Totalitarian regimes - the Wall

First of at least two posts on the unfortunate history Berlin is associated with. Both have to do with totalitarian regimes and the extreme results that come from them. This first one is about the Berlin Wall. I am old enough to remember the effect the end of the Berlin Wall had on many of us - I could not really believe I was seeing it coming down.

If you are my age you grew up with it. A visible symbol of how the world was divided into free countries and those that were not free.

This is a vast mural on the side of a wall along Bernauer Strasse - the image shows actual houses on the street from 1961 just before the barrier was started. These desperate people are taking a last chance to escape. A few years later the street would have looked like this along it's length. The houses were pulled down.

This is one the preserved sections - the wall facing us is the view from the West. In the middle the 'deadground' watched over by the sinister looking tower. At the back, the wall that would face you from the East.

This is not a wall to keep you out. It is a wall to keep you in.

How morally bankrupt must your government be to have to do this?

So desperate were the citizens of both sides to overcome this barrier they went to incredible lengths to escape or to create a means for escape. This is tunnel 57 - so named for the number of people who managed to get out in it's short lived life before it was betrayed and the East German police ambushed the last set of rescuers and escapees.

Makes you think - especially as this was only just over 20 years ago that the Wall came down.

Keep vigilant - there are always idiots trying to build barriers to keep people out - why?