Woodpeckers on the Wall

The coming week marks the anniversary of the division of Berlin, Germany. On the afternoon of August 12, 1961, leaders of the German Democratic Republic signed an order to close the border between East and West Berlin, and erect a massive Wall dividing the city. Later that evening the order was put into effect.

Roads that ran into West Berlin were destroyed. Barbed wire and land mines were put into place. Apartment windows that overlooked the forbidden side of the city were enclosed or barred. Concrete and steel were piled into place along the twenty-seven miles of city border.

Guards were stationed along the Wall with orders to shoot anyone attempting to escape to West Berlin. And shoot they did. While thousands succeeded in scaling the Wall, scores of would-be defectors were shot and killed over the three decades the Berlin Wall stood, often in plain view of the West’s…