On the night of August 12-13, 1961, East German soldiers erected barbed wire across Berlin's streets while the city slept, separating families, severing train lines, and dividing a city overnight. This episode of Sidequests covers the construction of the Berlin Wall — why it was built (East Germany was losing nearly 20 percent of its population to the West and couldn't stop the exodus), how it evolved from barbed wire to a lethal concrete barrier with guard towers and a death strip, what it cost the people who tried to cross it, and why the Western powers allowed it to stand despite their stated commitment to freedom. The wall wasn't built to keep capitalism out. It was built to keep people in — and that distinction is the whole story.
","author_name":"Keith Conrad"}