Before the Berlin Wall’s Erection, Prior to August 1961
The border between East and West Berlin is opened and daily half a million people cross the border from one part of the city into the other. Many East Berliners go into the cinema or discos in the West, they even work in the West or they go shopping in the West. Women get the first seamless panty hoses in the West; tropical fruits are only available there. At the same time the leaders of the Communist parties of the Commecon meet in Moscow from August 3 until August 5, 1961 and they decide to close the open border between East and West Berlin.

The Erection of the Berlin Wall, August 12/13, 1961
In the afternoon of August 12 at 4 p.m. Walter Ulbricht, the East German leader, signed the commands to close the border. Next Sunday at midnight the army, police and the "Kampfgruppen" began to bolt the city. The wall is built and separates the city into two parts for more than 28 years. Streets, the railway and the S-Bahn are broken, stations of the U-Bahn are closed, even cemeteries are not spared. Nothing is forgotten and the East Germans will not be allowed to travel to the West until 1989.

The End of Separation: November 9, 1989
A press conference is held where the SED government announced that travel restrictions for East Germans had been lifted. In that night people from East Berlin flooded into the western part of the city and hundreds of thousands celebrated throughout the city. Next day Berliners begin to discover the other part of their city.

 

History of the Berlin Wall as Art
From Berlin Wall Online.

In 1976 East German Border Troops begun to erect a new type of Wall in Berlin, the so-called 'Border Wall 75'. This concrete Wall was 3.60 meter (11.81 ft) high and white painted. Although painting was not allowed, the complete Wall system was on the territory of East Berlin, many artists begun to paint on the Western side of the Wall in the beginning of the 80s. Artists like Thierry Noir and Keith Haring discovered the Berlin Wall as the world's longest canvas which had to be painted. Many known and unknown artists painted on the Wall in the following years and the paintings were often painted over within hours or days. The Wall art was not protected; everybody could paint on the Wall. On the Western side of the Berlin Wall the Wall was colorful whereas the Eastern side was white or grey.

MühlensAfter the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 the Eastern side of the Wall was also painted by artists. Today only a few painted sections of the Eastern side of the former Berlin Wall still exist at Potsdamer Platz,trasse (East Side Gallery) and Bernauer Strasse (Wall Park). Painting on remaining sections of the Wall has become very difficult. The Wall at East Side Gallery has been listing and painting is prohibited. The existing paintings shall not painted over, however sometimes artists try to paint on East Side Gallery without permission. At Bernauer Strasse the City of Berlin takes care that the former Wall remains grey. The only sections which are painted regularly are located on the Wall Park at Bernauer Strasse.

Please view Berlin Wall art work from Wall Park in our Gallery Section

Bibliography:

The Cold War by Jeremy Isaacs and Taylor Downing
The Berlin Wall by Thomas Fleming
Leipziger Demotagebuch by Wolfgang Schneider