortunately for the atheist
Government, the sun’s light appears on it as a cross, earning it the
nickname Pope’s Revenge.
1974 In the groups stage of the World Cup, East Germany beats West
Germany 1-0 after a late goal. Typicallythe West Germans go on to win the
tournament.
1975 Work begins on the “fourth generation wall”. Completed in 1980, it
is 3.6m high, reinforced with barbed wire, mesh fencing, and lined with beds
of nails.
1982 Helmut Kohl becomes Chancellor of West Germany. Five years later,
he receives the East German leader Erich Honecker. His subsequent meetings
with Soviet leaders and Second World War allies pave the way for German
reunification.
1986 The final exchange of spies between the East and West at Gleniecke
Bridge. Taking place since 1962, exchanges at the “Bridge of Spies” were
fictionalised in the 1966 Michael Caine film Funeral in Berlin.
1987 One of Germany’s most iconic , Wim Wenders’ Wings
of Desire is released under the title The Sky Over Berlin. It is
often referred to as a documentary of 1980s West German society.
1987 On June 12, in a speech made at the Brandenburg Gate, President
Reagan challenges the Soviet leader: “Mr Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr
Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
1989 Under the banner “Peace, happiness and pancakes”, 150 people meet
for the first Loveparade on the Kurfuerstendamm.
1989 In September, Hungary removes its physical border defences with
Austria, and more than 13,000 East German tourists escape. The next month,
Gorbachev indicates that he will not support hardline positions from East
Germany.
1989 On November 9, the party secretary for propaganda, Günther
Schabowski, declares that East Berliners will be allowed to cross the border
“with proper permission”. Tens of thousands of East Berliners flood the
checkpoints in the Wall demanding entry to the West. In the face of a
growing crowd, guards open the checkpoint. Pictures of celebrating Germans
on the wall flash around the world.
1989 “The Banana Revolution” — when the checkpoints first open, one of
the things that East Germans crave most after years of empty supermarkets is
bananas.
1989 On New Year’s Eve, the Baywatch star David Hasselhoff
stands atop the partly demolished wall (right), and belts out Looking
for Freedom to half a million fans. His single is No 1 in Germany for
eight weeks.
1990 Flattened in the Second World War, then bisected by the Wall, work
begins on the rebuilding of Potsdamer Platz. World-renowned architects such
as Norman Foster, Renzo Piano and Hans Kollhoff help to build the new square.
1991 The Senate of Berlin votes to scrap a project to build a Jewish
Museum for Berlin because of financial pressures. The decision is overruled
by Parliament. The museum opens officially in 2001.
1991 Underground techno club Tresor opens in the vaults of an old
department store in former East Berlin and becomes the centre of the city’s
burgeoning electronic music scene. It is later reincarnated in a disused
power plant.
1992 Erich Honecker, the GDR leader who fled to Russia, is extradited
to Germany and tried for crimes including ordering a shoot to kill policy
for those trying to escape East Germany. He is diagnosed with liver cancer
and judges rule him unfit to stand trial. Honecker moves to Chile with his
family and dies a year and a half later, aged 81.
1992 U2 embark on their worldwide Zoo TV Tour, named after their song Zoo
Station, which Bono wrote for Berlin Zoo rail station. Trabants are used
as part of the tour’s stage design. The same year, the band release One,
inspired by German reunification.
1995 The Save the Little Traffic Light Men movement emerges — a
campaign to save the green and red men (right) that had appeared on
traffic lights and road safety education leaflets in East Germany. In 2005,
the Ampelmännchen return to every pedestrian crossing in Berlin,
and they become a symbol of Ostalgie, East German nostalgia.
2001 A mayoral candidate for Berlin, Klaus Wowereit, comes out at an
SDP convention, coining the phrase: “I am gay, and that’s a good thing”. A
week later he is voted in as Mayor. He later tells Berliners: “We are poor,
but we are sexy.”
2003 Good Bye Lenin!, a comedy about a young man whose mother
falls into a coma and misses the fall of the Berlin Wall is released. When
she wakes up, he and his sister decide to maintain the illusion that the
wall has not come down and they are still ruled by the GDR, by dressing in
their old clothes and playing old East German newscasts.
2005 The former world swimming champion Karen Konig sues the national
Olympic Committee for giving her performance-enhancing drugs when she was
just 15, which she claims wrecked her health. “I want to unveil the whole
East German system,” she says.
2006 The Stasi’s suveillance monitoring of actors, writers and artists
is examined in the Oscar-winning German film The Lives of Others.
2006-2008 The asbestos-ridden Palast der Republic, the former East
German parliament, is demolished. The Italian architect Francesco Stella is
chosen to rebuild an exact replica of the ornate Berlin City Palace, which
once stood on the site, with modern interiors. The new palace will house the
Humboldt collection and non-European art.
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