1.
Checkpoint Charlie
–
Checkpoint Charlie was the name given by the Western Allies to the best-known Berlin Wall crossing point between East Berlin and West Berlin during the Cold War. Checkpoint Charlie became a symbol of the Cold War, representing the separation of East and West, Soviet and American tanks briefly faced each other at the location during the Berlin Crisis of 1961. After the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc and the reunification of Germany and it is now located in the Allied Museum in the Dahlem neighborhood of Berlin. By the early 1950s, the Soviet method of restricting emigration was emulated by most of the rest of the Eastern Bloc, however, in occupied Germany, until 1952, the lines between East Germany and the western occupied zones remained easily crossed in most places. Consequently, the inner German border between the two German states was closed and a fence erected. Accordingly, Berlin became the route by which East Germans left for the West. Hence the Berlin sector border was essentially a loophole through which Eastern Bloc citizens could still escape, the 3.5 million East Germans who had left by 1961 totaled approximately 20% of the entire East German population. The emigrants tended to be young and well educated, the loss was disproportionately great among professionals — engineers, technicians, physicians, teachers, lawyers and skilled workers. The brain drain of professionals had become so damaging to the political credibility, between 1949 and 1961, over 2½ million East Germans fled to the West. The numbers increased during the three years before the Berlin Wall was erected, with 144,000 in 1959,199,000 in 1960 and 207,000 in the first seven months of 1961 alone, the East German economy suffered accordingly. On August 13,1961, a barrier that would become the Berlin Wall separating East and West Berlin was erected by the East Germans. Two days later, police and army began to construct a more permanent concrete wall. Along with the wall, the 830 mile zonal border became 3, Checkpoint Charlie was a crossing point in the Berlin Wall located at the junction of Friedrichstraße with Zimmerstraße and Mauerstraße. It is in the Friedrichstadt neighborhood, Checkpoint Charlie was designated as the single crossing point for foreigners and members of the Allied forces. The Soviets simply called it the Friedrichstraße Crossing Point, the East Germans referred officially to Checkpoint Charlie as the Grenzübergangsstelle Friedrich-/Zimmerstraße. As the most visible Berlin Wall checkpoint, Checkpoint Charlie is frequently featured in spy movies, a famous cafe and viewing place for Allied officials, armed forces and visitors alike, Cafe Adler, is situated right on the checkpoint. It was an excellent viewing point to look into East Berlin while having something to eat and their reason was that they did not consider the inner Berlin sector boundary an international border and did not treat it as such. Soon after the construction of the Berlin Wall, a standoff occurred between U. S. and Soviet tanks on either side of Checkpoint Charlie, by October 27,10 Soviet and an equal number of American tanks stood 100 yards apart on either side of the checkpoint
2.
German language
–
German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol, the German-speaking Community of Belgium and it is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg. Major languages which are most similar to German include other members of the West Germanic language branch, such as Afrikaans, Dutch, English, Luxembourgish and it is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English. One of the languages of the world, German is the first language of about 95 million people worldwide. The German speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of publication of new books. German derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, a portion of German words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and English. With slightly different standardized variants, German is a pluricentric language, like English, German is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and also other parts of the world. The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, when Martin Luther translated the Bible, he based his translation primarily on the standard bureaucratic language used in Saxony, also known as Meißner Deutsch. Copies of Luthers Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region that translated words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics initially rejected Luthers translation, and tried to create their own Catholic standard of the German language – the difference in relation to Protestant German was minimal. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that a widely accepted standard was created, until about 1800, standard German was mainly a written language, in urban northern Germany, the local Low German dialects were spoken. Standard German, which was different, was often learned as a foreign language with uncertain pronunciation. Northern German pronunciation was considered the standard in prescriptive pronunciation guides though, however, German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire and its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Some cities, such as Prague and Budapest, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain, others, such as Pozsony, were originally settled during the Habsburg period, and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest and Bratislava as well as cities like Zagreb, the most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language is found within the Deutsches Wörterbuch. This dictionary was created by the Brothers Grimm and is composed of 16 parts which were issued between 1852 and 1860, in 1872, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook. In 1901, the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a standardization of the German language in its written form
3.
Berlin
–
Berlin is the capital and the largest city of Germany as well as one of its constituent 16 states. With a population of approximately 3.5 million, Berlin is the second most populous city proper, due to its location in the European Plain, Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. Around one-third of the area is composed of forests, parks, gardens, rivers. Berlin in the 1920s was the third largest municipality in the world, following German reunification in 1990, Berlin once again became the capital of all-Germany. Berlin is a city of culture, politics, media. Its economy is based on high-tech firms and the sector, encompassing a diverse range of creative industries, research facilities, media corporations. Berlin serves as a hub for air and rail traffic and has a highly complex public transportation network. The metropolis is a popular tourist destination, significant industries also include IT, pharmaceuticals, biomedical engineering, clean tech, biotechnology, construction and electronics. Modern Berlin is home to world renowned universities, orchestras, museums and its urban setting has made it a sought-after location for international film productions. The city is known for its festivals, diverse architecture, nightlife, contemporary arts. Since 2000 Berlin has seen the emergence of a cosmopolitan entrepreneurial scene, the name Berlin has its roots in the language of West Slavic inhabitants of the area of todays Berlin, and may be related to the Old Polabian stem berl-/birl-. All German place names ending on -ow, -itz and -in, since the Ber- at the beginning sounds like the German word Bär, a bear appears in the coat of arms of the city. It is therefore a canting arm, the first written records of towns in the area of present-day Berlin date from the late 12th century. Spandau is first mentioned in 1197 and Köpenick in 1209, although these areas did not join Berlin until 1920, the central part of Berlin can be traced back to two towns. Cölln on the Fischerinsel is first mentioned in a 1237 document,1237 is considered the founding date of the city. The two towns over time formed close economic and social ties, and profited from the right on the two important trade routes Via Imperii and from Bruges to Novgorod. In 1307, they formed an alliance with a common external policy, in 1415 Frederick I became the elector of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, which he ruled until 1440. In 1443 Frederick II Irontooth started the construction of a new palace in the twin city Berlin-Cölln
4.
Berlin Wall
–
The Berlin Wall was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. Its demolition officially began on 13 June 1990 and was completed in 1992, the barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, which circumscribed a wide area that contained anti-vehicle trenches, fakir beds and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc claimed that the Wall was erected to protect its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the will of the people in building a socialist state in East Germany. In practice, the Wall served to prevent the massive emigration and defection that had marked East Germany, the West Berlin city government sometimes referred to it as the Wall of Shame—a term coined by mayor Willy Brandt—while condemning the Walls restriction on freedom of movement. Between 1961 and 1989, the Wall prevented almost all such emigration, during this period, around 5,000 people attempted to escape over the Wall, with an estimated death toll ranging from 136 to more than 200 in and around Berlin. After several weeks of civil unrest, the East German government announced on 9 November 1989 that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany, crowds of East Germans crossed and climbed onto the Wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere. Over the next few weeks, euphoric people and souvenir hunters chipped away parts of the Wall, contrary to popular belief the Walls actual demolition did not begin until the summer of 1990 and was not completed until 1992. The fall of the Berlin Wall paved the way for German reunification, the capital of Berlin, as the seat of the Allied Control Council, was similarly subdivided into four sectors despite the citys location, which was fully within the Soviet zone. Within two years, political divisions increased between the Soviets and the occupying powers. Property and industry was nationalized in the East German zone, if statements or decisions deviated from the described line, reprimands and punishment would ensue, such as imprisonment, torture and even death. Indoctrination of Marxism-Leninism became a part of school curricula, sending professors. The East Germans created a political police apparatus that kept the population under close surveillance. In 1948, following disagreements regarding reconstruction and a new German currency, Stalin instituted the Berlin Blockade, preventing food, materials and supplies from arriving in West Berlin. The United States, Britain, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and several countries began a massive airlift, supplying West Berlin with food. The Soviets mounted a public campaign against the Western policy change. Communists attempted to disrupt the elections of 1948, preceding large losses therein, in May 1949, Stalin lifted the blockade, permitting the resumption of Western shipments to Berlin. The German Democratic Republic was declared on 7 October 1949, by a secret treaty, the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs accorded the East German state administrative authority, but not autonomy. The Soviets permeated East German administrative, military and secret police structures and had full control, East Germany differed from West Germany, which developed into a Western capitalist country with a social market economy and a democratic parliamentary government
5.
East Germany
–
East Germany, formally the German Democratic Republic, was an Eastern Bloc state during the Cold War period. The Soviet zone surrounded West Berlin, but did not include it, as a result, the German Democratic Republic was established in the Soviet Zone, while the Federal Republic was established in the three western zones. East Germany, which lies culturally in Central Germany, was a state of the Soviet Union. Soviet occupation authorities began transferring administrative responsibility to German communist leaders in 1948, Soviet forces, however, remained in the country throughout the Cold War. Until 1989, the GDR was governed by the Socialist Unity Party, though other parties participated in its alliance organisation. The economy was centrally planned, and increasingly state-owned, prices of basic goods and services were set by central government planners, rather than rising and falling through supply and demand. Although the GDR had to pay war reparations to the USSR. Nonetheless it did not match the growth of West Germany. Emigration to the West was a significant problem—as many of the emigrants were well-educated young people, the government fortified its western borders and, in 1961, built the Berlin Wall. Many people attempting to flee were killed by guards or booby traps. In 1989, numerous social and political forces in the GDR and abroad led to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the following year open elections were held, and international negotiations led to the signing of the Final Settlement treaty on the status and borders of Germany. The GDR was dissolved and Germany was unified on 3 October 1990, internally, the GDR also bordered the Soviet sector of Allied-occupied Berlin known as East Berlin which was also administered as the states de facto capital. It also bordered the three sectors occupied by the United States, United Kingdom and France known collectively as West Berlin. The three sectors occupied by the Western nations were sealed off from the rest of the GDR by the Berlin Wall from its construction in 1961 until it was brought down in 1989, the official name was Deutsche Demokratische Republik, usually abbreviated to DDR. West Germans, the media and statesmen purposely avoided the official name and its abbreviation, instead using terms like Ostzone, Sowjetische Besatzungszone. The centre of power in East Berlin was referred to as Pankow. Over time, however, the abbreviation DDR was also used colloquially by West Germans. However, this use was not always consistent, for example, before World War II, Ostdeutschland was used to describe all the territories east of the Elbe, as reflected in the works of sociologist Max Weber and political theorist Carl Schmitt
6.
Heinz Hoffmann
–
Born in Mannheim, Grand Duchy of Baden, Hoffmann came from a working-class family. After attending school in Mannheim, he spent the 1925 –1930 period learning to be an engine fitter at MWM, from 1926 to 1930 he was a member of the Young Communist League of Germany, followed by membership in the Communist Party of Germany. During this time Hoffman served several prison sentences for participating in demonstrations. After the rise of the Nazi Party in 1933, he was faced with a warrant for his arrest, Hoffmann fled Germany and immigrated to the Soviet Union by the way of Switzerland and Czechoslovakia. Until 1945 he used the alias “Heinz Roth, ” which is the reason why he used Heinz as his first name rather than his given name Karl-Heinz, in the Soviet Union he attended the International Lenin School in Moscow. For a few months in 1936 and 1937 he attended school in Ryazan conducted by the Frunze Military Academy in preparation for service with the Republican forces in Spain. Upon graduation he was given the rank of Lieutenant, from 1937 to 1938 he served in the 11th International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War. Under the pseudonym Heinz Roth he was a Battery Commissar in the Hans Beimler Battalion and he took command of the Battalion after his commander was wounded. He himself was wounded in the legs and abdomen by infantry gunfire south of Quijorna. Hoffmann was hospitalized in Madrid for a few months later moved to a clinic in Eaubone. From April 1939 to November 1940, he continued to recover from his injuries in the Soviet Union, starting in March 1941, he attended a special course of the Comintern in Pushkino, northwest of Moscow. In addition to a social science training he was also taught military subjects. This included training in rear area sabotage with other German exiles and he was medically disqualified from training after parachute jumps aggravated his earlier leg wounds. Hoffmann was then selected to work in German prisoner of war camps after assisting the Soviet NKVD in interrogating prisoners, from 1942 to 1944, Hoffmann was a teacher at the Antifascist School, first in the territory of Gorky, and later in Krasnogorsk. By 1945, Hoffman headed the Party School No.12 in Moscow, in January 1946, he returned to Berlin and was initially on the personal staff of Wilhelm Pieck, and later the staff of Walter Ulbricht. From 1950 until his death, Heinz Hoffmann was a member of the East German Parliament and was a candidate for the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, in 1952 he joined the Central Committee of the SED. Hoffmann belonged to the Politburo of the SED from 1973 until his death in 1985, starting in 1949, Hoffmann was involved in the establishment of the East German armed forces. He was first Vice President of the German Administration of the Interior, in 1950, Hoffmann was appointed Head of the Main Administration for Training, the immediate predecessor of the Barracked Peoples Police
7.
U-Boat
–
U-boat is the anglicised version of the German word U-Boot, a shortening of Unterseeboot, literally undersea boat. While the German term refers to any submarine, the English one refers specifically to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in the First and Second World Wars. Although at times they were efficient fleet weapons against enemy warships, they were most effectively used in an economic warfare role. Austro-Hungarian navy submarines were known as U-boats. The first submarine built in Germany, the three-man Brandtaucher, sank to the bottom of Kiel harbor on 1 February 1851 during a test dive, the inventor and engineer Wilhelm Bauer had designed this vessel in 1850, and Schweffel & Howaldt constructed it in Kiel. Dredging operations in 1887 rediscovered Brandtaucher, it was raised and put on display in Germany, there followed in 1890 the boats WW1 and WW2, built to a Nordenfelt design. The SM U-1 was a completely redesigned Karp-class submarine and only one was built, the Imperial German Navy commissioned it on 14 December 1906. It had a hull, a Körting kerosene engine. The 50%-larger SM U-2 had two torpedo tubes, the U-19 class of 1912–13 saw the first diesel engine installed in a German navy boat. At the start of World War I in 1914, Germany had 48 submarines of 13 classes in service or under construction, during that war the Imperial German Navy used SM U-1 for training. Retired in 1919, it remains on display at the Deutsches Museum in Munich, on 5 September 1914, HMS Pathfinder was sunk by SM U-21, the first ship to have been sunk by a submarine using a self-propelled torpedo. On 22 September, U-9 sank the obsolete British warships HMS Aboukir, HMS Cressy, for the first few months of the war, U-boat anticommerce actions observed the prize rules of the time, which governed the treatment of enemy civilian ships and their occupants. On 20 October 1914, SM U-17 sank the first merchant ship, surface commerce raiders were proving to be ineffective, and on 4 February 1915, the Kaiser assented to the declaration of a war zone in the waters around the British Isles. This was cited as a retaliation for British minefields and shipping blockades, under the instructions given to U-boat captains, they could sink merchant ships, even potentially neutral ones, without warning. In February 1915, a submarine U-6 was rammed and both periscopes were destroyed off Beachy Head by the collier SS Thordis commanded by Captain John Bell RNR after firing a torpedo, on 7 May 1915, SM U-20 sank the liner RMS Lusitania. The sinking claimed 1,198 lives,128 of them American civilians, munitions that it carried were thousands of crates full of ammunition for rifles, 3-inch artillery shells, and also various other standard ammunition used by infantry. The sinking of the Lusitania was widely used as propaganda against the German Empire, a widespread reaction in the U. S was not seen until the sinking of the ferry SS Sussex. The sinking occurred in 1915 and the United States entered the war in 1917, the initial U. S. response was to threaten to sever diplomatic ties, which persuaded the Germans to issue the Sussex pledge that reimposed restrictions on U-boat activity
8.
Alexandra Hildebrandt
–
In 1995, she married the museums other co-founder and former Director Rainer Hildebrandt, and they remained married until his death in 2004. She is internationally noted for leading the construction of the Freedom Memorial, furthermore, she takes a stand for the worldwide non-violent struggle for human rights, which was a matter very close to her late husbands heart. In 2004 she endowed the International Human Rights Award „Dr. Rainer Hildebrandt Medal, es wird viel gewaltsames Sterben geben. Rainer Hildebrandt-Ein Leben für die Freiheit, Biografie Teil 1,2014, ISBN 978-3-922484-70-7 Ein Mensch Rainer Hildebrandt – Begegnungen Verl. Haus am Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-922484-41-7 Die Mauer. Zahlen. Daten, Haus am Checkpoint Charlie Verlag, Berlin 2001, es geschah am Checkpoint Charlie, ISBN 978-3-922484-56-1 Geteiltes Deutschland. Grenzschilder, ISBN 978-3-922484-44-8 Zitate zur deutschen Teilung, zur MAUER und zur Wiedervereinigung, ISBN 978-3-922484-47-9 Checkpoint Charlie Museum
9.
Baltic Sea
–
The Baltic Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, enclosed by Scandinavia, Finland, the Baltic countries, and the North European Plain. It includes the Gulf of Bothnia, the Bay of Bothnia, the Gulf of Finland, the Gulf of Riga, the sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 10°E to 30°E longitude. The Baltic Sea is connected by waterways to the White Sea via the White Sea Canal. Traffic history Historically, the Kingdom of Denmark collected Sound Dues from ships at the border between the ocean and the land-locked Baltic Sea and they were collected in the Øresund at Kronborg castle near Helsingør, in the Great Belt at Nyborg. In the Little Belt, the site of intake was moved to Fredericia, the narrowest part of Little Belt is the Middelfart Sund near Middelfart. Oceanography Geographers widely agree that the physical border of the Baltic is a line drawn through the southern Danish islands, Drogden-Sill. The Drogden Sill is situated north of Køge Bugt and connects Dragør in the south of Copenhagen to Malmö, it is used by the Øresund Bridge, including the Drogden Tunnel. By this definition, the Danish Straits are part of the entrance, but the Bay of Mecklenburg, another usual border is the line between Falsterbo, Sweden and Stevns Klint, Denmark, as this is the southern border of Øresund. Its also the border between the shallow southern Øresund and notably deeper water, hydrography and biology Drogden Sill sets a limit to Øresund and Darss Sill, and a limit to the Belt Sea. The shallow sills are obstacles to the flow of salt water from the Kattegat into the basins around Bornholm. The Kattegat and the southwestern Baltic Sea are well oxygenated and have a rich biology, the remainder of the Sea is brackish, poor in oxygen and in species. While Tacitus called it Mare Suebicum after the Germanic people called the Suebi, the origin of the latter name is speculative. Adam of Bremen himself compared the sea with a belt, stating that it is so named because it stretches through the land as a belt and he might also have been influenced by the name of a legendary island mentioned in the Natural History of Pliny the Elder. Pliny mentions an island named Baltia with reference to accounts of Pytheas and it is possible that Pliny refers to an island named Basilia in On the Ocean by Pytheas. Baltia also might be derived from belt and mean near belt of sea, meanwhile, others have suggested that the name of the island originates from the Proto-Indo-European root *bhel meaning white, fair. This root and its meaning were retained in both Lithuanian and Latvian. On this basis, a related hypothesis holds that the name originated from this Indo-European root via a Baltic language such as Lithuanian, yet another explanation is that the name originally meant enclosed sea, bay as opposed to open sea. Some Swedish historians believe the name derives from the god Balder of Nordic mythology, in the Middle Ages the sea was known by variety of names
10.
Stasi
–
It has been described as one of the most effective and repressive intelligence and secret police agencies to have ever existed. The Stasi was headquartered in East Berlin, with a complex in Berlin-Lichtenberg. The Stasi motto was Schild und Schwert der Partei, referring to the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany, Erich Mielke was its longest-serving chief, in power for thirty-two of the GDRs forty years of existence. Its Main Directorate for Reconnaissance was responsible for espionage and for conducting covert operations in foreign countries. Under its long-time head Markus Wolf, this gained a reputation as one of the most effective intelligence agencies of the Cold War. Numerous Stasi officials were prosecuted for their crimes after 1990, the Stasi was founded on 8 February 1950. Wilhelm Zaisser was the first Minister of State Security of the GDR, Zaisser tried to depose SED General Secretary Walter Ulbricht after the June 1953 uprising, but was instead removed by Ulbricht and replaced with Ernst Wollweber thereafter. Wollweber resigned in 1957 after clashes with Ulbricht and Erich Honecker, in 1957, Markus Wolf became head of the Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung, the foreign intelligence section of the Stasi. As intelligence chief, Wolf achieved great success in penetrating the government, political, the most influential case was that of Günter Guillaume, which led to the downfall of West German Chancellor Willy Brandt in May 1974. In 1986, Wolf retired and was succeeded by Werner Grossmann, in 1978, Mielke formally granted KGB officers in East Germany the same rights and powers that they enjoyed in the Soviet Union. The Ministry for State Security also included the following entities, Administration 12 was responsible for the surveillance of mail, Administration 2000 was responsible for the reliability of National Peoples Army personnel. Administration 2000 operated a secret, unofficial network of informants within the NVA, Administration for Security of Heavy Industry and Research and Main Administration for Security of the Economy, protection against sabotage or espionage. Division of Garbage Analysis, was responsible for analyzing garbage for any suspect western foods and/or materials, Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment, the armed force at disposal of the ministry, named for the founder of the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police. The members of regiment, who served at least three years, were responsible for protecting high government and party buildings and personnel. The regiment was composed of six motorized rifle battalions, one artillery battalion and its equipment included PSZH-IV armored personnel carriers,120 mm mortars,85 mm and 100 mm antitank guns, ZU-23 antiaircraft guns, and helicopters. A Swiss source reported in 1986 that the troops of the Ministry of State Security also had commando units similar to the Soviet Unions Spetsnaz GRU forces. These East German units were said to wear the uniform of the airborne troops and they also wore the sleeve stripe of the Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment. Main Administration for Struggle Against Suspicious Persons was charged with the surveillance of foreigners—particularly from the West—legally traveling or residing within the country and this included the diplomatic community, tourists, and official guests
11.
KGB
–
The KGB, an initialism for Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti, was the main security agency for the Soviet Union from 1954 until its break-up in 1991. Formed in 1954, as a successor of such preceding agencies as the Cheka, NKGB, and MGB. It was the government agency of union-republican jurisdiction, acting as internal security, intelligence. Similar agencies were constituted in each of the republics of the Soviet Union aside from Russia and consisted of ministries, state committees. The KGB was a service and was governed by army laws and regulations. While most of the KGB archives remain classified, two documentary sources are available. After the dissolution of the USSR, the KGB was split into the Federal Security Service, after breaking away from the Republic of Georgia in the early 1990s with Russian help, the self-proclaimed Republic of South Ossetia established its own KGB. A1983 Time magazine article reported that the KGB was the worlds most effective information-gathering organization, at best, the compromised spy was either returned to the Soviet Union or was declared persona non grata and expelled by the government of the target country. The illegal resident spied, unprotected by diplomatic immunity, and worked independently of Soviet diplomatic, in its early history, the KGB valued illegal spies more than legal spies, because illegal spies infiltrated their targets with greater ease. The KGB classified its spies as agents and controllers, the false-identity or legend assumed by a USSR-born illegal spy was elaborate, using the life of either a live double or a dead double. In the 1980s, the glasnost liberalisation of Soviet society provoked KGB Chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov to lead the August 1991 Soviet coup détat attempt to depose President Mikhail Gorbachev, the thwarted coup détat ended the KGB on 6 November 1991. The KGBs successors are the police agency FSB and the espionage agency SVR. The GRU recruited the ideological agent Julian Wadleigh, who became a State Department diplomat in 1936, the NKVDs first US operation was establishing the legal residency of Boris Bazarov and the illegal residency of Iskhak Akhmerov in 1934. Throughout, the Communist Party USA and its General Secretary Earl Browder, helped NKVD recruit Americans, working in government, business, moreover, when Whittaker Chambers, formerly Alger Hisss courier, approached the Roosevelt Government—to identify the Soviet spies Duggan, White, and others—he was ignored. To wit, British Manhattan Project team physicist Klaus Fuchs was the agent of the Rosenberg spy ring. In 1944, the New York City residency infiltrated the top secret Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, by recruiting Theodore Hall, the KGB failed to rebuild most of its US illegal resident networks. The aftermath of the Second Red Scare and the crisis in the CPUSA hampered recruitment, the last major illegal resident, Rudolf Abel, was betrayed by his assistant, Reino Häyhänen, in 1957. One notable KGB success occurred in 1967, with the recruitment of US Navy Chief Warrant Officer John Anthony Walker
12.
Mahatma Gandhi
–
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was the preeminent leader of the Indian independence movement in British-ruled India. Employing nonviolent civil disobedience, Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights, the honorific Mahatma —applied to him first in 1914 in South Africa—is now used worldwide. In India, he is also called Bapu and Gandhiji and he is unofficially called the Father of the Nation. After his return to India in 1915, he set about organising peasants, farmers, Gandhi famously led Indians in challenging the British-imposed salt tax with the 400 km Dandi Salt March in 1930, and later in calling for the British to Quit India in 1942. He was imprisoned for years, upon many occasions, in both South Africa and India. Gandhi attempted to practise nonviolence and truth in all situations, and he lived modestly in a self-sufficient residential community and wore the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl, woven with yarn hand-spun on a charkha. He ate simple food, and also undertook long fasts as a means of both self-purification and social protest. Eventually, in August 1947, Britain granted independence, but the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two dominions, a Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. As many displaced Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs made their way to their new lands, religious violence broke out, especially in the Punjab, eschewing the official celebration of independence in Delhi, Gandhi visited the affected areas, attempting to provide solace. In the months following, he undertook several fasts unto death to promote religious harmony, the last of these, undertaken on 12 January 1948 when he was 78, also had the indirect goal of pressuring India to pay out some cash assets owed to Pakistan. Some Indians thought Gandhi was too accommodating, among them was Nathuram Godse, a Hindu nationalist, who assassinated Gandhi on 30 January 1948 by firing three bullets into his chest. Mahatma Gandhis birthday,2 October, is commemorated in India as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday and his father, Karamchand Uttamchand Gandhi, served as the diwan of Porbandar state. The Gandhi family originated from the village of Kutiana in what was then Junagadh State, in the late 17th or early 18th century, one Lalji Gandhi moved to Porbandar and entered the service of its ruler, the Rana. In 1831, Rana Khimojiraji died suddenly and was succeeded by his 12-year-old only son, as a result, Rana Khimojirajjis widow, Rani Rupaliba, became regent for her son. She soon fell out with Uttamchand and forced him to return to his village in Junagadh. While in Junagadh, Uttamchand appeared before its Nawab and saluted him with his hand instead of his right. In 1841, Vikmatji assumed the throne and reinstated Uttamchand as his diwan, in 1847, Rana Vikmatji appointed Uttamchands son, Karamchand, as diwan after disagreeing with Uttamchand over the states maintenance of a British garrison. Although he only had an education and had previously been a clerk in the state administration
13.
Andrei Sakharov
–
Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov was a Russian nuclear physicist, Soviet dissident, an activist for disarmament, peace and human rights. He became renowned as the designer of the Soviet Unions RDS-37, Sakharov later became an advocate of civil liberties and civil reforms in the Soviet Union, for which he faced state persecution, these efforts earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975. The Sakharov Prize, which is awarded annually by the European Parliament for people and organizations dedicated to human rights, Sakharov was born in Moscow on May 21,1921. His father was Dmitri Ivanovich Sakharov, a school physics teacher. His father later taught at the Second Moscow State University, andreis grandfather Ivan had been a prominent lawyer in the Russian Empire who had displayed respect for social awareness and humanitarian principles that would later influence his grandson. Sakharovs mother was Yekaterina Alekseyevna Sakharova, a great-granddaughter of the prominent military commander Alexey Semenovich Sofiano, Sakharovs parents and paternal grandmother, Maria Petrovna, largely shaped his personality. Although Sakharovs paternal great-grandfather had been a priest in the Russian Orthodox Church, however, he did believe that a guiding principle governed the universe and human life. Sakharov entered Moscow State University in 1938, following evacuation in 1941 during the Great Patriotic War, he graduated in Aşgabat, in todays Turkmenistan. He was then assigned to work in Ulyanovsk. In 1943, he married Klavdia Alekseyevna Vikhireva, with whom he raised two daughters and a son before she died in 1969 and he returned to Moscow in 1945 to study at the Theoretical Department of FIAN. He received his Ph. D. in 1947, after World War II, he researched cosmic rays. In mid-1948 he participated in the Soviet atomic bomb project under Igor Kurchatov, Sakharovs study group at FIAN in 1948 came up with a second concept in August–September 1948. This idea of a layered fission-fusion-fission bomb led Sakharov to call it the sloika, the first Soviet atomic device was tested on August 29,1949. Before his Third Idea, Sakharov tried a layer cake of alternating layers of fission and fusion fuel, the results were disappointing, yielding no more than a typical fission bomb. However the design was seen to be worth pursuing because deuterium is abundant and uranium is scarce, Sakharov was surprised by the size of the explosion and realized that the Americans had harnessed the power of a separate fission explosion to compress the fusion fuel. Sakharov realised that in order to cause the explosion of one side of the fuel to symmetrically compress the fusion fuel, Sakharovs idea was first tested as RDS-37 in 1955. A larger variation of the design which Sakharov worked on was the 50 Mt Tsar Bomba of October 1961. Sakharov saw striking parallels between his fate and those of J. Robert Oppenheimer and Edward Teller in the USA, in both cases, the reaction would have been the same – avoid the trap and immediately take advantage of the enemys stupidity
14.
Peter Fechter
–
Peter Fechter was a German bricklayer from Berlin in what became East Germany in 1945. He was 18 when he one of the first victims of the Berlin Walls East German border guards while trying to cross over to what was then West Berlin. After World War II, Germany was governed jointly by an Allied Control Council consisting of the victorious Allied nations — The United Kingdom, the United States, governmental decisions had to be unanimously approved by all four Allies. Germany was divided into Allied Occupation Zones to be administered directly by the military of each Allied state, the German capital, Berlin, was itself specially divided into four zones, one for each Ally, due to its importance. As the Cold War escalated, the Potsdam Agreement on managing Germany disintegrated, the country was de facto divided into West Germany and East Germany, corresponding to the areas occupied by the western Allies and the Soviet Union, respectively. Berlin, which lay entirely within the territory of the new East, was divided into West Berlin and East Berlin. From 1945, East Germanys civilian local governments were dominated by social democrats, but in 1949, despite tensions, open borders were more or less maintained within Berlin itself for some time. But the increasing flight of refugees from East Berlin to the West prompted the Communist government to build the Berlin Wall. About one year after the construction of the wall, Fechter attempted to flee from East Germany together with his friend Helmut Kulbeik, when both reached the wall, guards fired at them. Although Kulbeik succeeded in crossing the wall, Fechter, still on the wall, was shot in the pelvis in plain view of hundreds of witnesses and he fell back into the death-strip on the Eastern side, where he remained in view of Western onlookers, including journalists. Despite his screams, he received no assistance from the East side. Western police threw him bandages, which he could not reach and he bled to death after approximately one hour. As a result of his death, hundreds in West Berlin formed a spontaneous demonstration, second lieutenant on the scene received specific orders from the US Commandant in West Berlin to stand firm and do nothing. The shot in the right hip had caused internal injuries. Nonetheless, the East German border soldiers did retrieve Peter Fechters body an hour after he had died, in March 1997 two former East German guards, Rolf Friedrich and Erich Schreiber, faced manslaughter charges for Fechters death, and admitted to his shooting. They were both convicted, and sentenced to 20 and 21 months imprisonment on probation, due to a lack of conclusive evidence, the court was unable to determine which of three gunmen had fired the fatal bullet. After pleading guilty to the crime, during sentencing, both apologized for killing Fechter, adding that they would forever live in the guilt of their crime. After serving 4-5 months in jail, the rest of their terms were vacated due to the court believing that the guards were truly remorseful, a cross was placed on the western side near the spot where Fechter was shot and bled to death
15.
Lucius D. Clay
–
General Lucius Dubignon Clay was an American officer and military governor of the United States Army known for his administration of occupied Germany after World War II. Clay was deputy to General Dwight D. Eisenhower,1945, deputy governor, Germany 1946, commander in chief. Forces in Europe and military governor of the U. S. Zone, Germany, Clay orchestrated the Berlin Airlift when the USSR blockaded West Berlin. Clay was born in 1898 in Marietta, Georgia, the sixth and last child of Alexander Stephens Clay, in 1945 he served as deputy to General Dwight D. Eisenhower. The following year, he was made Deputy Governor of Germany during the Allied Military Government, Clay heavily influenced United States Secretary of State James F. Byrnes September 1946 speech in Stuttgart, Germany. The speech, Restatement of Policy on Germany, marked the transition in American occupation policy away from the Morgenthau Plan of economic dismantlement to one of economic reconstruction. Clay was promoted to lieutenant general on 17 April 1945 and to general on 17 March 1947, on March 15,1947, Clay succeeded Eisenhower as military governor of occupied Germany—the head of the OMGUS, the Office of Military Government, United States. Clays responsibilities covered a wide spectrum of issues related to Germanys recovery from the war in addition to strictly military issues. Clay promoted democratic federalism in Germany and resisted US politicians who sought to undo a conservative constitution adopted in Bavaria and he also closed the borders of the American Zone in 1947 to stem the tide of Jewish refugees who were generating tension with the local populations. The soldiers were singled out for looking or sounding Jewish, at least 70 U. S. soldiers died in the camp or on a later forced death march, some by the hand of Metz himself. At the time West Germany was considered vital in the Cold War developing between the West and Eastern Bloc nations. Releasing the offenders early had the effect of boosting German public opinion towards the United States. Clay confirmed several death sentences as valid, commuted several and had some, including Ilse Koch, under the pressure of public opinion Koch was re-arrested in 1949 and tried before a West German court and on 15 January 1951 was sentenced to life imprisonment. On June 26,1948, two days after the Soviets imposed the Berlin Blockade, Clay gave the order for the Berlin Airlift. This was an act of defiance against the Soviets, a feat of logistics, a defining moment of the Cold War. Clay is remembered for ordering and maintaining the airlift, which would ultimately last 324 days and he resigned his post days after the May 12,1949 lifting of the blockade. On May 15,1949, Clay left Germany and was replaced by John McCloy as civilian high commissioner for Germany, in the same year he was elected as an honorary member of the North Carolina Society of the Cincinnati. In 1950 he became chairman of the Continental Can Company for 12 consecutive years and he retired from Continental Can in 1962 to become a Senior Partner in Lehman Brothers investment banking house until his retirement in 1973
16.
Sergei Khrushchev
–
Sergei Nikitich Khrushchev is the son of former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. He now resides in the United States where he is a Senior Fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University in Providence, Dr. Khrushchev holds several advanced engineering degrees. From the Ukrainian Academy of Science, he earned his doctoral degree, in addition, he earned an M. A. degree with distinction from the Moscow Electric Power Institute. He also holds a professorship at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, meaning he is not a full-time professor. Prior to emigrating from the Soviet Union to the United States in 1991, from 1968 to 1991, he served at the Control Computer Institute in Moscow, where he rose from section head to first deputy director in charge of research. From the years 1958 to 1968, Dr. Khrushchev worked as an engineer, then later as a deputy head in charge of guidance systems for missile. In this capacity, he worked on cruise missiles for submarine craft, military and research spacecraft, moon vehicles, and he often speaks to American audiences to share his memories of the other side of the Cold War. Sergei serves as an advisor to the Cold War Museum, on July 12,1999, he and his wife, Valentina, became naturalized citizens of the United States. Sergeis son from a marriage, Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev, a Russian journalist, died on February 22,2007, aged 47. He has another son, whose name is also Sergei, on October 28,1962, his father Nikita Khrushchev told him that the Lockheed U2 shot down over Cuba and killing Major Rudolf Anderson was by the Cuban military at the direction of Raul Castro
17.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen
–
Anders Fogh Rasmussen is a Danish politician who was the 39th Prime Minister of Denmark from November 2001 to April 2009 and the 12th Secretary General of NATO from August 2009 to October 2014. Rasmussen was first elected to the Folketing in 1978 and served in ministerial positions, including Minister of Tax. In his early career, Rasmussen was a strident critic of the welfare state, however, through the 1990s, his views moved towards the political centre. Rasmussens government relied on the Danish Peoples Party for support, keeping with the Danish tradition of minority government and his government introduced tougher limits on non-EEA immigration and a freeze on tax rates. Certain taxes were lowered, but his partners in the Conservative Peoples Party repeatedly argued for more tax cuts. He authored several books about taxation and government structure and he resigned as Prime Minister in April 2009 to become Secretary General of NATO. His term as Secretary General was to end in the summer of 2014, however, on 11 December 2013 the North Atlantic Council extended his term until 30 September 2014, in order to ensure the organisation of the 2014 NATO summit in Newport, United Kingdom. Rasmussen was born in 1953 in Ginnerup, Jutland, to farmer Knud Rasmussen and his surname is Rasmussen, while Fogh, his mothers maiden name, is his middle name and not considered part of his last name. He is correctly referred to as Rasmussen, unless his name is used. He matriculated in languages and social studies from Viborg Cathedral School, in 1969–1972. and studied Economics at the University of Aarhus and he has been active in politics most of his life and has authored several books about taxation and government structure. He and his wife Anne-Mette married in 1978 and have three children, Henrik Fogh Rasmussen, Maria and Christina, as an amateur cyclist, Rasmussen completed part of the notorious Alpe dHuez stage of the 2008 Tour de France the day after the professional race took place. His attendance at Le Tour was at the invitation of Danish former cyclist Bjarne Riis, Rasmussen is also an avid runner. He is of no relation to either his predecessor Poul Nyrup Rasmussen and he has held positions in government and opposition throughout his career, first winning a seat in the Folketing in 1978. In general, Rasmussen is in favour of centralisation, privatisation, Rasmussen wrote the book From Social State to Minimal State in 1993, in which he advocated an extensive reform of the Danish welfare system along classic liberal lines. In particular, he favours lower taxes and less government interference in corporate, in 1993 he was awarded the Adam Smith award by the libertarian society Libertas, partly because of this book. From 1987 to 1990 he was Minister for Taxation and from 1990 Minister for Economy, Rasmussen disagreed with the findings of the commission, but faced with the threat of a motion of no confidence, he left his posts voluntarily. His Liberal Party won power in the November 2001 election, defeating the Social Democratic government of Poul Nyrup Rasmussen and that election marked a dramatic change in Danish politics. It was the first time since 1920 that the Social Democratic Party lost its position as the largest party in the Folketing, together these three parties survived both the 2005 election and the 2007 election
18.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky
–
Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky is an exiled Russian businessman, philanthropist and former oligarch, now resident in Switzerland. In 2003, Khodorkovsky was believed to be the wealthiest man in Russia and was ranked 16th on Forbes list of billionaires. He had worked his way up the Komsomol apparatus during the Soviet years, in October 2003, he was arrested and charged with fraud. The government under Russian president Vladimir Putin then froze shares of Yukos shortly thereafter on tax charges, Putins government took further actions against Yukos, leading to a collapse of the companys share price and the evaporation of much of Khodorkovskys wealth. In May 2005, he was guilty and sentenced to nine years in prison. After Hans-Dietrich Genscher lobbied for his release, President Vladimir Putin pardoned Khodorkovsky, there was widespread concern internationally that the trials and sentencing were politically motivated. The trial was criticized abroad for the lack of due process, Khodorkovsky lodged several applications with the European Court of Human Rights, seeking redress for alleged violations by Russia of his human rights. In response to his first application, which concerned events from 2003 to 2005, despite these findings, the court ultimately ruled that the trial was not politically motivated, but rather that the charges against him were grounded in reasonable suspicion. He was considered to be a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, upon being pardoned by Putin and released from prison at the end of 2013, Khodorkovsky immediately left Russia and was granted residency in Switzerland. At the end of 2013, his estate was believed to be worth, as a rough estimate. At the end of 2014, he was said to be worth about $500 million, in December 2016, a court unfroze $100m of Khodorkovskys assets that had been held in Ireland. He has been described by The Economist as the Kremlin’s leading critic-in-exile, Khodorkovskys parents, Boris and Marina Khodorkovsky, were “engineers in Moscow who spent their entire careers at a measuring-instruments factory, ” writes Masha Gessen. Khodorkovskys father was Jewish, and his mother was Russian Orthodox and they were both opponents of Communism, but chose “to keep their own political skepticism from their only son, ” who was born in 1963. The family lived in a two-room flat “in a concrete block far from the city center and they chose the second path, with results that far exceeded their expectations. Mikhail became a fervent Communist and Soviet patriot, a member of a species that had seemed all but extinct. ”The young Khodorkovsky was ambitious and received excellent grades. He became deputy head of Komsomol at his university, the D. Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology of Russia, from which he graduated with a degree in chemical engineering in 1986. The Mendeleev Chemistry and Technology Institute, Gessen states, was “one of the colleges of choice for young people whose Jewish surnames made them ineligible for Moscow State University. ”While in college, Khodorkovsky married a fellow student. In 1986, he met an 18-year-old, Inna, “a first-year night student at the Mendeleev Institute” who was working “in the dues department of the Komsomol organization where Khodorkovsky worked. ”He courted her and they had a daughter and twin sons
19.
Anna Politkovskaya
–
It was her reporting from Chechnya that made Politkovskayas national and international reputation. For seven years she refused to give up reporting on the war despite numerous acts of intimidation, Anna was arrested by Russian military forces in Chechnya and subjected to a mock execution. From 2000 onwards, she received international awards for her work. In 2004, she published Putins Russia, an account of Russia for a Western readership. On 7 October 2006, she was murdered in the elevator of her block of flats, in June 2014 five men were sentenced to prison for the murder, but it is still unclear who ordered or paid for the contract killing. Politkovskaya was born Anna Mazepa in New York City in 1958, some sources say that her birth name was actually Hanna Mazeppa. Other sources state that she was born in Chernihiv region of Ukraine and her parents, Soviet diplomats at the United Nations, were Ukrainian. Politkovskaya spent most of her childhood in Moscow, she graduated from Moscow State Universitys school of journalism in 1980, while there, she defended a thesis about the poetry of Marina Tsvetaeva and married fellow student Alexander Politkovsky. They had two children, Vera and Ilya, at first Alexander was better known, joining TV journalist Vladislav Listyev as one of the hosts on the late-night TV programme Vzglyad. Apart from her years, Politkovskaya spent no more than a few weeks outside Russia at any one time. She was a U. S. citizen and had a U. S. passport, Politkovskaya worked for Izvestia from 1982 to 1993 as a reporter and editor of the emergencies and accidents section. From 1994 to 1999, she worked as the assistant chief editor of Obshchaya Gazeta, headed by Yegor Yakovlev, where she wrote frequently about social problems, particularly the plight of refugees. From June 1999 to 2006, she wrote columns for the biweekly Novaya Gazeta and she published several award-winning books about Chechnya, life in Russia, and Russia under Vladimir Putin, including Putins Russia. Politkovskaya won a number of awards for her work and she also chronicled human rights abuses and policy failures elsewhere in the North Caucasus. One of her last investigations was into the mass poisoning of Chechen schoolchildren by a strong. This included Putins pursuit of the Second Chechen War, S the Chekists have become entrenched in power, we have let them see our fear, and thereby have only intensified their urge to treat us like cattle. The KGB respects only the strong and we of all people ought to know that. She also wrote, We are hurtling back into a Soviet abyss, all we have left is the internet, where information is still freely available
20.
Sergei Magnitsky
–
Magnitsky had alleged there had been a large-scale theft from the Russian state sanctioned and carried out by Russian officials. He was arrested and eventually died in prison seven days before the expiration of the term during which he could be legally held without trial. In total, Magnitsky served 358 days in Moscows Butyrka prison and he developed gall stones, pancreatitis and a blocked gall bladder and received inadequate medical care. A human rights council set up by the Kremlin found that he was physically assaulted shortly before his death, in response, Russia blocked hundreds of foreign adoptions. The money had gone into a real estate firm that was buying luxury Wall Street apartments, the US Department of Justice filed a seizure order to recover the apartments in Sept.2013. In 2013, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a Washington, the ICIJ investigation also revealed that the husband of one of the Russian tax officials deposited millions in a Swiss bank account set up by one of the offshore companies. Magnitsky was an auditor at the Moscow law firm Firestone Duncan, working for its owner, there he represented the investment advisory firm Hermitage Capital Management, which had been accused of tax evasion and tax fraud by the Russian Interior Ministry. He was a specialist in civil law, Hermitages company co-founder Bill Browder was soon expelled from Russia as a national threat. Browder himself has indicated that he represented only a threat to politicians and bureaucrats in Russia. In November 2005, Browder arrived in Moscow to be told his visa had been annulled and he was deported the next day and has not seen his Moscow home for 10 years. On June 4,2007, Hermitages Moscow office was raided by about 20 Ministry of Interior officers, the offices of Firestone Duncan were also raided. The officers had a warrant alleging that Kamaya, a company administered by Hermitage, had underpaid its taxes. This was highly irregular as the Russian tax authorities had just confirmed in writing that this company had overpaid its tax, in both cases, the search warrants permitted the seizure of materials related only to Kamaya. In October 2007, Browder received word that one of the firms maintained in Moscow had a judgement against it for an unpaid debt of hundreds of millions of dollars. According to Browder, this was the first he had heard of this court case, Magnitsky was given the assignment of investigating what had happened. Magnitskys testimony implicated police, the judiciary, tax officials, bankers, before then, however, Magnitsky had himself been brought under investigation by one of the policemen he had testified was involved in the fraud. According to Browder, Sergei was the guy in Moscow on courts, taxes, fines. According to Magnitskys investigation, the documents that had taken by the Russian police in June 2007 were used to forge a change in ownership
21.
Hans-Dietrich Genscher
–
In 1991 he was chairman of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. A proponent of Realpolitik, Genscher has been called a master of diplomacy and he is widely regarded as having been a principal architect of German Reunification. After leaving office, he worked as a lawyer and international consultant, Genscher was born on 21 March 1927 in Reideburg, now a part of Halle, in what later became East Germany. He was the son of Hilda Kreime and Kurt Genscher and his father, a lawyer, died when Genscher was nine years old. In 1943, he was drafted to serve as a member of the Air Force Support Personnel at the age of 16. At age 17, close to the end of the war, he and he later said he was unaware of it at the time. Late in the war, Genscher was deployed as a soldier in General Walther Wencks 12th Army, after the German surrender he was an American and British prisoner of war, but was released after two months. Following World War II, he studied law and economics at the universities of Halle and Leipzig, in 1952, Genscher fled to West Germany, where he joined the Free Democratic Party. He passed his state examination in law in Hamburg in 1954. During these early years after the war, Genscher continuously struggled with illness, from 1956 to 1959 he was a research assistant of the FDP parliamentary group in Bonn. From 1959 to 1965 he was the FDP group managing director, in 1965 Genscher was elected on the North Rhine-Westphalian FDP list to the West German parliament and remained a member of parliament until his retirement in 1998. He was elected deputy chairman in 1968. After serving in several party offices, he was appointed minister of the interior by Chancellor Willy Brandt, whose Social Democratic Party was in coalition with the FDP, in 1974 he became foreign minister and vice chancellor, both posts he would hold for 18 years. From 1 October 1974 to 23 February 1985 he was Chairman of the FDP and it was during his tenure as party chairman that the FDP switched from being the junior member of social-liberal coalition to being the junior member of the 1982 coalition with the CDU/CSU. In 1985 he gave up the post of national chairman, after his resignation as Foreign Minister, Genscher was appointed honorary chairman of the FDP in 1992. In 1972, while minister for the interior, Genscher rejected Israels offer to send an Israeli special forces unit to Germany to deal with the Munich Olympics hostage crisis. A flawed rescue attempt by German police forces at Fürstenfeldbruck air base resulted in a shootout, which left all eleven hostages, five terrorists. Genschers popularity with Israel declined further when he endorsed the release of the three captured attackers following the hijacking of a Lufthansa aircraft on 29 October 1972 and he would later be a driving factor in continuing this policy in the new conservative-liberal coalition under Helmut Kohl
22.
Guido Westerwelle
–
He was also the chairman of the Free Democratic Party of Germany from May 2001 until he stepped down in 2011. A lawyer by profession, he was a member of the Bundestag from 1996 to 2013, guido Westerwelle was born in Bad Honnef in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. He studied law at the University of Bonn from 1980 to 1987, following the First and Second State Law Examinations in 1987 and 1991 respectively, he began practising as an attorney in Bonn in 1991. In 1994, he earned a degree in law from FernUniversität Hagen. Westerwelle joined the FDP in 1980 and he was a founding member of the Junge Liberale, the youth organization of that party, and was its chairman from 1983 to 1988. In a 1988 newspaper interview, he singled out the FDPs rejection of an amnesty for tax offenders and he was a member of the Executive Board of the FDP from 1988, and in 1994, he was appointed Secretary General of the party. In 1996, Westerwelle was first elected a member of the Bundestag, filling in for Heinz Lanfermann, in the 1998 national elections, he was re-elected to parliament. In 2001, Westerwelle succeeded Wolfgang Gerhardt as party chairman, Gerhardt, however, remained chairman of the FDPs parliamentary group. 8% of the vote. This strategy, transferred to the level, was dubbed Project 18. He was also named the FDPs candidate for the office of chancellor, eventually, the federal elections yielded a slight increase of the FDPs vote from 6. 2% to 7. 4%. Despite this setback, he was reelected as party chairman in 2003, in the federal elections of 2005, Westerwelle was his partys front-runner. Westerwelle became a critic of the new government. In 2006, according to an agreement, Westerwelle succeeded Wolfgang Gerhardt as chairman of the parliamentary group. In accordance with earlier announcements, he formed a government with CDU/CSU. On 28 October, Westerwelle was sworn in as Foreign Minister and Vice-Chancellor and his deputies at the Foreign Office were his close political ally Cornelia Pieper and foreign policy expert Werner Hoyer as Ministers of State. Hoyer had previously held the office in the Cabinet Kohl V. In a much-discussed move, Westerwelle travelled to Poland, the Netherlands, in late November 2010, leaked U. S. On 3 December 2010, Westerwelle dismissed his personal assistant Helmut Metzner following a Wikileaks diplomatic cables release which led to Metzner admitting that he spied for the U. S
23.
Angela Merkel
–
Angela Dorothea Merkel is a German politician who is currently Chancellor of Germany. She is also the leader of the Christian Democratic Union, Merkel has been described at various times as the de facto leader of the European Union, the most powerful woman in the world, and the worlds second most powerful person. Following German reunification in 1990, Merkel was elected to the Bundestag for the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Merkel was appointed as the Minister for Women and Youth in the federal government under Chancellor Helmut Kohl in 1991, and became the Minister for the Environment in 1994. In the 2009 federal election, the CDU obtained the largest share of the vote, in 2007, Merkel was President of the European Council and chaired the G8, the second woman to do so. Merkel played a role in the negotiation of the Treaty of Lisbon. One of Merkels consistent priorities has been to strengthen economic relations. Merkel played a role in managing the financial crisis at the European and international level. On 26 March 2014, Merkel became the incumbent head of government in the European Union. On 20 November 2016, Merkel announced she would seek re-election to a fourth term and she has two younger siblings, her brother Marcus Kasner, a physicist, and her sister Irene Kasner, an occupational therapist. In her childhood and youth, Merkel was known among her peers by the nickname Kasi, Merkel is of Polish and German descent. Her paternal grandfather Ludwik Kaźmierczak was a German policeman of Polish ethnicity and he married Merkels grandmother Margarethe, a German girl from Berlin, and relocated to her hometown where he worked in the police. In 1930 they Germanized the Polish name Kaźmierczak to Kasner, Merkels maternal grandparents were the Danzig politician Willi Jentzsch and Gertrud Alma née Drange, a daughter of the city clerk of Elbing Emil Drange. Merkel has mentioned her Polish heritage on several occasions, but her Polish roots became better known as a result of a 2013 biography, religion played a key role in the Kasner familys migration from West Germany to East Germany. In 1954, he received a pastorate at the church in Quitzow, the family moved to Templin and Merkel grew up in the countryside 80 km north of East Berlin. Like most young people in the German Democratic Republic, Merkel was a member of the Free German Youth, membership was nominally voluntary, but those who did not join found it difficult to gain admission to higher education. She did not participate in the coming of age ceremony Jugendweihe, however. Later, at the Academy of Sciences, she became a member of the FDJ district board, Merkel claimed that she was secretary for culture. When Merkels one-time FDJ district chairman contradicted her, she insisted that, According to my memory, I believe I wont know anything when Im 80
24.
Nadiya Savchenko
–
Nadiya Viktorivna Savchenko is a Ukrainian politician and former Army aviation pilot in the Ukrainian Ground Forces. She is a member of the Verkhovna Rada, during the 2014 War in Donbass, Savchenko, a first lieutenant in the Ukrainian Ground Forces, served as instructor with a volunteer infantry unit, Aidar Battalion. She was subsequently charged and convicted of murder and illegally crossing Russian state border despite being abducted from Ukrainian territory one hour before the deaths of the journalists. European Union ministers and their representative regarded her detention as illegal, in November 2014, while still imprisoned, Savchenko was elected to the Verkhovna Rada in the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election, and she formally resigned from her military post. On 25 May 2016, Savchencko was exchanged in a swap for Russian GRU officers Yevgeny Yerofeyev. Savchenko was one of Ukraines first women to train as an airplane pilot, and is the only female aviator to pilot the Sukhoi Su-24 bomber. Nadiya Savchenko and her younger sister Vira were born in Kiev and their father was an agricultural engineer, their mother a designer and cargo manager. Savchenkos father was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union while her mother was an anti-communist and her mother and sister Vira said in an interview that she and her sister were brought up in a Ukrainian-speaking household and attending Ukrainian-language schools. At 16, Savchenko was already determined to become a pilot and she joined the Ukrainian Army, working as a radio operator with the countrys railway forces before training as a paratrooper. She was then the only Ukrainian female soldier in the Ukrainian peacekeeping troops in Iraq, in 2010, she was posted to the 3rd Army Aviation Regiment in Brody, Lviv Oblast. In 2011, the Ukraine Defense Forces published a 20-minute documentary about Savchenko and she also featured in a United Nations Development Program as part of a drive to promote equality in the Ukrainian military. Savchenko found her time in Brody boring and often got drunk and she was unhappy at being trained to fly the Mi-24 attack helicopter, instead of fast jets. Her former commanding officer at Brody, Edward Zahurskiy, described her as an officer, who was unstable, insubordinate. In December 2013 Savchenkos 3rd Army Aviation Regiment was ordered to Kiev by President Viktor Yanukovych, Savchenko then joined the Euromaidan demonstrations. Savchenko kept a low profile during the protests, there is video of trying to persuade not to throw petrol bombs at riot police. After the president had fled Ukraine in late February 2014, Savchenko, angry over her unit not being deployed in the War in Donbass Savchenko defied orders and left Brody and she volunteered as an instructor in the Aidar Battalion. During the War in Donbass, Savchenko fought as a volunteer in the east of Ukraine in the Aidar Battalion, on June 19 a video of her interrogation at an undisclosed location appeared on the internet, she was shown handcuffed to a metal pipe. On June 20, the chief of counterintelligence Vladimir Gromov said that Savchenko was being well treated, on June 22, there were media reports that Savchenko had been transferred to Donetsk
25.
Charta 77
–
Charter 77 was an informal civic initiative in communist Czechoslovakia from 1976 to 1992, named after the document Charter 77 from January 1977. Founding members and architects were Jiří Němec, Václav Benda, Ladislav Hejdánek, Václav Havel, Jan Patočka, Zdeněk Mlynář, Jiří Hájek, Martin Palouš, spreading the text of the document was considered a political crime by the communist regime. After the 1989 Velvet Revolution, many of its members played important roles in Czech, motivated in part by the arrest of members of the psychedelic band Plastic People of the Universe, the text of Charter 77 was prepared in 1976. In December 1976, the first signatures were collected, the charter was published on 6 January 1977, along with the names of the first 242 signatories, which represented various occupations, political viewpoints, and religions. The document also described the signatories as a loose, informal, united by the will to strive individually and collectively for respect for human and civil rights in our country and throughout the world. It emphasized that Charter 77 is not an organization, has no statutes or permanent organs and this final stipulation was a careful effort to stay within the bounds of Czechoslovak law, which made organized opposition illegal. The governments reaction to the appearance of Charter 77 was harsh, as it was considered to be an illegal document, the full text of Charter 77 was never published in the official press. Many members were forced to collaborate with the communist secret service, in October 1979 six leaders of this support group, including Václav Havel, were tried for subversion and sentenced to prison terms of up to five years. Repression of Charter 77 and VONS members continued during the 1980s, despite unrelenting harassment and arrests, however, the groups continued to issue reports on the governments violations of human rights. Until the Velvet Revolution, Charter 77 had approximately 1,900 signatories, under the dictatorship, the influence of Charter 77 remained limited and only 1,065 people ever signed the document. It didnt reach wide groups of people and most of its members were from Prague, the majority of Czechoslovak citizens knew of the organization only because of the governments campaign against it. In the late 1980s, as the Eastern Bloc regimes weakened, members of Charter 77 saw their opportunity, during the days of the Velvet Revolution, members of the group negotiated the smooth transfer of political power from dictatorship to democracy. Many were elevated into high positions in the government but since most had no experience in politics they met with mixed success. Charter 77 included people who had a range of opinions and, after reaching their common goal. An attempt to make the group the focal point of a political party failed. In 1984 Charter 77 was awarded the first Andrei Sakharov Freedom Award, Charter 88 – a British movement inspired in part by Charter 77. Charter 97 – a Belarusian movement inspired in part by Charter 77, Charter 08 – a Chinese movement inspired in part by Charter 77. Foundation for a Civil Society - Founded in 1990 in New York as the Charter 77 Foundation - New York, Text of the Charter Text of the declaration of Charter 77 Text and signatures of the declaration of Charter 77 at Libri Prohibiti
26.
Elena Bonner
–
Yelena Georgievna Bonner was a human rights activist in the former Soviet Union and wife of the noted physicist Andrei Sakharov. During her decades as a dissident, Bonner was noted for her blunt honesty. Bonner was born Lusik Georgievna Alikhanova in Merv, Turkmen SSR, USSR and her father, Georgy Alikhanov, was an Armenian who founded the Soviet Armenian Communist Party, and was a highly placed member of the Comintern, her mother, Ruf, was a Jewish Communist activist. She had a brother, Igor, who became a career naval officer. Her family had a dacha in Sestroretsk and Bonner had fond memories there. Bonners 41-year-old maternal uncle, Matvei Bonner, was executed during the purge. All four were exonerated following Stalins death in 1953, serving as a nurse during World War II, Bonner was wounded twice, and in 1946 was honorably discharged as a disabled veteran. After the war she earned a degree in pediatrics from the First Leningrad Medical Institute, in medical school she met her first husband, Ivan Semyonov. They had a daughter, Tatiana, in 1950, and a son, Alexey and her children emigrated to the United States in 1977 and 1978, respectively. Bonner and Semyonov separated in 1965, and eventually divorced, the year before they met,1969, Sakharov had been widowed from his wife, Klavdia Alekseyevna Vikhireva, with whom he had two daughters and a son. Beginning as early as the 1940s, Bonner had helped political prisoners, although Bonner had joined the Soviet Communist Party in 1964 while she was working as a physician, only a few years later she was becoming active in the Soviet human rights movement. Her resolve towards dissidence was strengthened in August 1968 after Soviet bloc tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia in order to crush the Prague Spring movement and that event strengthened her belief that the system could not be reformed from within. At the Kaluga trial in 1970, Bonner and Sakharov met Natan Sharansky, under pressure from Sakharov, the Soviet regime permitted Yelena Bonner to travel to the West in 1975,1977 and 1979 for treatment of her wartime eye injury. When Sakharov, awarded the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize, was barred from travel by the Soviet authorities, Bonner, in Italy for treatment, Bonner became a founding member of the Moscow Helsinki Group in 1976. Her arrest in April 1984 for anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda and sentence to five years of exile in Gorky disrupted their lives again. Sakharov’s several long and painful hunger strikes forced the new Soviet leader, in December 1986, Gorbachev allowed Sakharov and Bonner to return to Moscow. Following Sakharovs death on 14 December 1989, she established the Andrei Sakharov Foundation, in 1993, she donated Sakharov papers in the West to Brandeis University in the U. S. in 2004 they were turned over to Harvard University. Bonner remained outspoken on democracy and human rights in Russia and worldwide and she joined the defenders of the Russian parliament during the August Coup and supported Boris Yeltsin during the constitutional crisis in early 1993
27.
Wayback Machine
–
The Internet Archive launched the Wayback Machine in October 2001. It was set up by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and is maintained with content from Alexa Internet, the service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the archive calls a three dimensional index. Since 1996, the Wayback Machine has been archiving cached pages of websites onto its large cluster of Linux nodes and it revisits sites every few weeks or months and archives a new version. Sites can also be captured on the fly by visitors who enter the sites URL into a search box, the intent is to capture and archive content that otherwise would be lost whenever a site is changed or closed down. The overall vision of the machines creators is to archive the entire Internet, the name Wayback Machine was chosen as a reference to the WABAC machine, a time-traveling device used by the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, an animated cartoon. These crawlers also respect the robots exclusion standard for websites whose owners opt for them not to appear in search results or be cached, to overcome inconsistencies in partially cached websites, Archive-It. Information had been kept on digital tape for five years, with Kahle occasionally allowing researchers, when the archive reached its fifth anniversary, it was unveiled and opened to the public in a ceremony at the University of California, Berkeley. Snapshots usually become more than six months after they are archived or, in some cases, even later. The frequency of snapshots is variable, so not all tracked website updates are recorded, Sometimes there are intervals of several weeks or years between snapshots. After August 2008 sites had to be listed on the Open Directory in order to be included. As of 2009, the Wayback Machine contained approximately three petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of 100 terabytes each month, the growth rate reported in 2003 was 12 terabytes/month, the data is stored on PetaBox rack systems manufactured by Capricorn Technologies. In 2009, the Internet Archive migrated its customized storage architecture to Sun Open Storage, in 2011 a new, improved version of the Wayback Machine, with an updated interface and fresher index of archived content, was made available for public testing. The index driving the classic Wayback Machine only has a bit of material past 2008. In January 2013, the company announced a ground-breaking milestone of 240 billion URLs, in October 2013, the company announced the Save a Page feature which allows any Internet user to archive the contents of a URL. This became a threat of abuse by the service for hosting malicious binaries, as of December 2014, the Wayback Machine contained almost nine petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of about 20 terabytes each week. Between October 2013 and March 2015 the websites global Alexa rank changed from 162 to 208, in a 2009 case, Netbula, LLC v. Chordiant Software Inc. defendant Chordiant filed a motion to compel Netbula to disable the robots. Netbula objected to the motion on the ground that defendants were asking to alter Netbulas website, in an October 2004 case, Telewizja Polska USA, Inc. v. Echostar Satellite, No.02 C3293,65 Fed. 673, a litigant attempted to use the Wayback Machine archives as a source of admissible evidence, Telewizja Polska is the provider of TVP Polonia and EchoStar operates the Dish Network
28.
Der Tagesspiegel
–
Der Tagesspiegel is a German daily newspaper. It has regional correspondent offices in Washington D. C. and it is the only major newspaper in the capital to have increased its circulation—now 148, 000—since reunification. For more than 45 years, Der Tagesspiegel was owned by an independent trust and its current publisher is Dieter von Holtzbrinck with editors in chief Stephan-Andreas Casdorff and Lorenz Maroldt. Lorenz Maroldt was noted for using the phrase entartete Werkstatt der Kulturen. Pierre Gerckens, Giovanni di Lorenzo and Hermann Rudolph are editors of the newspaper, some of the notable writers include Bas Kast and Harald Martenstein. The papers main readership is in the half of the city, due to the 1948 blockade having stopped its circulation in East Berlin. The paper has recently redesigned, introducing more color and a clearer typeface. In 2005 it was awarded the Worlds Best-Designed Newspapers Award by the Society for News Design in New York and it is owned by Verlag Der Tagesspiegel GmbH, a member of the Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, and associated with the Wall Street Journal. In 2009, Dieter von Holtzbrinck bought Der Tagesspiegel and Handelsblatt from Holtzbrinck, from 2005 to 2007, American journalist Michael Scaturro edited the English-language version of Der Tagesspiegel, which was known as The Berlin Paper. In 2007 and 2008 Der Tagesspiegels Washington D. C. correspondent and he wrote a book entitled Barack Obama – Der schwarze Kennedy. The literal translation of its German title is Barack Obama – the Black Kennedy and his book was a bestseller in Germany, where other commentators had also compared the two Americans. Official website Society for News Design Tagesspiegel Worlds Best-Designed Detail Page
29.
Junge Freiheit
–
The Junge Freiheit is a German weekly newspaper for politics and culture, established in 1986. JF was founded by students in Freiburg im Breisgau in 1986 on the initiative of the 19-year-old Dieter Stein, the founders described the newspaper as a reaction to the dominance of the leftist 68s generation among university teachers. In 1993, the newspaper moved its headquarters to Potsdam, near Berlin, in 1994, a printing site for the JF in Weimar was firebombed by far left terrorists, with damage totalling 2.5 million marks. The paper moved to Berlin a few later, where it continues to be published today. JF had a circulation of more than 24,000 paid issues in the quarter of 2015. The JF has one section for politics, one for culture and for foreign affairs, there is a substantial number of opinions and commentaries including weekly opinion columns. Every week, the paper also conducts an interview with a prominent politician, author, the newspaper successfully sued the North Rhine Westphalia local authorities, and the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany ruled such classification to be unconstitutional in 2005. Since then, neither states report has mentioned the newspaper, the founder and editor-in-chief as well as managing director of JF is Dieter Stein. Among its prominent public supporters are also Alexander von Stahl and Peter Scholl-Latour, together with German Foundation for Conservative Education and Research, Junge Freiheit awards the Gerhard Löwenthal Prize, a biannual prize for conservative journalists. Junge Freiheit Online archive of Junge Freiheit
30.
Geographic coordinate system
–
A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
31.
Inner German border
–
The inner German border was the border between the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 to 1990. Not including the similar and physically separate Berlin Wall, the border was 1,393 kilometres long and it was formally established on 1 July 1945 as the boundary between the Western and Soviet occupation zones of former Nazi Germany. It was patrolled by 50,000 armed East German guards who faced tens of thousands of West German, British and US guards, in the hinterlands behind the border were more than a million North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and Warsaw Pact troops. The border was a manifestation of Winston Churchills metaphorical Iron Curtain that separated the Soviet. It marked the boundary between two ideological systems – capitalism and communism and it caused widespread economic and social disruption on both sides, East Germans living in the region suffered especially draconian restrictions. The better-known Berlin Wall was a separate, less elaborate. On 9 November 1989, the East German government announced the opening of the Berlin Wall, over the following days, millions of East Germans poured into the West to visit. Little remains of the inner German borders fortifications and its route has been declared part of a European Green Belt linking national parks and nature reserves along the course of the old Iron Curtain from the Arctic Circle to the Black Sea. Museums and memorials along the old border commemorate the division and reunification of Germany and, in some places, the inner German border originated from the Second World War Allies plans to divide a defeated Germany into occupation zones. The boundaries between these zones were drawn along the boundaries of 19th-century German states and provinces that had largely disappeared with the unification of Germany in 1871. Three zones were agreed on, each covering roughly a third of Germanys territories, a British zone in the north-west, an American zone in the south, france was later given a zone in the far west of Germany, carved out of the British and American zones. The division of Germany was put into effect on 1 July 1945, the redeployment of Western troops prompted many Germans to flee to the West to escape the Soviet takeover of the remainder of the Soviet zone. The wartime Allies initially worked together under the auspices of the Allied Control Council for Germany, cooperation between the Western Allies and the Soviets ultimately broke down because of disagreements over Germanys political and economic future. In May 1949, the three occupation zones were merged to form the Federal Republic of Germany with a freely elected government. The Soviet zone became the German Democratic Republic, under communist rule, from the outset, West Germany and the Allies rejected East Germanys legitimacy. The creation of East Germany was deemed a communist/Soviet fait accompli, West Germany regarded German citizenship and rights as applying equally to East and West German citizens. East Germans thus had an incentive to move to the West. In the early days of the occupation, the Allies controlled traffic between the zones to manage the flow of refugees and prevent the escape of former Nazi officials and intelligence officers
32.
Iron Curtain
–
The Iron Curtain was the name for the boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. A term symbolizing the efforts by the Soviet Union to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the West, on the east side of the Iron Curtain were the countries that were connected to or influenced by the Soviet Union. The most notable border was marked by the Berlin Wall and its Checkpoint Charlie, the events that demolished the Iron Curtain started in discontent in Poland, and continued in Hungary, the German Democratic Republic, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. Romania became the only communist state in Europe to overthrow its government with violence. The use of the iron curtain as a metaphor for strict separation goes back at least as far as the early 19th century. It originally referred to fireproof curtains in theaters, various usages of the term iron curtain pre-date Churchills use of the phrase. The term iron curtain has since been used metaphorically in two different senses - firstly to denote the end of an era and secondly to denote a closed geopolitical border. The source of these metaphors can refer to either the safety curtain deployed in theatres or to roller shutters used to secure commercial premises. The first metaphorical usage of iron curtain, in the sense of an end of an era, perhaps should be attributed to British author Arthur Machen, who used the term in his 1895 novel The Three Impostors. The door clanged behind me with the noise of thunder, and I felt that an iron curtain had fallen on the passage of my life. Queen Elisabeth of the Belgians used the term Iron Curtain in the context of World War I to describe the situation between Belgium and Germany in 1914. The passage runs, With clanging, creaking, and squeaking, time to put on your fur coats and go home. We looked around, but the fur coats and homes were missing, chesterton used the phrase in a 1924 essay in The Illustrated London News. Chesterton, while defending Distributism, refers to that iron curtain of industrialism that has cut us off not only from our neighbours condition, how, a moment before the iron curtain was wrung down on it, did the German political stage appear. All German theatres had to install an iron curtain as a precaution to prevent the possibility of fire spreading from the stage to the rest of the theatre. Such fires were common because the decor often was very flammable. In case of fire, a wall would separate the stage from the theatre. Douglas Reed used this metaphor in his book Disgrace Abounding, The bitter strife had only hidden by the iron safety-curtain of the Kings dictatorship
33.
Wall of Shame
–
Wall of Shame is a phrase that has been applied to a wide range of uses. In this sense the term is an inversion of a wall of hope, another name for this use of wall of shame is hall of shame. The term was used in reference to the Berlin Wall, which separated East Berlin from West Berlin. In 1961 the government of East Germany named the wall as the Anti-Fascist Protection Wall. An academic paper by M. Lachance talks about the Quebec wall of shame, perus Wall of Shame, a ten-foot high wall separating San Juan de Miraflores and Surco outside Lima. A moniker used to describe the 2016 separation wall around the Ain al-Hilweh camp in Lebanon, intended to separate the local Palestinian-Lebanese population from the surrounding society
34.
East Berlin
–
East Berlin existed between 1949 and 1990 and consisted of the Soviet sector of Berlin established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors became West Berlin, strongly associated with West Germany, from 13 August 1961 until 9 November 1989, East Berlin was separated from West Berlin by the Berlin Wall. In East German official usage, it widespread in the 1970s to refer to the Western part of the city as Westberlin. In May 1945, the Soviet Union installed a city government for the city that was called Magistrate of Greater Berlin. After the war, the Allied Forces initially administrated the city together within the Allied Kommandatura, however, in 1948 the Soviet representative left the Kommandatura and the common administration broke apart during the following months. In the Soviet sector, a city government was established. When the German Democratic Republic was formed in 1949, it immediately claimed East Berlin as its capital - a claim that was recognized by all Communist countries, nevertheless, its representatives to the Peoples Chamber were not directly elected and did not have full voting rights until 1981. In June 1948, all railways and roads leading to West Berlin were blocked, however, more than one-thousand East Germans were escaping to West Berlin each day by 1960. In August 1961, the East German Government tried to stop that from happening by building the Berlin Wall and it was very dangerous for illegal migrants to cross because of the presence of armed guards that were trained to shoot people in such cases. East Germany was a socialist republic, but there was not complete economic equality, privileges such as prestigious apartments and good schooling were given to members of the ruling party and their family. Eventually, Christian churches were allowed to operate without restraint after years of harassment by authorities, in the 1970s wages of East Berliners rose and working hours fell. The United States Command Berlin, for example, published detailed instructions for U. S. military, in fact, the three Western commandants regularly protested against the presence of the East German National Peoples Army in East Berlin, particularly on the occasion of military parades. Nevertheless, the three Western Allies eventually established embassies in East Berlin in the 1970s, although they never recognized it as the capital of East Germany, treaties instead used terms such as seat of government. On 3 October 1990, West and East Germany and West and East Berlin were reunited, after reunification, the East German economy suffered significantly. Many East German factories were shut due to inability to comply with West German pollution and safety standards. Because of this, an amount of West German economic aid was poured into East Germany to revitalize it. This stimulus was part-funded through a 7. 5% tax on income, despite the large sums of economic aid poured into East Berlin, there still remain obvious differences between the former East and West Berlin. East Berlin has a visual style, this is partly due to the greater survival of prewar façades and streetscapes
35.
West Berlin
–
West Berlin was an enclave which comprised the western part of the city of Berlin during the Cold War. It was formally controlled by the Western Allies and formed a de facto part of West Germany, and was entirely surrounded by the Soviet-controlled East Berlin and East Germany. West Berlin had great significance during the Cold War, as it was widely considered by westerners as an island of freedom. A wealthy city, West Berlin was noted for its liberal and cosmopolitan character. With about two million inhabitants, West Berlin had the biggest population of any city in Cold War Germany and it was 100 miles east of the Inner German border and only accessible by land from West Germany by narrow rail and highway corridors. It consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors established in 1945 and was de facto part of West Germany and it had a special and unique legal status because its administration was formally conducted by the Western Allies. East Berlin, de jure occupied and administered by the Soviet Union, was the de facto capital of East Germany, the Berlin Wall, built in 1961, physically divided West Berlin from its East German surroundings until it fell in 1989. The Potsdam Agreement established the framework for the occupation of Germany in the wake of World War II. The territory of Germany, as it existed in 1937, would be reduced by most of Eastern Germany thus creating the former territories of Germany. The remaining territory would be divided into four zones, each administered by one of the allied countries, according to the agreement, the occupation of Berlin would end only as a result of a quadripartite agreement. The Western Allies were guaranteed three air corridors to their sectors of Berlin, and the Soviets also informally allowed road, at first, this arrangement was intended to be only a temporary administrative structure, with all parties declaring that Germany and Berlin would soon be reunited. However, as the relations between the allies and the Soviet Union soured and the Cold War began, the joint administration of Germany. Soon, Soviet-occupied Berlin and western-occupied Berlin had separate city administrations, in 1948, the Soviets tried to force the Western Allies out of Berlin by imposing a land blockade on the western sectors—the Berlin Blockade. The West responded by using its air corridors for supplying their part of the city with food, in May 1949, the Soviets lifted the blockade, and West Berlin as a separate city with its own jurisdiction was maintained. Following the Berlin Blockade, normal contacts between East and West Berlin resumed, however, in cases this proved only temporary. In 1952, the East German government began sealing its borders, as a direct result the electrical grids were separated and phone lines were cut. However, the culmination of the schism did not occur until 1961 with the construction of the Berlin Wall. From the legal theory followed by the Western Allies, the occupation of most of Germany ended in 1949 with the declaration of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic
36.
German reunification
–
The end of the unification process is officially referred to as German unity, celebrated on 3 October. Following German reunification, Berlin was once designated as the capital of united Germany. The East German regime started to falter in May 1989, when the removal of Hungarys border fence with Austria opened a hole in the Iron Curtain and it caused an exodus of thousands of East Germans fleeing to West Germany and Austria via Hungary. The united Germany is the continuation of the Federal Republic. For political and diplomatic reasons, West German politicians carefully avoided the term reunification during the run-up to what Germans frequently refer to as die Wende, after 1990, the term die Wende became more common. The term generally refers to the events led up to the actual reunification, in its usual context. When referring to the events surrounding unification, however, it carries the connotation of the time. However, anti-communist activists from Eastern Germany rejected the term Wende as it was introduced by SEDs Secretary General Egon Krenz, the capital city of Berlin was divided into four occupied sectors of control, under the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom and France. Germans lived under such imposed divisions throughout the ensuing Cold War, into the 1980s, the Soviet Union experienced a period of economic and political stagnation, and they correspondingly decreased intervention in Eastern Bloc politics. In 1987, US President Ronald Reagan gave a speech at Brandenburg Gate challenging Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down this wall that had separated Berlin. The wall had stood as an icon for the political and economic division between East and West, a division that Churchill had referred to as the Iron Curtain. In early 1989, under a new era of Soviet policies of glasnost, perestroika and taken to more progressive levels by Gorbachev. Further inspired by images of brave defiance, a wave of revolutions swept throughout the Eastern Bloc that year. In May 1989, Hungary removed their border fence and thousands of East Germans escaped to the West, however, events rapidly came to a head in early 1990. First, in March, the Party of Democratic Socialism—the former Socialist Unity Party of Germany—was heavily defeated in East Germanys first free elections. A grand coalition was formed under Lothar de Maizière, leader of the East German wing of Kohls Christian Democratic Union, on a platform of speedy reunification, second, East Germanys economy and infrastructure underwent a swift and near-total collapse. While East Germany had long been reckoned as having the most robust economy in the Soviet bloc, the East German mark had been practically worthless outside East Germany for some time before the events of 1989–90 further magnified the problem. Discussions immediately began for a merger of the German economies
37.
Eastern Bloc emigration and defection
–
Eastern Bloc emigration and defection was a point of controversy during the Cold War. After World War II, emigration restrictions were imposed by countries in the Eastern Bloc, legal emigration was in most cases only possible in order to reunite families or to allow members of minority ethnic groups to return to their homelands. Eastern Bloc governments argued that limits to emigration were necessary to prevent a brain drain. The United States and Western European governments argued that they represented a violation of human rights, despite the restrictions, defections to the West occurred. After East Germany tightened its zonal occupation border with West Germany and this was closed with the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961. Thereafter, emigration from the Eastern Bloc was effectively limited to illegal defections, ethnic emigration under bilateral agreements, bolsheviks took power in Russia following the Russian Revolution of 1917. During the Russian Civil War that followed, coinciding with the Red Armys entry into Minsk in 1919, after more conflict, the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic was declared in 1920. In 1922, the Russian SFSR, Ukraine SSR, Byelorussian SSR and Transcaucasian SFSR were officially merged as republics creating the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and these included Eastern Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, part of eastern Finland and northern Romania. By 1945, these additional annexed countries totaled approximately 465,000 additional square kilometers, or slightly more than the area of West Germany, East Germany and Austria combined. The Federal Peoples Republic of Yugoslavia was also considered part of the Bloc, the Soviets promoted the reverence of Russian actions and characteristics, and the construction of Soviet Communist structural hierarchies in the other countries of the Eastern Bloc. Initially, Stalin directed systems that rejected Western institutional characteristics of market economies, democratic governance, the Soviets mandated expropriation and estatization of private property. Communist regimes in the Eastern Bloc saw even marginal groups of intellectuals as a potential threat because of the bases underlying Communist power therein. Empty shelves in shops even in East Germany provided a reminder of the inaccuracy of propaganda regarding purported magnificent. The reasoning was partly because emigration was conflated with opposition to the socialist state, the 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk obligated Russia to allow emigration of non-Russians who wanted German citizenship, but the regime attempted to reduce this flow by allowing it during only one month. Beginning in 1919, travel abroad required the approval of the NKVD, in 1932, as Stalins first Five Year Plan forced collectivization, to allocate scarce housing and weed out nonproductive elements, internal passport controls were introduced. When combined with individual city Propiska permits, and internal freedom of movement restrictions often called the 101st kilometre, when the Soviet Constitution of 1936 was promulgated, virtually no legal emigration took place, except for very limited family reunification and some forced deportations. Very small numbers snuck into Romania, Persia, and Manchuria, moskovskaya Pravda later described the decision to emigrate as unnatural and like burying someone alive. Those wishing to leave were viewed not just as deserters, the mobilization of labor in the Soviet Union was not feasible if emigration remained an option with the relative low standard of living that existed at that time
38.
Republikflucht
–
Some estimates put the number of those who left the Soviet sector of Berlin, the Soviet occupation zone, and the GDR between 1945 and 1961 between 3 and 3.5 million. Close to one million of those who left were refugees and expellees from World War II, several hundred Republikflüchtlinge were shot, about 75,000 were caught and imprisoned. The trial was postponed due to his bad health, and he died in 1994, former Stasi chief Erich Mielke was also put on trial for the same charge. In November 1994, however, the judge closed the proceedings. Deutsche Vertriebene und Flüchtlinge aus der DDR1945 -1961, Osnabrück,1995, flucht und Ausreise als Problem der DDR-Führung, in, Dierk Hoffmann, Michael Schwartz, Hermann Wentker, Vor dem Mauerbau. Politik und Gesellschaft der DDR der fünfziger Jahre, Munich,2003, Henrik Bispinck, Flucht- und Ausreisebewegung als Krisenphänomene,1953 und 1989 im Vergleich, in, Henrik Bispinck, Jürgen Danyel, Hans-Hermann Hertle, Hermann Wentker, Aufstände im Ostblock. Die Flüchtlingspolitik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland bis zum Bau der Berliner Mauer, damian van Melis, Henrik Bispinck, Republikflucht. Flucht und Abwanderung aus der SBZ/DDR 1945-1961, Munich,2006
39.
Berlin Crisis of 1961
–
The Berlin Crisis of 1961 was the last major politico-military European incident of the Cold War about the occupational status of the German capital city, Berlin, and of post–World War II Germany. The 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union—the last to be attended by the Communist Party of China—was held in Moscow during the crisis. After the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe at the end of World War II, some of those living in the acquired areas of the Eastern Bloc aspired to independence. Between 1945 and 1950, over 15 million people emigrated from Soviet-occupied Eastern European countries to the West. Taking advantage of this route, the number of Eastern Europeans applying for asylum in West Germany was 197,000 in 1950,165,000 in 1951,182,000 in 1952 and 331,000 in 1953. By the early 1950s, the Soviet approach to controlling national movement, restricting emigration, was emulated by most of the rest of the Eastern Bloc, up until 1953, the lines between East Germany and the western occupied zones could be easily crossed in most places. Consequently, the Inner German border between the two German states was closed, and a fence erected. When large numbers of East Germans then defected under the guise of visits, accordingly, Berlin became the main route by which East Germans left for the West. The Berlin sector border was essentially a loophole through which Eastern Bloc citizens could still escape, the 4.5 million East Germans that had left by 1961 totaled approximately 20% of the entire East German population. The loss was disproportionately heavy among professionals—engineers, technicians, physicians, teachers, lawyers, in November 1958, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev issued the Western powers an ultimatum to withdraw from Berlin within six months and make it a free, demilitarised city. In response, the United States, United Kingdom, and France clearly expressed their determination to remain in. With tensions mounting, the United States, United Kingdom and France formed a group with orders to plan for an eventual response to any aggression on West Berlin. The planning group was named LIVE OAK, and staff from the three countries prepared land and air plans to access to and from West Berlin. The Soviet Union withdrew its deadline in May 1959, and the ministers of the four countries spent three months meeting. Eisenhower and Khrushchev had a few together at the US presidential retreat Camp David. There was nothing more inadvisable in this situation, said Eisenhower, than to talk about ultimatums, Khrushchev responded that he did not understand how a peace treaty could be regarded by the American people as a threat to peace. Eisenhower admitted that the situation in Berlin was abnormal and that human affairs got very badly tangled at times, Khrushchev came away with the impression that a deal was possible over Berlin, and they agreed to continue the dialogue at a summit in Paris in May 1960. However, the Paris Summit that was to resolve the Berlin question was cancelled in the fallout from Gary Powerss failed U-2 spy flight on 1 May 1960
40.
White Crosses
–
White Crosses is a memorial for those who died during the Cold War at the Berlin Wall. It is located at the shore of the river Spree in Berlin next to the Reichstag building, which houses the German parliament. Established by the private group Berliner Bürger-Verein on the 10th anniversary of the Berlin Wall in 1971 it was first located east of the Reichstag on a fence directly in front of the wall. During construction the memorial was moved to a location south of the Reichstag next to the Tiergarten, on the 50th anniversary of the Uprising of 1953 in East Germany a second set of crosses was erected on the riverbank, which is slightly north-west of the original location. The opening speech was given by then President of the Bundestag Wolfgang Thierse, the names of 13 victims are inscribed on both sides of the 7 crosses. One cross is devoted to the victims of the wall. The selection contains the first and last victim who were killed by gunfire, most of the victims died between 1961 and 1965
41.
East Side Gallery
–
The East Side Gallery is an international memorial for freedom. It is a 1316 m long section of the Berlin Wall located near the centre of Berlin on Mühlenstraße in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, the actual border at this point was the river Spree. The gallery is located on the so-called hinterland mauer, which closed the border to West Berlin, the Gallery consists of 105 paintings by artists from all over the world, painted in 1990 on the east side of the Berlin Wall. The East Side Gallery was founded following the merger of the two German artists associations VBK and BBK. The founding members were the speche of the Federal Association of Artists BBK Bodo Sperling, Barbara Greul Aschanta, Jörg Kubitzki and it is possibly the largest and longest-lasting open air gallery in the world. The paintings at the East Side Gallery document a time of change and express the euphoria and great hopes for a better, none of the artists whose work will be destroyed were informed of these plans. The demolition work started on March 1,2013. According to German news FOCUS, authorities were not aware of the start of the demolition, due to the involvement of protesters, demolition was postponed until at least March 18,2013. Two-thirds of the paintings are damaged by erosion, graffiti. One-third have been restored by an organization which started work in 2000. The objective of this organization is the restoration and preservation of all the paintings. Full restoration, particularly of the sections, was projected for 2008. The restoration process has been marked by major conflict, eight of the artists of 1990 refused to paint their own images again after they were completely destroyed by the renovation. In order to defend the copyright, they founded Founder Initiative East Side with other artists whose images were copied without permission. Bodo Sperling launched a test case in the Berlin State Court in May 2011, represented by the Munich art lawyer Hannes Hartung, the Court will address the question of whether art should be listed as destroyed and then re-copied without the respective artists permission. The outcome of the trial will be a declaration for European art law. The gallery was featured in the 5th leg of The Amazing Race 6, oberbaum-Verlag, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-928254-02-2 Artist Initiative East Side Gallery e. V
42.
Topography of Terror
–
The Topography of Terror is an outdoor and indoor history museum in Berlin, Germany. The buildings that housed the Gestapo and SS headquarters were destroyed by Allied bombing during early 1945. The wall here was never demolished, indeed, the section adjacent to the Topography of Terror site is the longest extant segment of the outer wall. The first exhibitions of the site took place in 1987, as part of Berlins 750th anniversary, the cellar of the Gestapo headquarters, where many political prisoners were tortured and executed, was found and excavated. The site was turned into a memorial and museum, in the open air but protected from the elements by a canopy. The excavation took place in cooperation with East German researchers, in 1992, two years after German reunification, a foundation was established to take care of the site, and the following year, it initiated an architectural competition to design a permanent museum. A design by architect Peter Zumthor was chosen, however, construction was stopped due to funding problems after the concrete core of the structure had been built. This stood on the site for nearly a decade until it was demolished in 2004. The construction of the new Documentation Center according to a design by the architect Ursula Wilms. The new Documentation Center was officially opened on May 6,2010 by Federal President Horst Köhler on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II. The new exhibition and documentation building and the historic grounds were opened to the public on May 7,2010. After the demolition of the ruins in the 1950s, the area was used as a bumper car site, the first exhibition on the sites history was created for the 750th anniversary of Berlin in 1987. The research continued after it, leading to a centre that collected some more evidence for the terror of the National Socialists in Germany. In 1992, a foundation was created for the construction and maintenance of the centre with a permanent exhibition. The managing director is Rabbi Andreas Nachama, a tender in 1993 to design the museum complex was won by the Pritzker Prize-winning Swiss architect Peter Zumthor. Based on the exhibition building, his design was likened to the skeleton of a barracks. Having spent 13.9 million Euros already, these were demolished, despite the protests of Zumthor and other architects, in June 2005 a new architectural design competition was launched following the aborted partial construction of Zumthors design. The draft included a two-storey, ashlar-formed, paned building with a surface of 3.500 square metres
43.
Mauerpark
–
Mauerpark is a public linear park in Berlins Prenzlauer Berg district. The name translates to Wall Park, referring to its status as a part of the Berlin Wall. The park is located at the border of Prenzlauer Berg and Gesundbrunnen district of former West Berlin, soon after it lost its role as a passenger station to the nearby Stettiner Bahnhof and remained in use as a freight yard. In 1950 the Stettiner Bahnhof took the name Nordbahnhof because of its role in Berlins public transportation system, and it was finally closed after the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961. When viewed from above, one can see remains of the railroad tracks running towards the former station from the Ringbahn. After the building of the Berlin Wall, the land was included into the heavily guarded Death Strip with walls on either side, one of the viewing platforms, from which West Berlin residents could look over the wall into East Berlin, stood at this location. The remaining western part of the station was turned into a storehouse, yet in 1988, the East Berlin authorities concluded an agreement with the West to acquire a strip of land at the bottom of the hill to set up a more efficient border. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the death strip was designated as a public space. With a contribution of DM4.5 million from the Allianz environmental fund, several attempts to attach the western part to the green space have so far failed. It is a crowded leisure ground and a site of sustainable improvised nightlife, especially in the summer, there are two stadiums next to the park, including Friedrich Ludwig Jahn Sportpark and Max Schmeling Halle, home to several of Berlins local sports teams. A800 m strip of the Berlin Wall still stands in the today as a monument. The park has expanded in several phases since its establishment, construction is underway to bring the park to a total of 15 hectares. A stone circular stage area with surrounding amphitheatre is situated on the hillside directly across from the basketball court. In late February 2009 an informal karaoke show took place there for the first time, rapidly becoming a Berlin institution, every Sunday afternoon thousands of people make their way. If the crowd loves you, they sing and cheer along and youll feel like a star, if they think youre rubbish. Open every Sunday since 2004, Flohmarkt am Mauerpark is popular with locals and tourists alike. While a newcomer to the Berlin flea market scene, it is becoming a quick favorite. The loose grid stalls populate the western side of the park and offer a collection of new and vintage fashions, vinyl records, CDs, GDR memorabilia and antiques, bicycles, media related to Mauerpark at Wikimedia Commons 360° Panorama of Mauerpark on weekly Karaoke
44.
Chapel of Reconciliation
–
The Chapel of Reconciliation stands on the site of the old Church of Reconciliation, on Bernauer Straße in the Mitte district of Berlin. The church was completed in 1894 as an imposing brick-built building by the architect Gotthilf Ludwig Möckel and it received some damage in the Second World War, and still had a deactivated American bomb in the basement discovered during the reconstruction in 1999, but the church survived the war. With the Division of Berlin in 1945, the building found itself within the Soviet sector. Four years later in 1989, the Wall fell, in the summer of 1990 the removal of the border fortifications began, leaving the land where the Church of Reconciliation had once stood overgrown with grass and shrubs. The result was to build a chapel on the site, a construction that considered ecological and historical concerns as well as the needs of its parishioners. The Berlin architects Rudolf Reitermann and Peter Sassenroth were commissioned to design the chapel, the chapel was constructed in 1999 under the leadership of the Austrian clay artist Martin Rauch. Volunteers from Open Houses came from fourteen eastern and western European countries to support the building project, to construct the walls,30 cm of moist clay was put into position and then compressed by 8 cm, giving the wall’s structure its strength. Within the clay, pieces of stone and even glass are visible and it is the first clay-built public building to be built for over 150 years in Germany and the first clay-built German church. On the 9th November 2000, on the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The chapel unites architectural and ecological modernity with remembrance, standing as a triumph against its predecessors destruction. The chapel also has a replica of Coventry Cathedral’s Statue of Reconciliation, after helping with the construction, Open Houses has continued its involvement with the chapel. Every year volunteers from around the work at the chapel. List of deaths at the Berlin Wall Official website openhouses. de
45.
Berlin border crossings
–
The Berlin border crossings were created as a result of the postwar division of Germany. This free access, especially after the closure of the Inner German border, although there were few crossings at first, more sites were built to an increasing extent over the walls lifespan. Many crossed the wall illegally, climbing over it, sailing around it, or digging under it, between West Berlin and German Democratic Republic territory, the border stations were developed very effectively on the GDRs side. Border officials and customs agents would monitor incoming and outgoing traffic according to established procedures, a strict division of labor among the various organizations was the rule. The security of the border and of the border crossings was maintained by special security divisions of the GDR border guard troops. On 26 May 1952 the East German government decided to close the border, after 26 May 1952 there was only one quite safe way to escape to the West, Berlin. Although many border crossing points were closed in Berlin and controls at the border happened, many East German citizens went to Berlin, bought a S-Bahn or U-Bahn ticket and left East Berlin. The actual inspections of vehicle and pedestrian traffic were carried out by the control units. The PKE units were not under the command of the GDR border guard troops and thereby the Ministry of Defense, while on duty at the border stations, however, the PKE would wear the same uniforms as the border guard troops. For personal inspections, highly qualified and specially trained forces were used exclusively, the passports, identification cards, etc. could be transmitted from the inspection sites to a processing center using closed-circuit television and ultraviolet light, where they were recorded. From there, commands were issued using a display to the passport control unit, for example flip page, request additional documentation, delay processing, ask predefined questions. On the West Berlin side, police and customs agents were stationed, No personal inspections usually took place there. At the transit crossings, statistical data about travelers would be recorded, and travelers would occasionally be inspected. Freight traffic bound for other countries was subject to customs processing, shipping to the Federal Republic of Germany was only subject to statistical record-keeping and, under certain circumstances, sealing of the cargo. At Checkpoint Bravo and Checkpoint Charlie, the Allied occupation forces had established checkpoints and they served as processing stations for military units as well as a display of military presence. Their designated authority to perform further inspections was utilized only in rare cases. West Germans and citizens of other Western countries could in general visit East Germany, usually this involved application of a visa at an East German embassy several weeks in advance. Visas for day trips restricted to East Berlin were issued without previous application in a procedure at the border crossing
46.
Checkpoint Bravo
–
Drewitz is a community nearby, and Dreilinden is the name of the wooded area in Berlin through which the highway passes. The checkpoint was located on the motorway A115, between the Berliner locality of Nikolassee and the Brandenburger rural community of Drewitz, part of the municipality of Kleinmachnow, the new checkpoint was relocated to Nikolassee. The site of the original, pre-1969 checkpoint was used in filming the Alarm für Cobra 11 – Die Autobahnpolizei television series, the site itself, which includes a derelict bridge and a crumbling cafe covered in graffiti, was auctioned in September 2010 for €45,000. The vast site of the East-German checkpoint was eventually converted into a park named Europarc Dreilinden. All that remains of the checkpoint is the main control tower that now houses a museum of the checkpoint. Berlin border crossings Checkpoint Alpha Checkpoint Charlie British Garrison Berlin 1945 -1994, No where to go, W. Durie ISBN 978-3-86408-068-5 Checkpoint Bravo official website
