Original subtitles

NARRATOR: It started as a barbed-wire fence...

dividing a city...

imprisoning its people.

The very image of the Cold War.

The Berlin Wall.

D ♪

BRANAGH: Memphis, Tennessee,

March, 1958.

I, Elvis Presley,

Do solemnly swear...

Do solemnly swear.

That I will bear true faith and allegiance...

That I will bear true faith and allegiance.

To the United States of America.

PRESLEY: I“ Give us a room I“

I“ with a view of the beautiful Rhine I“

BRANAGH: Elvis Presley hits West Germany.

REPORTER: The well-known guitarist has come

to bolster NATO forces -- in particular,

a 3rd US Armored Division tank unit.

I“ I got those hut, 2, 3, 4 J“

I“ occupation G.|. blues I“

BRANAGH: West Germany was NATO's front line

along the Iron Curtain.

Since 1955, the Americans had been

training a new West German army.

Some thought that could mean a German finger

on NATO's nuclear trigger.

German rearmament brought back nightmares

for many Europeans.

Above all, for the Russians.

The new weaponry alarmed East Germany,

the German Democratic Republic.

[man speaking German]

INTERPRETER: The GDR made various offers

to prevent the nuclear armament

of West Germany.

But it found no response,

no echo.

The GDR felt directly threatened

by tactical nuclear weapons.

It accepted that the Soviet army,

stationed on GDR territory

also should arm itself with tactical nuclear weapons.

BRANAGH: Berlin, deep in East German territory

was under the joint occupation

of the former wartime allies.

Now in West Berlin, 12,000 British, American,

and French soldiers were surrounded

by half a million Soviet and East German troops.

Western rights of access

were protected by Four-Power Agreement.

Each day, thousands moved freely

between the Soviet and Western sectors.

Berlin's open border gave East Germans access

to the glittering west,

which Soviet and East German leaders wanted to end.

[ Eberlein speaking German ]

West Berlin was becoming increasingly dangerous

to the existence of the GDR

and the existence of socialism.

Khrushchev proposed to create a free city of Berlin

with special rights of its own,

with its own foreign policy,

its own police

and its own symbolic foreign forces.

MAN: Khrushchev thought that some pressures

should be put on the Americans.

And the obvious place was West Berlin.

So this was a sort of shock therapy

oh the part of Khrushchev, I would say.

BRANAGH: In November, 1958,

the West rejected Khrushchevs Berlin proposals.

Khrushchev how offered East German leader

Walter Ulbricht to a peace treaty.

It threatened Western rights in Berlin.

MAN: He said that unless agreement were reached,

that Berlin would be turned over

to the East Germans within six months.

We regarded that as an ultimatum.

Eisenhower felt that the Soviets were doing something

that was not really in their interest.

His view was that if there were to be

actual conflict

between the United States and the Soviet Union,

it would move quickly to large-scale all-out conflict

where everything would be drawn into it,

and that was the danger.

That was the risk.

NARRATOR: A new Red threat to West Berlin,

Khrushchevs demand that the United States,

France, and Britain agree to end

the Four-Power Pact governing West Berlin,

turning it over to Red East Germany --

hence a new and major crisis.

The Western powers reacted strongly,

affirming their determination

to keep the city free.

BRANAGH: American Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles

seeking common ground for a bargain over Berlin,

consulted America's allies.

But talks between the West and the Soviet Union

led nowhere.

WOMAN: The attempt to find a compromise with the Soviets

was where we began to get into serious trouble

because any concessions that you made to the Soviets,

from the western side would be an erosion

of the Western position there.

And the Soviets themselves were committed

to a situation in Berlin

that the Allies could not tolerate.

So you were already --

I mean, there was no possible outcome --

negotiated outcome that was possible.

BRANAGH: But the talks persuaded Khrushchev to shelve

his Berlin ultimatum and head west.

He chose the world's largest aircraft for the journey --

Soviet built.

In September, 1959,

Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev became the first Soviet leader

to visit America.

MAUTNER: Khrushchev got what he wanted --

which was a visit to the United States,

and treatment as an equal.

And ah exchange with Eisenhower,

which gave him, I think, a fair idea

that probably if he continued

without too much provocative actions on the ground,

he could get more out of the western side.

BRANAGH: In talks with Eisenhower,

a new spirit of cooperation

eased the crisis.

But Khrushchevs hopes for a Cold War truce

only lasted six months.

On the eve of a grand peace-making summit in Paris,

an American U2 spy plane was shot down

in Soviet air space.

Khrushchev was enraged.

The summit collapsed before it had even begun.

1959,

East Germany celebrated 10 years

of socialist achievement.

Walter Ulbricht, party leader,

boasted of rapid industrial progress

and of a socialist democracy

that Germany had never known before.

Official films portrayed a paradise

for workers and peasants.

The reality was shortages and chaos.

Private farms were forcibly collectivized,

and the states resources poured into heavy industry

at the expense of consumer goods.

Obediently, East Germany copied the Soviet model

down to thought control of its people.

[ Reporter speaking German ]

BRANAGH: East Germany, its leaders claimed,

was succeeding through sheer willpower.

But in spite of hard work and enthusiasm,

only Soviet support kept the economy going.

East Germany could not compete

with the swelling prosperity of the west.

MAN: The people in the east looked toward the west

with, what I might say, longing.

They would have liked to have the same comforts,

the same goods, the same chances.

And they saw

in what was called socialism at the time

a system that demanded of them sacrifices

with nothing but promises for the future.

And as long as the borders were open

it was relatively easy to get there.

All you had to do was board a subway

and you were in another world.

And, uh, it was really a crazy system.

Imagine, you go from "socialism"

to capitalism in two minutes.

BRANAGH: Every month,

thousands of East Germans fled

across the open Berlin border

and took refuge in the West.

Most refugees were young and skilled.

Their departure was bleeding the East Germany economy

to death.

A foreman at a plant in the East

wouldn't know how many workers

he still would have the next day

because part of his working force

had left him --

had left the East, had left the system

in order to go over there.

And of course in West Germany they made every effort

that people who came from the East would get jobs

and would get comfortable existence.

BRANAGH: As his people drained away,

Ulbricht became anxious.

He urged Khrushchev to recognize East Germany

as a sovereign state with control over its own borders.

Khrushchev, outwardly sympathetic, played for time.

[ Eberlein speaking German ]

The idea of a separate peace treaty with the GDR

was put forward mainly by Ulbricht,

who wanted to bind the GDR into fixed treaties

and link it politically with other countries.

But Khrushchev argued

that a separate peace treaty

would intensify the Cold War.

BRANAGH: Ulbricht argued that there could be

no lasting peace in Europe

until both German states, East and West,

were recognized.

But Moscow was in no hurry.

The German question must wait

until after the American Presidential election.

John F. Kennedy took office in January 1961.

He had campaigned for a more vigorous

American foreign policy.

I don't think the Communists are about to collapse.

I believe we have to build strength.

We have to stand for freedom.

We have to demonstrate some vigor in our foreign policy.

BRANAGH: Kennedy agreed to meet Khrushchev at Vienna,

in June 1961.

The President arrived bruised.

His invasion of Castro's Cuba

at the Bay of Pigs six weeks before

had failed.

Khrushchev concluded that Kennedy was weak.

He had decided to bully the new President.

DOBRYNIN: He felt that this young new President,

unexperienced,

and specifically after he had the fiasco at Bay of Pigs

It was not really a strong position.

He said, "Look here, already so many years passed

Western countries do nothing

about Germany and the Peace Treaty

about specifically West Berlin,

so I am going to press this issue very strongly

in a meeting with the new President.

What Khrushchev kept saying was that, "We surround

all those troops you have in West Berlin

and we could take them any time we want to."

And Kennedy's reply to him was

"Well, that may be,

but we fought the second World War

and they're there because of the second World War

by Fight.

He became very emotional, very angry.

"This young fellow doesn't wanna discuss with me

the issue which is very important."

And this made him very angry.

And really influenced his attitude.

So, it was mixture of feeling about --

from one thing he accept that he is tough

but from the other, he is not wise enough.

He doesn't understand quite well

the foreign policy.

BU N DY: The meeting was unproductive.

And the longer it went on,

the more that became apparent.

It was difficult, it was disappointing.

It left us with a Berlin crisis

that was still active

and oh which ho progress had been made.

NARRATOR: At the summer white house in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts

Defense Secretary McNamara and Secretary of State Dean Rusk

confer with President Kennedy

on the increasingly ominous words and actions from Moscow.

Premier Khrushchevs increase...

BRANAGH: Khrushchev had renewed his ultimatum,

and increased the Soviet arms budget.

Kennedy asked his advisors

to list America's military options.

McNamara: It was conceivable that there would only be two alternatives.

Surrender, or use of nuclear force,

which might well have brought destruction

of both East and West.

So, the President was very anxious

to find a middle course.

BRANAGH: In July,

Kennedy asked Congress for extra defense funds

and called reservists to arms.

The source of world trouble and tension

is Moscow, not Berlin.

And if war begins, it will have begun in Moscow

and not Berlin,

For the choice of peace or war is largely theirs,

not ours.

Of all the Presidents

in this Cold War period,

I think the nuclear issue bore hardest on Kennedy.

He took it very seriously,

and he was sometimes afraid

that the good lord had put him on earth

to start a nuclear war.

And he was not about to get out of Berlin

no matter what it took.

It would be a mistake for others to look upon Berlin

because of its location as a tempting target.

The United States is there.

The United Kingdom and France are there.

The Pledge of NATO is there.

And the people of Berlin are there.

It is as secure in that sense as the rest of us.

For we cannot separate its safety from our own.

He made very clear

that he is going to defend status of West Berlin

and the presence of their troops there

but when he mention this one,

we noticed one thing.

In his speech, he mentioned a line

between West and East Berlin,

a line of freedom.

And he didn't say anything

about the freedom of movement

across this line --

East Berlin and West Berlin.

It is a fact that

we were not going to fight

about what the Soviets did on their side of Berlin,

and that it is quite likely

that Khrushchev was helped

to understand that American position

by the July speech.

As the Berlin crisis darkened,

the flow of refugees became a torrent.

Fear arose that East Germany might collapse,

pitching NATO and Soviet forces into conflict.

WOMAN: Everybody knew that something is going to happen.

Not necessarily only from the atmosphere,

but for weeks,

thousands and thousands of people have come across

and everybody realized

that in some way or another,

East Germany will have to react.

BRANAGH: By July, the East Germans were desperate.

They begged the Soviets to let them stem the flow.

[ Man speaking Russian ]

INTERPRETER: Ulbricht indicated to our ambassador

that they were fed up

with the promises we'd given them

to sign a peace treaty and take control.

Promises which had been made ih 1958 [59

'60, and again in 1961.

Ulbricht said that all these promises did

was to stimulate the population drain.

Either we had to act

or stop talking about it.

BRANAGH: East German border controls were intensified.

Undetected by Western intelligence,

Khrushchev and Ulbricht were planning harsher measures.

[man speaking German]

INTERPRETER: Sometime later, a reply came back from Moscow.

That Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev agrees

to the closing of the border with West Germany

and with West Berlin,

and suggests the necessary preparations

should be carried out.

[Speaking German ]

INTERPRETER: The National People's Army,

the People's Police, the custom's state security,

the transport authority,

were all brought together in the Berlin area.

They were put under strict observation

and they were not allowed to telephone their families.

They didn't even have a telephone.

For four to six weeks,

they worked in total isolation

on the preparations.

BRANAGH: On August 12,

Soviet and East German forces were mobilized.

[ Bickel speaking German ]

At 23 hours we were given our orders

and told that at 24 hours

the border with West Berlin would be closed

by military force.

All the soldiers were fully armed.

The People's Militia had automatic pistols

and machine guns --

any weapons they can get hold of.

BRANAGH: By early morning,

East German troops were ready.

Lined up in battle order along the sector border.

It was Berlin's last hour as one city.

On the morning of Sunday, August 13,

Berliners woke to find a divided city.

Teams of workers under armed guard

started erecting a barbed wire barrier

through the center.

DOBRYNIN: Khrushchev preparing to this event

would have done everything to minimize

or to prevent any military conflict

between us and the United States

and the Western countries.

Specifically, Ulbricht was told by Khrushchev

two days before this was happening

that he, Ulbricht, would build this wall,

but he shouldn't infringe

even an inch on American and Western rights.

So we expect for a strong reaction,

but we didn't expect any military clash between us.

BRANAGH: The barrier split Berlin.

Families were torn apart.

HOSSEINI: My father actually woke me up and said,

"Do you know they closed the border?"

It was incomprehensible.

You know, it was so strange.

And then my mother came in crying

and my older sister,

and we were thinking, you know, how do we get my sister back.

My sister, that summer, had stayed with my aunt

just outside of East Berlin.

So we all took the S-bahn

and it was absolute chaos.

I mean it was terrible.

People crying, shouting.

Some were frightened, some were angry.

And I just remember I'm so frightened.

I thought we'll never see my sister.

She's lost, so to speak.

Pitiful old women timidly walked

up the three stairs and said,

"When is the next train to West Berlin?"

Because these people hadn't heard.

The first news was at midnight

over the East Berlin radio.

And these people came to the station thinking

they could go to West Berlin.

And I'll never forget the sneering tone

in which he said to her,

"None of that anymore, grandma.

You're all sitting in a mousetrap now."

[man speaking German]

INTERPRETER: The people were swearing at us.

We thought we were simply doing our duty.

But we were getting scolded from all sides.

The West Berliners yelled at us

and the Eastern demonstrators yelled at us.

We were standing there in the middle.

There was the barbed wire, there were us guards,

West Berliners, East Berliners.

For a young person, it was terrible.

[ Man speaking German on loudspeaker]

[crowd chanting in German ]

BRANAGH: The anger of West Berliners boiled over.

They demonstrated against the division of their city.

[yelling in German]

They could not believe that the Western allies

would allow the barriers to remain.

The demonstrations continued,

but the West offered little protest.

Mayor Willy Brandt tried to calm the crowds.

He feared bloodshed if they attacked the barriers.

The Allies were unsure how to react.

Western rights had not been challenged.

[Speaking German ]

INTERPRETER: We were outraged

and also disappointed.

The mayor didn't manage

to persuade the Allied commanders

to make even a small protest.

People were not clear what exactly was going on.

It was almost 12 hours before it really registered

that this was going to be a total sealing

of the inter-sector borders.

Nobody was quite sure what to do about the subject.

What exactly was the scope of it?

The focus of all of the planners

had been on the threat -- the possible necessity

of having to take military action

to block a Soviet move on Berlin.

And here suddenly everybody was relieved

to find out that the Soviets had found a way

to resolve their problem with the refugees

in a way that did not affect Allied rights.

BRANAGH: For the Allies, the closed border

stabilized the tense Berlin situation.

It was ordinary Berliners and their families

who paid the price.

In East Berlin,

one soldier saw his last chance to escape.

[man speaking German]

INTERPRETER: At 2:00, I assigned tasks to my soldiers.

I was in front, and I spread the others out

so that it wouldn't look suspicious.

Nobody noticed anything.

From 2:00 until 4:00

I was thinking about the situation

and wondering what was the right decision.

I would have to leave my parents and my sister.

Finally, I took the decision.

I jumped over the barbed wire at 4:00.

Then I was in the West

and they received me with a great cheer.

I was the first.

BRANAGH: Three days later,

concrete blocks began to replace the barbed wire.

Along the sector boundaries rose the Berlin Wall,

carving the city in two.

In West Berlin, morale was low.

Confidence in Allied protection crumbled.

Mayor Willy Brandt sent an angry letter

to President Kennedy,

demanding action.

[ Bahr speaking German]

INTERPRETER: The idea was,

since there had been no reaction in Washington,

we had to make it clear to the President

that there might be a breakdown in morale...

a loss of trust.

Something more than just a protest

had to be done.

I think it's probably putting it mildly

to say he was furious.

He had -- Kennedy felt that he had shown

that he was prepared to go to the brink of war

maybe even over the brink of war

to defend Berlin, and here we was

being criticized for doing nothing

by a -- as somebody put it --

a mere mayor.

BRANAGH: But Kennedy realized that a gesture was needed --

a sign that America still meant to defend West Berlin.

He ordered a show of force.

An American troop convoy was sent to Berlin

up the Autobahn across East Germany.

The plan was to test East German reaction.

And to reaffirm Allied access rights to Berlin.

The Americans were stopped and counted.

They waited.

And were let through.

The troops arrived safely.

America's Vice President Lyndon Johnson flew to the city

as Kennedy's personal representative.

He was accompanied by General Lucius Clay,

hero of the Berlin airlift.

Johnson brought a message from President Kennedy.

JOHNSON: He wants you to know

that the pledge he has given

to the freedom of West Berlin

and to the rights of Western access to Berlin

is firm!

[ Applause ]

BRANAGH: In the East, people risked death

to flee through the last chinks in the barrier.

[woman speaking German ]

All of a sudden I saw my friend running.

And I said to myself, "Oh, my God,

you're not going to make it."

And I couldn't run.

I turned into a pillar of salt.

An elderly woman said to me,

"Go, girl. Run, too.

You're still young. Run!"

So I just started running.

My friend had hurt her face,

but I'd only ripped my sweater.

Apart from that, I wasn't hurt.

We were incredibly happy.

We laughed and cried.

We'd just made it.

BRANAGH: Many more made an impulsive dive for freedom.

[woman speaking German ]

INTERPRETER: One day he didn't return home.

I was waiting and waiting.

He didn't come during the night

or the next day.

And I thought, "What has happened?"

And then my brother-in-law came.

"Don't you know?" he said.

"He's in the West."

My whole world collapsed.

I had to collect his things from work.

It was like collecting the belongings of a dead person.

BRANAGH: Later, Heinz Karstens helped his wife to escape.

Where the border ran down the middle of the street,

windows overlooked the West.

Helping people escape became a routine assignment

for West Berlin's fire brigade.

[man speaking German]

INTERPRETER: It became the custom

that people who wanted to escape,

people who wanted to leave

would throw little pieces of paper out of the windows

into Bernauer Strasse --

the number of the building, the floor, the window.

Second or third window was written on it.

And a time -- for example, 10:00,

that they wanted to jump.

REPORTER: Here are perhaps the most dramatic scenes

ever to come out of Berlin.

Tossing belongings from the window of an apartment

overlooking the western border and freedom,

an escapee is prepared to jump to safety

into a net held by police and firemen of West Berlin.

Now here is a rescue episode that is even more extraordinary.

An attempt is being made by sympathetic Germans

to ensure the escape of a brave woman.

While communist police try to pull her back

through the window,

below there is freedom's grip.

A blood-chilling sequence that the News of the Day camera

follows to its dramatic conclusion.

She's safe at last!

BRANAGH: The East Germans blocked even this last loophole.

People swam lakes and canals,

clung under trains, hid in cars,

climbed barriers under fire.

Hundreds failed. Many died.

Despite the human suffering,

East Germany justified the wall

as a bulwark of peace.

[Speaking German ]

INTERPRETER: When the barbed wire was put up,

the main argument was that peace had been saved.

It wasn't a question of domestic difficulties.

Ulbricht drew a veil of silence

over the economic problems.

They talked always of the anti-fascist barrier.

That's how it was officially described --

the protective bulwark.

They did it as a necessity.

And I thought,

"What kind of system is it...

that can only exist

by keeping--

By keeping them with force

in their own bailiwick.

And the wall was the actual symbol

of a defeat,

of inferiority.

BRANAGH: Escapes went on.

Killings went on.

Telephone lines were out.

Now the two cities could no longer talk.

At the few Allied crossing points,

tension was high.

In October, an American diplomat

was stopped by East German guards

as he was crossing to visit the theater

in East Berlin.

The Americans decided to make an issue of it,

and assert their rights to free movement in Berlin.

Lucius Clay was back on the scene.

Clay's calculation was the Soviets were responsible

for East Berlin, not the East Germans.

And he was determined that the Soviets would recognize

their responsibility there.

BRANAGH: To test East German reaction,

Clay ordered armed American soldiers

to escort vehicles back and forth across the border

at Checkpoint Charlie.

He once told me, he said,

"I learned early in the game

of dealing with the Russians

that the Russians understand one thing,

and that's force, that's strength.

You must never negotiate or deal with the Russians

without having a position of strength.

BRANAGH: To underline his point,

Clay moved tanks up to the checkpoint.

The Russians brought up their tanks and guns.

The two sides faced each other

barrel to barrel.

The telephone rang in the command post.

They said, "Let me speak to General Clay."

I said, "He's not here. Who is this?"

He said, "This is the military police officer

at Checkpoint Charlie."

He said, "Holy Christ,

the Russians have rolled in here in force."

He said, "They've got tanks."

He said, "The balloorfs getting ready to go up.

He said, "The defecation is about to hit the fan."

[speaking Russian ]

INTERPRETER: The situation was dangerous.

The tanks stood facing each other.

Our tanks crews were told to exercise restraint...

to give no grounds for provocation.

The dead seriousness of it

became more intense

with each hour.

The Western forces went on alert.

Strategic air command went on alert.

NATO went on alert.

Troops were being cranked up around the world.

And one never knew

if the intensity of the situation in Berlin

escalated,

where would be the next sore point.

INTERPRETER: Khrushchev ordered the commander

of Soviet troops in Germany

that if the West used force,

they should respond with force.

I had a phone by one ear receiving information

from Soviet military headquarters in Germany.

The other phone was connected to the Kremlin.

As soon as I got the information,

I reported to the Kremlin what was happening

at Fredrichstrasse.

President Kennedy had sent a message

to Khrushchev through a new private channel

that had only been established a month earlier

for a back channel

between the White House and Khrushchev,

and President Kennedy had asked Khrushchev

to take the first move.

[speaking Russian ]

INTERPRETER: The Americans sent a message.

It said, "In order for us to move our tanks

without losing face,

you should move your tanks back to a certain distance."

Our tanks stood 200 meters from the Americans.

The lead Soviet tank cranked up his engine

and backed up some five or ten meters,

and we received instructions to have the American tanks

to withdraw exactly the same distance.

It wasn't a good enough reason to start a war.

Khrushchev himself said,

"We're not unleashing a third World War

because of Berlin."

The Americans realized that, too.

BRANAGH: The soldiers pulled back,

but the wall remained.

The East Germans built it higher

and backed it with fences, trip wires,

and tank traps.

During the first year,

50 Germans died trying to cross to the West.

One of them was 18-year-old Peter Fechtor.

MARGIT HOSSEINI: The Americans gathered --

the soldiers gathered on one side

not doing anything.

And on the other side,

the GDR, the police there

were standing on their side,

not doing anything.

And this young man was huddled --

I remember he was lying like an "S" shape.

And at first he screamed, he cried,

he shouted for help.

And as the hours went on,

his voice got weaker and weaker.

It was so heart rendering

that in the middle of nowhere

was a human being dying

and two groups were facing each other,

too worried to act because they didn't know

what the other one was going to do.

It was --

it was...

It was really horrible.

He was just standing there and you thought,

"He's dying," and you can't do anything.

I mean, I've never been in that situation before

neither after,

where you actually see a person dying

and you can't do anything.

And I am sure everyone else around me

felt the same.

BRANAGH: The Wall was the supreme symbol

of the Cold War's cruelty

and Europe's division.

Its message was a bitter one.

Whatever happened beyond that line,

the West might lament,

but would not interfere.

The Wall was a way out, really,

for Khrushchev.

And although the Berlin affair

continued to be discussed,

it was no longer in a state of crisis

as it had been before the war.

[band playing, people cheering ]

BRANAGHI In 1963,

President Kennedy visited West Berlin.

Freedom is indivisible.

And when one man is enslaved,

all are not free.

When all are free,

then we can look forward to that day

when this city will be joined as one

and this country.

And this great continent of Europe

in a peaceful and hopeful glow.

When that day finally comes, as it will,

the people of West Berlin can take sober satisfaction

in the fact that they were in the front lines

for almost two decades.

[ Applause ]

All free men

wherever they may live

are citizens of Berlin.

And therefore, as a free man,

I take pride in the words

”/ch b/n e/n Berliner. ”

[cheers and applause]