From the S&S archives: A cheerless 18th birthday for The Wall

(Click on thumbnail image to view larger version of photo) Bricked-over former storefronts mark the border between East and West in a rural portion of Berlin. An East German guard keeps an eye on the border. A memorial to a Berliner killed while fleeing to the West stands in front of a row of abandoned stores at the border. A viewing platform on Bernauerstrasse gave westerners a chance to peer across the Wall and into the East. The view across no-man's land into East Berlin.

EIGHTEEN — an age symbolizing freedom.

Being 18 means freedom to vote, to sign contracts, get credit cards or to move out on your own.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands of people throughout the Free World will celebrate their 18th birthday on Monday, Aug. 13, reveling in the freedom that being 18 brings.

But Aug. 13 is also the 18th anniversary of the Berlin Wall — a symbol of anything but freedom to the families of East and West Berlin and of East and West Germany who are separated because of the "Wall of Shame."

In the final months before the wall went up, record numbers of East German families and individuals swarmed to freedom in the West, at the rate of more than one-a-minute, according to the West German Press Office.

"I want my daughters to become faithful Christians. I want them to respect what their parents respect — truth and decency," said Greta Schwarz on July 17, "I don't want to raise my girls in a world of lies," she told the men at the refugee processing center.

Only a week later, the entire work force of a rope factory in East Germany decided they "just couldn't take it any longer" and joined the thousands of refugees flowing into West Berlin.

President Kennedy was beefing up the military forces for the possibility of a conflict over Berlin, to the point of canceling leaves and passes and extending enlistments and rotation dates for thousands of U.S. troops in Europe.

On July 29, the East German Communist regime made a plea to all East Germans to help stop the "greatest exodus from the Soviet Zone since the Workers' Revolt of June 17, 1953." Soon, vigilante squads and Eastern police started a massive campaign to "round up" the fleeing refugees.

The East German parliament issued a "blank check" to take whatever measures necessary to halt what they termed the "organized head-hunting and slave-trading" carried out from the West.

But the flow of freedom seekers continued at ever-increasing rates.

The Berlin Crisis — the Cold War — was coming to the boiling point.

Then, on Aug. 13, 1961, hundreds of East German armed police and steel-helmeted troops closed the sector border between East and West Berlin, barring all travel by East Germans into the West.

On that day, "The Wall" consisted only of coils of barbed wire and hundreds of armed guards. Yet 100 persons managed to escape that first day. One day later newspaper headlines told how "East Berlin keeps `peace' with tear gas, hoses."

The stage was set for what would eventually become thousands of daring, and often ingenious, escapes into West Berlin.

To date, West Berlin police report more than 4,000 successful escapes to the West.

The wall is much more difficult to conquer today than in 1961 when it was only a barbed wire barricade. The wall now winds its way completely around West Berlin, a full length of 165.7 kilometers (102.7 miles). Its average height is 3.5 meters and it is constructed of a combination of stacked concrete slabs, metal gratings, barbed wire and poured concrete with a rounded top edge that makes it almost impossible to get a handhold.

Guards keep a vigilant eye over a broad expanse of "no-man's land" leading up to the wall from 252 watch towers and 136 shelters, and are supplemented at 262 points by fierce trained dogs tied to leashes attached to overhead wires. These allow the animals to move parallel to the wall, watching out for would-be escapees.

To challenge the "Wall of Shame" is a seemingly impossible task. But to those who try — make it or not — the prospects of freedom are worth the challenge.

Monday in West Berlin speeches will be made, friends and relatives will lay wreaths at the markers of those who tried the wall and failed, and more graffiti likely will be added to the Western side of the wall.

The speeches, wreaths and graffiti will all say the much same thing

"The Wall of Shame may be 18 years old, but synonymous with freedom, it is not."