My grandfather knew a guy who escaped to west germany by swimming through the baltic sea. He could easily die or be killed, but somehow managed to survive the escape.
Speaking as a 61 year old British man who can remember the Wall going up, I found the whole video instructive, but the very last part, when you compare the applause for Stalin with that for Kennedy very moving. Too many people on the Left have forgotten or have never known of Stalin’s Terror. Possibly, like the Nazi holocaust, it’s magnitude defies our comprehension.
Or possibly, like the Allied bombing of Dresden, being a British man, of a city which had no military installations, killing hundreds of thousands of women and children with firebombs, has eluded you 'cos noone told you that your lovely PM did it.
You mean like saturation bombing of Poland and London in 1939-40 which was well before Dresden? Bombing them because that was where the population was. Tokyo at the end of the war was being firebombed for one reason, force Japan to surrender. Declaring war does not come without risk, and should be done when there is no other choice, but once in it you fight it to win and win quickly.
Alasdair correctly points out that Stalin was a pure monster directly responsible for the death of millions of his own countrymen even before the Germans invaded the Soviet Union. As far as the Allied bombing of Hamburg (40,000 deaths) and Dresden (25.000 deaths), these are truly horrible beyond compare -- unless you compare them to the millions of civilians killed by the Nazi's before and during the war, including the round up and extermination of Jews, Gypsies and political dissidents by Nazi death squads. Sometimes you need to fight fire with fire in order to prevail, and Hitler and his Nazis were not going to give up until all of Germany was scorched earth.
All sides did horrible things and warcrimes. That's a pure fact. Pointing the finger at one another an exaggerating one's warcrimes compared to your country's and others doesn't make you inoccent. From allied bombings of cities ( even some historical landmarks), atomic bombs dropped on civilians, nazi's concentration camps, holocaust, mass executions, soviet destruction of cities, rape, gulags, japanese mass executions, rape of Nanking and extreme cruelty, overall mistreatment of POWs you can see that during war nobody follows the articles of the geneva convention and yet only few people on the losing side were tried for warcrimes (mostly nazis and few japanese). And to anybody saying who is worse communism or fascism, I'll say you that they are nearly the same. Both are authoritarian, use police to spread fear on whoose basis they rule over the people, spreading of propaganda, people worshiping of the leader, political supression. I hope with education and more close connection between different people groups, we will not make the same mistakes as our forefathers and we will strive to overall peace and humans' prosperity.
There is no war without war crimes, without rape, torture and mass-killing of non-combatants. Never was, never will be. The only thing to end this, is putting an end to wars.
Nice job! Being born in West Berlin in 1981, and raised there, too, I remember the wall quite well. My family was divided in 1961, grandma lived in the western part, her sister in the East. As I kid, I crossed the wall with my parents several times a year, we were searched intensively each time. I remember how there was graffiti all over the western side of the wall -- eastern property, so the western police wouldn't care, and the eastern police didn't have access. And of course, I remember the day of the fall of the wall (that is, the 10th of November 1989, late on the 9th I was already sleeping) and the incredible atmosphere in the city that followed after. You can imagine that history, and especially the history of Berlin has always been an important topic in my family. In case you're doing further research on the topic, I'd be happy to answer questions you might have. Cheers!
An interesting question. There were many East Berliners who came to West Berlin in the night 9th to 10th November 1989 because they thought it was a one time opportunity, and Easterners and Westerners celebrated on the streets all night. Many people didn't go over right away out of fear not to be able to go back home. The next day, the border was still open and more and more people dared to move across. In the following months, people moved from the East to the West in big numbers, which is usually explained with economic incentives, but could of course partially be explained with a fear of reinstallment of the old regime. (Numbers see at the end of this article: www.bpb.de/geschichte/deutsche-einheit/lange-wege-der-deutschen-einheit/47253/zug-nach-westen?p=all) From the Western perspective, I don't think that many people thought such a comeback would be possible. People believed the words of Gorbachev (who is still highly respected in Berlin, across the political spectrum). The East German political system collapsed too quickly. I remember my dad taking me to Brandenburg gate at some point in winter 89/90 where regular people were busy hammering away at the wall. Through one of the cracks, 8 year old me asked one of the anxious soldiers standing on the death strip what he was still doing there. He couldn't answer the question.
This is great insight! Thank you so much! I was in your city at the start of october and cant wait to go back. History is alive there like no other place ive ever visited!
In case you don't know them yet, I highly recommend the guided tours by Berliner Unterwelten (berliner-unterwelten.de/home.1.1.html) which allow you to enter historic sites hidden underneath the surface of the city. I've been on 3 of their tours, and it was each time fascinating. (They offer tours in German, English, and other languages, but if you're comfortable with it, take a tour in German -- you might be lucky and get an older tour guide who might not speak English but can tell the most incredible stories first hand.) Tour M seems particularly appropriate for the subject at hand.
Note: Churchill and the other allied generals argued furiously with Roosevelt and Eisenhower to push onward to capture Berlin and the rest of Germany, but the Americans didn't want to upset their "Russian Allies". How bitterly ironic given the American anti-communist hysteria of the post-war era, a massive case of shutting the door after the horse has bolted. The Cold War was entirely America's fault.
If by "Upset their Russian Allies," you mean "Completely abrogate the Tehran and Yalta agreements, and start a whole new war in the middle of fighting Japan when we really are hoping the Soviets will attack the Japanese in Manchuria", then you'd be right. But, you're not. The Cold War is the fault of the US? That's.. well, so wrong, it's not even right.
Yeah, that's all pretty much fantasy, and not historically feasible. Not enough bombs, and that's assuming the bomber can get through the heavily contested airspace between the bomber bases and the targets. (And assuming any airfields in Europe can handle a Sliverplate B-29...). Throw in the fact that the Soviets have a 4:1 advantage in men and a 2:1 advantage in tanks... well, there's a reason they called it Operation Unthinkable. Not to mention you still have a war against Japan to win. Not to mention you have to sell this war to the population of the US and the UK. So, yeah, this is pretty much just fantasy.
I learned in German class that the whole "I am a jelly donut" thing is something of a myth. The people who were there understood what he meant just fine.
It's not a myth that he said "I am a jelly donut". But the crowd knew what he meant, in the same way you know what someone means when they incorrectly use their/they're/there.
My main source is a German teacher (who was German) that was an adult in Germany in 1963. I see Wikipedia calls it a misconception, but goes on to confuse that with talk about regional differences. Think about this: "I am English" vs. "I am an English" ... an English what? One might think "muffin". Though German sentence structure is different. Some things don't translate precisely. "May I be permitted?" = "may I help you". Translation can be an art. But in determining what Germans listening to the speech thought, I would go with Germans who listened to the speech over Wikipedia.
No one understands "we'll have turkey for dinner" as "we'll have Turkey for dinner". Just the same with Kennedy. You would think he said "I'm a donut" only if he visibly looked like one. Also, "ein Berliner" with the indefinite article ("a" in English) is completely correct in German, you don't need something after it. :)
rapturedmourning It's a myth created by a book author and spread by an English newspaper years after the speech. There is no single German newspaper of that particular time, that reported about this issue, because there was no issue. There were also a ton of Germans, do you think, Kennedy didn't ask at least one of them, if this sentence is correct? Kennedy quoted "civis romanus sum", said "All free men are citizen of Berlin" and spoke in German "Ich bin ein Berliner.". The context is therefore clear. The myth is focussing on the indefinite article, which should be left out, but there is no need to leave it out, because the indefinite article does not change the meaning from a citizen to a donut, the context does. Kennedy could have said "Ich bin Berliner.", but in my opinion, as a German, I would always add the indefinite article to emphasize, what Kennedy really meant.
WolfPlayer cupple of thousand dead, tortured, unfree people on the other side tho. and even tho they killed people who tried to pass, some did it. so a wall is no help
One of the most extraordinary escape stories is Holga Bithcke. His brother, Ingo, swam to freedom over the Elbe River, waited for him in an empty building in the West, directly opposite the wall from the building he was using to escape from. He fired a wire across to the building opposite and zip wired across to the West. The extraordinary thing about his escape from East Germany was that he and his Brother stumbled upon a blind spot between watch towers, so the Stasi got the East German authorities and through it the Soviet Union to build another watch tower in the area where the escape occurred, to make sure it couldn't happen again
+Mad Tad : They will. People cross the Mediterranean sea to get to European shores and Cubans take to the gulf to enter the US. Neither wall nor glorified fence will stop people from doing the same once the Mexican border becomes too arduous to cross. In that light, Trump's infrastructure project is little more than a giant gift to the human trafficking business.
Mexicans will go under it, like they already do. Mexicans have become so good at tunneling that the London Underground just swapped a Tunnel Boring Machine for 50 Mexicans and progress on the new HS2 line has doubled!
same! From the title I expected a shitpost like "duh why didn't they just walk around it these dumbasses" but then it turned out to be actual historical insight and I was pleasantly surprised XD
Hey, I am born in late 1965 in former West-Berlin and lived there for almost 11 years, as my parents decided to move to Western Germany. Your Video shows a very good job in historical facts about this city! Chapeau!
@williamcfox Other Interesting Videos About Berlin! ***“Berlin [full 1 hour version] (Rew Boss) **czcams.com/video/IZQbTEZdM_g/video.html** *** BBC Doc, History of Berlin: czcams.com/video/ds12det7jZk/video.html Berlin 1945 in HD & Color: czcams.com/video/R5i9k7s9X_A/video.html “Why Was A Wall Built Around West Berlin” (Seeker) czcams.com/video/W7YE-N448fg/video.html
great video. I am impressed of your knowledge. It is good to see that young people are educated and know the stuff we had to live through. Keep on going - greetings from Berlin!
1976, I had a 6th grade school teacher that argued with me about the wall. She asked if I believed there is a physical wall there. I said yes, she said I was stupid. There is no wall. My father, a WWII Army soldier was up there the next day to have a little talk with them. She was made to apologize to me in front of the whole class and admit a 6th grade student was smarter than she is. I see this type of stupidity even today, in schools and elsewhere.
A teacher should at least have their kids show research, rather than tell them that they are wrong. This is why schools are so bad these days. Good for you.
bliglum its nowhere near the same thing. This was a wall to Isolate, Trumps wall (Which is stupid) is just to stop illegal immigration (Which will still happen since most illegal immigrants come in legally and just outstay their Visa
MrIzzy5466 Well yeah, that's why I said "different wall".. You're right though, Trump's wall is stupid. A 19 billion dollar project that could be defeated by a 19 dollar ladder! Haha!
Came to this video thinking "well duh, the wall was a circle around the entire city..." after watching the video I thought "how is Berlin still an actual city today and not like a giant cemetery?"
Berlin is far from an economic powerhouse. It’s still eating up a lot of German tax money from other regions, even though it’s the capital. infographic.statista.com/small/11515_b.jpg
There were highways and railways that could be used for travel to West Berlin from the rest of West Germany, and an airlift of needed goods when those were sealed off for a while.
Berlin is a city many would consider the most interesting city to visit in not only Europe but the world. It's brimming with history, culture, activities, arts, music, everything. But more importantly is that for the capitol of such a wealthy country, Berlin is incredibly run down and poor. It has this certain grimey-ness to it, like it still is long from recovering from WW2 and Soviet control. Do yourself a favor and go there, but you'll need at least a week just to get your toes wet.
Da Ve well people could simply use other means like a tall ladder or simply digging under but it was the rife that was going to shoot them if they popped their heads out that stopped them.
There was no race, that's just propaganda for troops and public. Occupation territories were already agreed and set between allied powers in Yalta. And taking Berlin would not cost no where near as much for western allies as it did for soviets. At that point germans hadn't much will to fight except against soviets because they knew what was coming for them(by soviets). Americans reached Elbe weeks before battle of berlin and turned south to occupy future american zone. Crossing Elbe was prohibited by Eisenhower to avoid any problems with Soviets.
Kognak There was a race, but it was between rival leaders of the Soviet military. Each wanting the prestige of taking the city. But you're correct the allies never tried to take the city. They could have gotten their first if they chose to, but 100,000 men was to high a price to pay.
If the Western Allies were to have taken Berlin, they would have lost way less men then the Soviets due to better military strategies. The Soviets killed off so many of their generals in Stalin's purges, that they weren't able to defend against the German invasion, and as a result, they lost millions of more soldiers and civilians than they had to.
If we cared about lives we'd have never gone into the war to begin with. Another 100,000 dead was nothing that was going to dissuade us from another campaign. In hindsight we did the wrong thing. It is as simple as that. But at the time the Allies did not completely understand the Soviet threat.
I had it until a few years ago when my sister's family went to Berlin. I was born in 1963 and my only excuse is that this was a really strange situation.
Soliloquy I actually knew that Berlin was far to the east, but I assumed that the borders of West and East Germany were also far east, at Berlin. Meaning that West Germany was a lot larger.
My Dad was in the British military, I visited West Berlin as a child in the 80's. I saw the wall went right around West Berlin. I saw this long open space going around the city and I thought they should turn it into a race track, like the Indy 500 with super fast cars. Just a couple of years later, the wall came down. I was so disappointed when they didn't turn it into a race track. My mother had papers and we drove through East Germany to meet up with my father in Berlin one time. I didn't really understand but the drive was really quiet. The place was atmospheric and I felt relief when we got to West Berlin. I didn't have to understand to know everything about this felt wrong.
Quite sad that I learned more about this part of history of my country online than in all of the history classes I had. All we ever got to hear was how bad we germans are for having started the 2nd world war.
Germany did not start the Second World War. France, and England did. They both declared war on Germany. Not the other way around. What Germany was doing in Poland was none of either of their business. Technically it was the bastards that drafted the Treaty of Versailles that planted the seeds of WW2. Which is why WW2 ended much differently.
in germany we've always had the conflict between west (wessis) and east (ossis) germans. i was born in munich in 1999 and i have always wondered why this competition between the sides existed. i have realised that even though some people may seriously despise the other part of my country, unity is the reason for the competition. we were a country divided by walls, borders and political ideals and we aren't deniing that. the fact that we make jokes about ossis being stale and wessis being spoiled is because we acknowledge that we were separated and culturally devided by the times. but the wind of change tore the wall down and we were united again as brothers and sisters, but not as the same people we were before. the wall will always remain in our minds as a horrible wound but acknowledging the scar it made helps. it shows that we survived after decades of tyranny and opression. so as a citizen of munich i hereby declare: ich bin ein berliner.
KvatchIsInDanger Hmm..I dont think so. Vsauce is.. I dont know all of CZcams but I bei Vsauce is unique in every way (e.g. there are many gaming and commedy channels). He associates science with philosophy in his own style. I cant explain it and because you know Vsauce you know what I am talking about. :D Some videos step so deeply in fundamatal questions of live, thinking, etc without mentioning the issue itself (compare his latest video). This video and the producer definitely handle things other (other(!) not bad but also not like Vsauce).
Professor Eisenoxid Yeah. Michael's not like an expert, he's just really good at creating content that involves facts which weave together nicely and amazingly.
NexoFX ISKU yeah in the fucking AfD. they'll clap n clap n clap. the first one who stops looses their social security = starvs to death, cause they all have no jobs lol.
Very well done young man, My hat is off to you. As a long retired military veteran it does my heart good to see a young person take such a serious interest in history. Your information and delivery was spot on and very professional. I only wish that more of America's youth had the discipline and respect that you show for such an important subject. Keep up the good work, you have yet another subscriber and I look forward to what is to come. MM1 Robert Davis, US Navy, Retired.
What you're not taking into account is that the majority of East Germans were quite happy to stay, especially at the beginning. Their homes, jobs, schools and families were there and there was full employment, good free medical care etc. Don't make the mistake, as most Americans do, of assuming that your system is what everyone wants.
Our system isn't perfect, but it's significantly better than the Soviet system. A country that has to build a wall to keep its own population inside doesn't seem particularly livable.
You missed the point that the USA gave their "permission" or at least they said: Hey, you guys can do this. From Wikipedia about J. William Fulbright: On 30 July 1961, two weeks before the erection of the Berlin Wall, Fulbright said in a television interview, "I don't understand why the East Germans don't just close their border, because I think they have the right to close it." Kennedy subsequently refused to distance himself from Fulbright’s observation, which suggests that he asked Fulbright to make this statement as a way of signaling to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev that the building of a wall would be viewed by the United States as an acceptable way of defusing the Berlin Crisis.
Because that wall wasn't erected "in secret", just for starters. Hiding a construction project of that magnitude is impossible to hide, even the host should realize that. The title of the video alone is an atrocity.
Frosmad - If this video is so great, then WHY does he use an image of the US M113 APC (adopted in 1960) when talking about WWII? There's sufficient BS in this video if you don't know history.
At the end of March 1945, the allies had crossed the Rhine, with Berlin 300 km away with the Elbe river in the way. The Soviets, however, were 30 km away at that point. There was no way that the allies could have been the first to reach Berlin after the failure of Operation Market Garden, whose object was to seize a bridge over the Rhine in the Netherlands via airborne landings in September of '44, remembered as "The bridge too far". Additionally, Hitler took large numbers of men and equipment off the Eastern front and threw them at the allies in the Battle of the Buldge, in a hopeless attempt to repeat the 1940 strike through the Arden that resulted in the encirclement of the British Expeditionary Force and the Cream of the French army that ended in Dunkirk and French surrender. The hope was to defeat the allies and then concentrate everything on the Soviets, but it only resulted in the Soviets capturing more of Europe. So the allies didn't "Give" the Soviets Berlin, just as much as the didn't give them Poland, whose independence was the whole reason the war started for Britain and France in the first place. Actually, it's incredible that the allies actually ended up with 3/4 of it. In the end though, what was Berlin really worth? The allies captured most of the country, and most importantly, the industrial center that is the Ruhr valley, creating the prosperity that made West Germany recover so well.
Poland wasn't "given". Soviets put a puppet regime in place, just like USA planned to do in France. The allies considered the option of going to war against USSR to free Poland (Operation unthinkable)
The allies left the soviet advancing because they seem not to care about casualties, there were more people killed taking Chzechoslovakia than all the casualties of the occupation since it's invasion, absurd given what was left of Germany. The allies were way more careful about the losses while Zuckov said "The russian women will make more children". It takes a monster to defeat a monster
They weren't seeking retribution. If that were the case, Berlin would be the only city having suffered such fate, but the same thing happened in other capitals, that were overrun by the read army, regardless of their contribution to the war. (Not to mention the encouragement of rape and looting, Stalin's personal approval (and enjoyment) of prolonged torture, assisted by medical care to nurture up the victims for another round... you are simply painting Stalin's world in an unrealistically bright light)
The Ghastly Varangian Said eight year old has a chance to recover, dead people don't. Also 1 eight year old matter less than hundreds of thousands or millions.
4f747265626f72 The USSR was member of the allies. Thus their war crimes count into the allied total, beginning with mass executions of polish elite (in tens if not hundreds of thousands), then continuing with intentional starving of ukraine, and mass rape and looting in every major city the red army "freed". But even if you don't count soviets you still have war crimes in all but name committed by the allies. Ms bombing of civilian areas to destroy morale, is nothing more or less than genocide. Look up firebombing raids against japan, or bombing of major german cities. Singular raids killed more civilians than the total number killed during the London blitz. You are either an ignorant fool, or an ideologically motivated hypocrite.
Nixon Dixon I guess youre from america. What you learn in school very right (i mean the political opposite of left). In germany we learn both sides of the story an that the americans also were part if the problem... Edit: Im from what used to be west germany. So what ive learnt definetly isnt communist propaganda ;)
Stalin was one of if not the most horrible person in history. He was much worse than Hitler, for god's sake. These are just facts, doesn't matter if you're right wing or left wing, it's undeniable.
To add to such confusion, if you took the "Subway" or the "Elevated" trains(the U-Bahn and S-Bahn), they went right though the forbidden zones! Western trains went through East Berlin, and vice versa! One could see out-of-bounds places right out the window!
@@GoodVideos4 yeah many subway stations were def closed and in quite disrepair...and the subway just passed through it in slow motion....even right in the center of Berlin!
and dont forget U-Friedrichstrasse back in those days, which was a main hub for us West Berliner to get cheap smokes ( nowadays we have the Vietnamese ha ha ) and alcohol....we could walk on a certain designated path and go to the Intershop to buy all the goodies with Deutsch Mark.
Maybe because its no myth. I would'nt dare to say who was worse, but Stalin objectively was responcible for more deaths overall, if just because the soviet union got more citizens and Stalin killed friend or foe alike, were as Hitler and his nazi party mostly killed the ones who they saw as unworthy or willing to act treason against their system.
Zelen Ilum "Were as Stalin was THE one to order allmost all of these deaths. He had noone to make decisions for him like hitler did." - that's completely false, you should really do more research on that, because right now you see Stalin as some kind of Austin Powers movie villain. Which is quite silly for real life politics. "But thats like saying you murdered 30 people, because you drove drunk and rammed another car, that caused a massive car accidend." - that actually does mean that you killed 30 people, both legally and logically.
Mocsk Regarding dictators who were the most "independent", Stalin takes number one. Mostly to the fact that he switched his councilors and primes like others change their t-shirts. Putin on the other hand (not saying he is a dictator) is much more depending on his political elite. Hitler was strongly influenced and dependend on the economic elite and gave the persecution of many of his ideologies into his councilors hands. Regarding my example. Please read it again. I sayd "It is like saying you MURDERED 30 people...". That is legaly and logic wise a big difference to killing someone.
+MMIGhost Had he been in Frankfurt he might have said "Ich bin ein Frankfurter" Either way "ein Berliner" was common parlance, at the time, for a hot dog sausage. Oops!
Just found this video from a link to a link. You did it so well. The finale of the applause time was such a fantastic payoff from the entire story. You have an excellent presentation style and I hope to see all your other videos. Really well done.
MrsCitty did you know as a treu deutce das panzerkamphwagen s43.3kwz was made out of plastic and Kan schissen mit die popsicles. Das is how much truewarcheit dies video hast
Good video! I hope everyone in west will watch it and not because of the Wall only - everyone in the world must understand the price of freedom. Its not granted. I'm 40 years old and from Estonia, one of the Baltic states. I remember. Its good to be on the other side of the iron wall/curtain now :)
As a German who has had that topic every half a year from fifth to thirteenth grade, this was fascinating to me. I totally see how you'd fill in the gaps and go, Berlin must be here, and the wall divides the city state, not the country, so just walk around. And seeing the views on this, it seems to be a common misconception, so thank you very much for clearing that up.
+Mokona127 thanks for watching and commenting. It seems like people are divided- many shared the misconception, and many think I'm an idiot for ever having the misconception. I'm glad I didn't fully understand because it allowed to to explore the topic more as an adult.
I just told my flatmate about the premise of the video, and he said he always thought so, too, being a native German with a decent education and all. So no worries about that. ^^ Btw, I just wrote you an email for translation stuff, in case you revisit German history or politics at any point. (I also got my linguistic youtubers NativLang and Name Explain confused, I apologize.)
I think (hope?) it's only younger generations (born after 1975) that don't know the wall circled the entire western side. My sister was born inside that wall.
Soo... I'm a complete Ossi. Both my parents were born in East Berlin and by the time the Berlin Wall fell, my dad was in the National Folksarmy, which he was basically bullied to go into. He had to serve for I believe 2 1/2 years and when the protests in East Berlin and Germany got more and more heavy around 1989, there were rumours going on that his division would be used to forcefully crush the protests. He told me that all of them sat down (of course not the higherranking ones) and decided that they would collectively disobey any such order, should it come. But he also told me that one of his school friends, who volunteered for the army, was completely hooked for the GDR and would have gladly fought against civilians for it. I'm just glad such an order never came and the Wall fell so... well, peaceful in the end.
My Mother was born in 1942 in Berlin, her father died the same year in the winter near moscow. My grandmother that lived through the hell of the Russian occupation died this year a few months ago peacefully aged 95 among loving family here in Australia. Berlin is my favorite city, and a huge part of my family's history. I've read much about this topic, but it was nice to see a video summing up what happened to Berlin quite well. I miss my Oma.
I currently teach a small group of German Seniors every other week, and the stories they have of that time are incredible. I'm sure your Oma was a treasure chest of history. Cheers. -Will
Thank you Will. She was. I had grandparents on both sides of the war, almost literally fighting each other. Aussie Grandfather captured by the Germans, and German grandfather fighting the Russians. Yet against all odds, here I am. Thank you for your reply and for running an awesome channel. - Mick
+Tree my grandmother was a nurse on the American side. That's was a very dark time for everyone but it's great love stories like your parents that put a little light in the future. Have a good one, Will
Whoever have gone to Berlin and saw the wall could see that the actual wall is actually not a big deal. The problem was the booby traps and guardians surrounding it.
I saw the Berlin Wall in 1986. I also saw the border between West and East Germany. The wall would not have been a big deal if that's all there was to it and you had a ladder. But well-motivated soldiers with machine guns were a pretty good deterrent. I remember the lady at the border crossing who carried a machine gun and asked me if I was carrying any illegal transmitters or explosives. By 1986 they had removed the horrifying explosives in the Eastern side of the wall: shaped charges that blasted dozens of 4mm cubes of iron at anyone who tripped the wires. Anyone who says this was to protect East Germany from the evils of Capitalism is a liar.
10:00 some of these towers and other fortifications still stand there. If you drive to Berlin over the A2 Autobahn, it's impossible to miss them. I get shivers over my spine every time I cross the "border". 15:00 and those words always give me tears in my eyes.
ahouyearno i recently visited Berlin this summer, i arrived by train in what was once East Berlin. As I walked from that train station to visit the Brandenburg Gate I came across what I thought was a park with some kind of art fencing around it. As I continued to walk I noticed a date 1961 on the side of a building, I looked behind me and a line was drawn where this fencing was currently standing. It was then the gravity of the situation hit me, I had walked from East Berlin into West Berlin. I can not tell you just how powerful that moment was too me, as an American who had only read about the division of Germany; to be there in person and see it first hand blew me away. I agree with Kennedy when he said Ich bin ein Berliner. I hope Germany continues to be a becon of hope for all Europe, do not let fear tear your country apart.
John Temperato Indeed. Have you seen checkpoint charlie too? The actual inner city border crossing? It's surreal. Also surreal is the fact that Germany is currently the least racist country in the world while the USA has a presidential candidate that is closest to Hitler than anyone in living memory. I personally believe that "wir schaffen das" is just as significant as "ich bin ein Berliner"
That's how I felt when I visited Berlin. It really hits you hard when you see in pictures the same place your embassy now stands, but fenced in and guarded by Soviets. Amazing city and I can't wait to go back!
Political Junkie it's by far the most beautiful capital city of western Europe (imho). Coupled with history that's relevant to this day ... Have you read Chrisitane F? We also walked along the Babystrich at the K'Damm and it's sad to see that nothing has changed in that regard for over 30 years :(
Just a small tidbit, West Berlin was technically not part of West Germany. It had the same laws, institutions, and all that, but was de jure a seperate state. Made it a popular destination for young men who didn't want to serve in the German military, as citizens of West Berlin weren't conscripted by the Bundeswehr.
A very well made doco. Having been born in '72, I grew up in a world with 2 Germanies, I always found it rather ironic, and (when I was much younger, quite confusing) the East Germany's official name was the German Democratic Republic. It was quite a surreal period in time, watching how all the Eastern Bloc countries, took back their citizenship, so to speak. To all those too young to remember or to have seen it with their own eyes, albeit on TV in my case, watching the East Germans chipping away at the Berlin Wall, back in October '89, it was a sight to behold!!! It also took a lot of getting use to, the fact that there was one Germany again. I have a circa 1987 world globe, all the old borders, country names, etc. How the world has changed in just the last 30 years.
Because there too was a border. The whole German border was 1400km long. Soldiers of the NVA and policemen of the StaSi were patroling them. This and the knowlage of what happens to the people beeing caught, caused a drop in fugitives. However there were many attempts made, many succseeded many did not.
Sry missread the question. Well it wasn't as hard as in Berlin, but it wasn'T easy either. The border all thorughout Germany was highly guarded, because russia not only feared an exudus but also the US troops comming across. So these borders were guarded. And another big thing was the StaSi. At that time everyone was spied on. Most people were used as IM (infromal members of the StaSi) that meant the StaSi would apporach somone, and uced pressure to make them talk about neighburs and family. With that system the StaSi had everyone spying on everyone, making it therefore nrealy impossible to talk about fleeing, and with nobody talking about it, noone would get enough infomation(where patrols were, when to flee, who to talk to) in order to cross the border. Most attempts were stopped long before they tried. However there was a small group within the BND and the CIA (German and US secret agencies) who risked a lot to get across the border to smuggle high value targets out of East Germany.
There were actually quite a few - not really many in the grand scale of things - who went with tiny craft (rowboats or similar) or even swimming towards international waters, hoping to get picked up by some western or at worst Finnish ship (Finland was leaning heavily towards the west at that time but had to keep up appearance with their big neighbor USSR, look up "Finlandization"). A relative of mine swam until getting picked up by the Finjet.
I'm surprised people are still saying this nonsense, when he says the phrase no one is laughing the applause is nothing short of thunderous... Besides they don't call them berliners in Berlin but mainly in the countryside.
@@squeaky9715 It's not a myth translation, it comes from the fact that the people from Berlin, a Berliner, is called the same as a famous jelly donut "Berliner". A lot of food here has funny names like that. There is also one famous German pastries called "American" and others.
@@gfree4173 No, the original sentence is correct. It seems like English examples are kinda hard to find. A sentences like „I am right“ can mean „I am correct“, or it can mean „i am directionally on your right side“. Or „I got a band“, do you mean you have a music band or a colored hairband? The context here is important, and the context about Kennedy’s speech was about the people of Berlin and not the Jelly donut^^ It seems like those kind of words are called homonyms, just google it yourself xD I am not good at explaining.
You look much better in the video then you do in this yhumb picture. This lill photo makes you look more like an old fart...i sugest a new photo...maebe a fresh change of shirt too?! =P
My mother is German and she would always have tears when talking about the Berlin Wall. I knew what it was about, but I have to say that I got immersed into your video. I understood what Stalin was (I knew he was evil, but man..) and that big political mistakes have been made. The world could have had a whole new face. Thank you
Berlin city of the dead? Try stalingrand...wasnt a city after the battle ended, it was hell on earth. "My dear brother! Sorry about the messy handwriting, my hands are frostbitten and my head’s confused. We’ll never get out of here. The breakthrough won’t happen. We’re all dead here - it’s just that we don’t decompose, because of the Russian frost." Helmut Quantz, German soldier, January 24
I visited East Berlin before the wall came down and it was quite interesting. You could get to West Berlin by train through East Germany but the train only stopped in a couple places and there were troops with machine guns at each stop. Same with the U-bahn (subway) that ran from West Berlin to East Berlin and back to West Berlin - they dug no new lines - but at each East Berlin stop there were a handful of troops with machine guns to prevent anyone from the East from jumping onto the subway train. You could enter East Berlin through a handful of checkpoints, the most famous being checkpoint Charlie, where you had to exchange 80 West DM for 80 East DM (black market exchange rate was 1 to 40. Nothing to buy for 80 East DM but canned fish, sports books, and beer. I ended up giving the balance to some East German girls I met there who said of my mirrored sunglasses "If we wore these we would be arrested. The authorities must be able to see your eyes." (in German).
History is written by the victors and while Germany did some terrible stuff during the war it was nothing compared to what the Soviets did after it. Communism is the, by far, worst ideology to have existed in modern times. Let's hope it never comes back in the western world.
H B Communism in itself isn't bad, its just that the people in power always tried to Force the System onto people wich naturaly caused them to reject it. Which caused the leadership to become more dictatorial.
Michael Salmon, are you also familiar with Genrikh Yagoda? He was a societ official who killed around 10 million people before the war even started. The Soviets loved killing their own people because it meant less mouths to feed and more terrified people were easier to control. We knew about their atrocities going into the war and yet we still supported them, prolonging the suffering of the russian people for decades. As for the hunger plan, that was a tactic used against the enemy army during war, not against it's own citizens during peace. You may as well condemn all countries that have ever had a war for killing people, which makes no sense. Nobody cares today about christians being persecuted. How many times have you heard about the christians in syria that fear genocide from ISIS? never, you only ever hear about religous persecution when it involves muslims, and it's almost always the muslims doing the persecution despite them being labelled victims. And since Nixon, the US hasn't had any problem with how China tortures it's citizens. And what plans are you talking about? the germans repeatedly begged for mutual disarmament and peace treaties, even offering to dismantle their entire navy and outlaw bombs. Can you imagine a war fought today that didn't involed bombs? that's what hitler wanted. There is no inconsistency, the germans have been slandered and lied about more than any other people in all of history, they were the good guys in WW2.
4 minutes in the talk about Stalin. Some people really need to google and find what Churchill really did, during and even before WW2. It literally was just one brutal guy in slightly better system, braising another brutal guy in a worse system
Wow, from 2:30 to 7:30 I completely forgot I was watching a video about the Berlin Wall. For those 5 minutes I drowned in your WW2 history and illustrations. Outstanding!!
I grew up in East Berlin and I still live in Berlin. What I hated most about the communist was the constant absurd propaganda. You were constantly told that you have to be thankful because you live in the "paradise of the working class". Communists never used the word "Mauer" (Wall) they cynically called it the peace-border, made to protect worldpeace and the people of the GDR. However, in Berlin we had at least the opportunity to secretly receive and watch West German Television and Radio programs, so we had some access to free information.
Well in the stories of my parents, who lived during that time in Thüringen (Thuringia, today right in the middle of Germany) Television and Radio signals were so strong that nearly the whole GDR could receive some west German programs
I always knew Berlin was in the former GDR, but I guess that's because I remembered learning about the Berlin Airlift, which was a pretty amazing feat that I think everyone should be more aware of. Also, I'm surprised some of the atrocities carried out by Russia before, during and after the war weren't more well-known, including literally starving out entire towns and even countries. It's truly tragic.
This video is a beautiful example of someone trying to tell his story by picking out some facts that would fit to present his story, paint them in a color that suits and align them in your head so you all can happily hate together. Thank you forr this very simple minded example about inventing history ; )
I heard in one of your other videos that you're living in Germany. I was wondering if there are a few things you might have picked up from the way people speak English around you through a process called linguistic accommodation. (This is when you start copying the way people speak to be less conspicuous, even to an extent where a specific alteration could be considered an error.) E.g. I heard you say [,Second 'World ,War] which is the typical stress pattern for [,Zweiter 'Welt,krieg] in German. All other native English speakers I know say ['Second 'World 'War] with distinctive word stress on every word in the phrase. Have you always said it like this or is it perhaps an example of linguisitc accommodation?
+InsertTruthHere it's possible. I teacher English, so most of my contact is with non-native speakers. If that is the case, it's most certainly not intentional. Crazy that you picked up on it
I picked up on that too. I'm also a native English speaker and yes, learning and using German on a daily basis for over 10 years has definitely influenced the way I speak English. Pretty much everything I do which involves language (thinking, writing, speaking, etc..) is heavily influenced by both languages. For example, if I'm in a meeting and I take notes, for expedience sake I take them using English words (even though I'm hearing German), but then I write the sentences or idea fragments down using German grammar.
Germans say my german is good. Though I know few words. When speaking though I have a rare trait where I can instantly mimic tone and pace. It is still my voice yet with the accent with whomever I am speaking to. It subconscious for me. Though the times I notice I am doing it I find it odd. Does make it very easy to talk to just about anyone though, and I pick up languages easily. I can even with a high degree of accuracy say foreign names most get wrong. Though that may be due to my knowledge and interest in other cultures and languages. Only problem with being able to say what little I do know in german very well is the native german speakers will then proceed to speak to me in german even after I have notified them that I have exhausted my knowledge of what they are saying.
Berlin, biggest city in western Thuringia, lol. I grew up in divided Germany living in a so-called Sperrgebiet in what is today the Wartburg county (back then Eisenach county in the Erfurt district) - in the area where you actually placed Berlin.
Is it okay to say, that it would've been a very symbolic feature, if you would've waited another 10 days to publish this video, to get it out on the 9th november, which is the date, that the berlin wall fell in 1989? :D I just found your Channel, and i really like what you do there! Keep it up! :)
+THX-0381 That'd be wrong, Palpatine was cunning, Lenin was not, he made a play for armed revolution for socialism in 1905. The refusal has led him to despise social democrats, and when he took over, he led mass arrests against them.
In 1985 did a 30 day rotation in Berlin while stationed in Baumholder, Germany and I was still in Germany, another duty station, when the Berlin Wall was torn down. Areas between the perimeter barriers of the Berlin Wall were mined, not the entire thing. Thousands of them were dug up as they deconstructed the Wall. Portions of the concrete Wall on the inside were also topped with glass and metal shards embedded in the concrete and bridges (even though they ended at the Wall on the opposite bank) that crossed the Rivers Spree and Panke were packed with demolitions that had to be removed during the deconstruction. There were also thousands of land mines between the perimeter barriers of the Inter-German Border. Again, not along the whole thing but in patches that were occasionally removed and moved (or were they?).
I really liked the part at the end where he says that they clapped for 20 minutes for Kennedy and the soviets knowing they could end up dead if they stopped clapping for Stalin, only clapped 11 minutes. Makes you think a little. Good video.
15 minutes just to give the explanation. The Berlin Wall was built around Berlin, there were multiple checkpoints that would permit people of certain nationalities or ranks.
you can try swimming but you'd have to probably get a mile out so the border towers couldn't see you and generally speaking, poor populations don't tend to be very good swimmers
Amazing video. I really like that you quote books, it makes it more real. Subscribed 👍🏻. Btw, what did JFK say? im a non english speaker and i did not get what he was saying.
+Charles Hartmann Yes I am. Therefore I dont judge people by their accent because my english is actually pretty good but my accent is terrible ^^ I think 3 years is not enough to learn a language I had italian at school for 3 years and for me it was very difficult to be honest
"Why didn't Germans just go around the Berlin wall?"
Because in Soviet Union, wall goes around you.
The best I’ve ever read of these
Something that actually makes sense xD
In Soviet Russia, wall build you!
in soviet Russia ice cream truck chase kids
in soviet Russia dance breaks you
Churchill once said "if hitler invaded hell, I'd side with the devil"
Kennedy once said "If I make deal with the devil, Rick will take away the curse using science"
And at the end of the war, Churchill said "we slaughtered the wrong pig"
Good job.
Overly nitpicky here, but he didn't go that far. He only promised a favorable reference to the devil in the house of commons.
Procyon
Well, the devil killed less people than God in the bible. I'd side with the lesser of two evils, the one who didn't kill millions.
Abraham Lincoln said "Never trust quotes you get from the internet. Unless John Oliver posts them. He's actually a decent guy."
My grandfather knew a guy who escaped to west germany by swimming through the baltic sea. He could easily die or be killed, but somehow managed to survive the escape.
Klaufmann "escaped west germany"
@Dillon "escaped TO west germany "
What if he was a very hardcore communist? (Communists were usually persecuted in the west)
No, he wasn't, he just wanted to be free and flee from the communists
Klaufmann Then he ran TO West Germany
Speaking as a 61 year old British man who can remember the Wall going up, I found the whole video instructive, but the very last part, when you compare the applause for Stalin with that for Kennedy very moving. Too many people on the Left have forgotten or have never known of Stalin’s Terror. Possibly, like the Nazi holocaust, it’s magnitude defies our comprehension.
Or possibly, like the Allied bombing of Dresden, being a British man, of a city which had no military installations, killing hundreds of thousands of women and children with firebombs, has eluded you 'cos noone told you that your lovely PM did it.
You mean like saturation bombing of Poland and London in 1939-40 which was well before Dresden? Bombing them because that was where the population was. Tokyo at the end of the war was being firebombed for one reason, force Japan to surrender. Declaring war does not come without risk, and should be done when there is no other choice, but once in it you fight it to win and win quickly.
Alasdair correctly points out that Stalin was a pure monster directly responsible for the death of millions of his own countrymen even before the Germans invaded the Soviet Union. As far as the Allied bombing of Hamburg (40,000 deaths) and Dresden (25.000 deaths), these are truly horrible beyond compare -- unless you compare them to the millions of civilians killed by the Nazi's before and during the war, including the round up and extermination of Jews, Gypsies and political dissidents by Nazi death squads. Sometimes you need to fight fire with fire in order to prevail, and Hitler and his Nazis were not going to give up until all of Germany was scorched earth.
All sides did horrible things and warcrimes. That's a pure fact. Pointing the finger at one another an exaggerating one's warcrimes compared to your country's and others doesn't make you inoccent. From allied bombings of cities ( even some historical landmarks), atomic bombs dropped on civilians, nazi's concentration camps, holocaust, mass executions, soviet destruction of cities, rape, gulags, japanese mass executions, rape of Nanking and extreme cruelty, overall mistreatment of POWs you can see that during war nobody follows the articles of the geneva convention and yet only few people on the losing side were tried for warcrimes (mostly nazis and few japanese). And to anybody saying who is worse communism or fascism, I'll say you that they are nearly the same. Both are authoritarian, use police to spread fear on whoose basis they rule over the people, spreading of propaganda, people worshiping of the leader, political supression. I hope with education and more close connection between different people groups, we will not make the same mistakes as our forefathers and we will strive to overall peace and humans' prosperity.
There is no war without war crimes, without rape, torture and mass-killing of non-combatants. Never was, never will be. The only thing to end this, is putting an end to wars.
Nice job!
Being born in West Berlin in 1981, and raised there, too, I remember the wall quite well. My family was divided in 1961, grandma lived in the western part, her sister in the East. As I kid, I crossed the wall with my parents several times a year, we were searched intensively each time. I remember how there was graffiti all over the western side of the wall -- eastern property, so the western police wouldn't care, and the eastern police didn't have access. And of course, I remember the day of the fall of the wall (that is, the 10th of November 1989, late on the 9th I was already sleeping) and the incredible atmosphere in the city that followed after. You can imagine that history, and especially the history of Berlin has always been an important topic in my family. In case you're doing further research on the topic, I'd be happy to answer questions you might have.
Cheers!
I appreciate it! Was there any fear of the wall going 'back up' or the soviets reversing course?
-Will
An interesting question. There were many East Berliners who came to West Berlin in the night 9th to 10th November 1989 because they thought it was a one time opportunity, and Easterners and Westerners celebrated on the streets all night. Many people didn't go over right away out of fear not to be able to go back home. The next day, the border was still open and more and more people dared to move across. In the following months, people moved from the East to the West in big numbers, which is usually explained with economic incentives, but could of course partially be explained with a fear of reinstallment of the old regime. (Numbers see at the end of this article: www.bpb.de/geschichte/deutsche-einheit/lange-wege-der-deutschen-einheit/47253/zug-nach-westen?p=all)
From the Western perspective, I don't think that many people thought such a comeback would be possible. People believed the words of Gorbachev (who is still highly respected in Berlin, across the political spectrum). The East German political system collapsed too quickly. I remember my dad taking me to Brandenburg gate at some point in winter 89/90 where regular people were busy hammering away at the wall. Through one of the cracks, 8 year old me asked one of the anxious soldiers standing on the death strip what he was still doing there. He couldn't answer the question.
This is great insight! Thank you so much! I was in your city at the start of october and cant wait to go back. History is alive there like no other place ive ever visited!
In case you don't know them yet, I highly recommend the guided tours by Berliner Unterwelten (berliner-unterwelten.de/home.1.1.html) which allow you to enter historic sites hidden underneath the surface of the city. I've been on 3 of their tours, and it was each time fascinating. (They offer tours in German, English, and other languages, but if you're comfortable with it, take a tour in German -- you might be lucky and get an older tour guide who might not speak English but can tell the most incredible stories first hand.) Tour M seems particularly appropriate for the subject at hand.
I read about that. Absolutely on my list! I'm also interested in Teufelsberg and the location of the Wansee conference
6:40 Just because you are woman dosent mean that you arent Nazi.
Zdeněk Šimůnek No, but they most certainly weren't a Nazi soldier.
Atomic Robo Tesla Did anyone talk about Nazi soldiers?
+Zdenek Simunek you can't kill or rape someone just because they are a nazi.
thatoneguy33198 Did anyone talk about raping someone because he is a Nazi?
Zdeněk Šimůnek What I said makes sense with relation to the video.
the structuring of the how long do you clap thing was genius. props to you sir
i cried when he said they clapped 20 min for JFK
everyone's a genius these days. He just knows how to structure a story.
@@listenhealthily everyone's a narcissist these days. You just didn't like the way he was complimented.
And yet, 'Muricans murdered they president... Sorry, but I wouldn't clap 20 min to that
@ Ron Jitter :| eep
why don't the North Koreans just go around the DMZ?
lazy
Cos its easier to cross the River border in the North into China and take your chances from there
Isn't that kinda' going around .....
Steven Attanasso it’s impossible that’s the point. Ain’t how it works
People have gotten out , So , it isn't impossible .... right ?
Note: Churchill and the other allied generals argued furiously with Roosevelt and Eisenhower to push onward to capture Berlin and the rest of Germany, but the Americans didn't want to upset their "Russian Allies". How bitterly ironic given the American anti-communist hysteria of the post-war era, a massive case of shutting the door after the horse has bolted. The Cold War was entirely America's fault.
+psammiad exactly. Churchill was furious at the America decision to sweep Bavaria rather than 'go for the kill'
If by "Upset their Russian Allies," you mean "Completely abrogate the Tehran and Yalta agreements, and start a whole new war in the middle of fighting Japan when we really are hoping the Soviets will attack the Japanese in Manchuria", then you'd be right. But, you're not. The Cold War is the fault of the US? That's.. well, so wrong, it's not even right.
psammiad Because Russia would have had a great chance of winning that conflict.
Michael How many A-bombs would you have dropped and on what targets?
Yeah, that's all pretty much fantasy, and not historically feasible. Not enough bombs, and that's assuming the bomber can get through the heavily contested airspace between the bomber bases and the targets. (And assuming any airfields in Europe can handle a Sliverplate B-29...). Throw in the fact that the Soviets have a 4:1 advantage in men and a 2:1 advantage in tanks... well, there's a reason they called it Operation Unthinkable. Not to mention you still have a war against Japan to win. Not to mention you have to sell this war to the population of the US and the UK. So, yeah, this is pretty much just fantasy.
I learned in German class that the whole "I am a jelly donut" thing is something of a myth. The people who were there understood what he meant just fine.
You learned right. ;-)
It's not a myth that he said "I am a jelly donut". But the crowd knew what he meant, in the same way you know what someone means when they incorrectly use their/they're/there.
My main source is a German teacher (who was German) that was an adult in Germany in 1963. I see Wikipedia calls it a misconception, but goes on to confuse that with talk about regional differences. Think about this: "I am English" vs. "I am an English" ... an English what? One might think "muffin". Though German sentence structure is different. Some things don't translate precisely. "May I be permitted?" = "may I help you". Translation can be an art. But in determining what Germans listening to the speech thought, I would go with Germans who listened to the speech over Wikipedia.
No one understands "we'll have turkey for dinner" as "we'll have Turkey for dinner". Just the same with Kennedy. You would think he said "I'm a donut" only if he visibly looked like one.
Also, "ein Berliner" with the indefinite article ("a" in English) is completely correct in German, you don't need something after it. :)
rapturedmourning It's a myth created by a book author and spread by an English newspaper years after the speech. There is no single German newspaper of that particular time, that reported about this issue, because there was no issue. There were also a ton of Germans, do you think, Kennedy didn't ask at least one of them, if this sentence is correct? Kennedy quoted "civis romanus sum", said "All free men are citizen of Berlin" and spoke in German "Ich bin ein Berliner.". The context is therefore clear. The myth is focussing on the indefinite article, which should be left out, but there is no need to leave it out, because the indefinite article does not change the meaning from a citizen to a donut, the context does. Kennedy could have said "Ich bin Berliner.", but in my opinion, as a German, I would always add the indefinite article to emphasize, what Kennedy really meant.
You see when Germany had a wall they didn't have illegal immigrants.
WolfPlayer godamn nazi
WolfPlayer cupple of thousand dead, tortured, unfree people on the other side tho.
and even tho they killed people who tried to pass, some did it. so a wall is no help
Doctor Fallout ...what
Let's not give Trump the idea to ditch building a wall, but building a minefield instead..
Because nobody wanted to go to the fucking DDR.
One of the most extraordinary escape stories is Holga Bithcke. His brother, Ingo, swam to freedom over the Elbe River, waited for him in an empty building in the West, directly opposite the wall from the building he was using to escape from. He fired a wire across to the building opposite and zip wired across to the West. The extraordinary thing about his escape from East Germany was that he and his Brother stumbled upon a blind spot between watch towers, so the Stasi got the East German authorities and through it the Soviet Union to build another watch tower in the area where the escape occurred, to make sure it couldn't happen again
Why won't Mexicans just go around the Trump Wall?
Too much water.
Zazozi Turtle To many tacos
Zonrox Bleach Too heavy tacos to swim
+Mad Tad : They will. People cross the Mediterranean sea to get to European shores and Cubans take to the gulf to enter the US. Neither wall nor glorified fence will stop people from doing the same once the Mexican border becomes too arduous to cross. In that light, Trump's infrastructure project is little more than a giant gift to the human trafficking business.
Mexicans will go under it, like they already do. Mexicans have become so good at tunneling that the London Underground just swapped a Tunnel Boring Machine for 50 Mexicans and progress on the new HS2 line has doubled!
The "Ich bin ein Berliner"-quote is great in and of itself, but its so much more awesome, when it's set up right
Explain to a German, when it is set up right, when not in this speech.
i think he meant with the context and tone of the video. The guy set up the moment well so it seems more meaningful.
love the 20 mins reference compared to 11 mins, brilliantly done.
20 min of free demonstration against 11 min forced
How many minutes would Mr. Trump get?
For many Trump's victory represented a successful strike against american communists who already did a lot of harm.
"How many times"
That heartbreaking greeting
Meanwhile German soldiers asked each other "How many?"
holy shit I didn't expect this video to be so damn deep
+The Generic WoLF glad you liked it
same! From the title I expected a shitpost like "duh why didn't they just walk around it these dumbasses" but then it turned out to be actual historical insight and I was pleasantly surprised XD
👓 Same here. I learned quite a bit as well. Definitely subbed.
I don't know how to deal with this feel.
Yeah same
Hey, I am born in late 1965 in former West-Berlin and lived there for almost 11 years, as my parents decided to move to Western Germany.
Your Video shows a very good job in historical facts about this city! Chapeau!
Scheiß Ossi
Scheiss Wessi
Mal ohne Witz - ist das dein Ernst?
Meinst du mich
Nein.
@williamcfox
Other Interesting Videos About Berlin!
***“Berlin [full 1 hour version] (Rew Boss) **czcams.com/video/IZQbTEZdM_g/video.html** ***
BBC Doc, History of Berlin: czcams.com/video/ds12det7jZk/video.html
Berlin 1945 in HD & Color: czcams.com/video/R5i9k7s9X_A/video.html
“Why Was A Wall Built Around West Berlin” (Seeker) czcams.com/video/W7YE-N448fg/video.html
Great video! Thanks for the history lesson :D
+Riley The Ultronist thank you for watching! More to come
great video. I am impressed of your knowledge. It is good to see that young people are educated and know the stuff we had to live through. Keep on going - greetings from Berlin!
Political Junkie its DDR not GDR
***** in English it is called GDR
1976, I had a 6th grade school teacher that argued with me about the wall. She asked if I believed there is a physical wall there. I said yes, she said I was stupid. There is no wall. My father, a WWII Army soldier was up there the next day to have a little talk with them. She was made to apologize to me in front of the whole class and admit a 6th grade student was smarter than she is. I see this type of stupidity even today, in schools and elsewhere.
A teacher should at least have their kids show research, rather than tell them that they are wrong. This is why schools are so bad these days. Good for you.
The teacher didn't apologise to you for being stupider than you, that's pretentious, she apologised for miseducating young minds.
And how do you know I wasn't there? You weren't there... Stupid logic.
But you also weren't there to confirm... Only a child would reply to this in that way.
With balance of probability it shouldn't be hard to listen to the reason in my sentence.
BUILD THE WALL!! BUILD THE WALL!!!!!! Oh wait, different wall..
bliglum its nowhere near the same thing. This was a wall to Isolate, Trumps wall (Which is stupid) is just to stop illegal immigration (Which will still happen since most illegal immigrants come in legally and just outstay their Visa
MrIzzy5466
Well yeah, that's why I said "different wall".. You're right though, Trump's wall is stupid. A 19 billion dollar project that could be defeated by a 19 dollar ladder! Haha!
By your original comment I thought you were saying that its a different wall but the same concept which as you know is clearly not the case.
+MrIzzy5466 both walls are built on fear and control of the masses.
No. Trumps wall is a display of power that he hopes will keep out illegal immigrants. It has nothing to do with fear nor control of the masses
Came to this video thinking "well duh, the wall was a circle around the entire city..." after watching the video I thought "how is Berlin still an actual city today and not like a giant cemetery?"
It's quite a fine city. You should visit...but watch for that Berliner nose.
Berlin is far from an economic powerhouse. It’s still eating up a lot of German tax money from other regions, even though it’s the capital.
infographic.statista.com/small/11515_b.jpg
There were highways and railways that could be used for travel to West Berlin from the rest of West Germany, and an airlift of needed goods when those were sealed off for a while.
+This could be your advertisement Now you know (part of) the reason why Berlin can not be really compared to other German cities economically.
Berlin is a city many would consider the most interesting city to visit in not only Europe but the world. It's brimming with history, culture, activities, arts, music, everything. But more importantly is that for the capitol of such a wealthy country, Berlin is incredibly run down and poor. It has this certain grimey-ness to it, like it still is long from recovering from WW2 and Soviet control. Do yourself a favor and go there, but you'll need at least a week just to get your toes wet.
It was never the wall that kept them in, but the rifle.
izdagrimeyone well kilometers of self shoting fences are keeping them in. So it was the wall
Da Ve well people could simply use other means like a tall ladder or simply digging under but it was the rife that was going to shoot them if they popped their heads out that stopped them.
March 22nd 2013 sure. Or mines. Or the self shooting fences. Or if they had still family in the DDR.
March 22nd 2013 they also had methods against the digging. And a lot of dangerous dogs...
+da ve, there were no "self shooting" fences. Rather, trip-wire based mines that acted like a cannon for a single shot.
Older video, watching in 2018, but it earned you a sub... time to see what else you have made! :)
November 2019 here
2021 here
@@hello-friend990 ³
Taking Berlin would have cost 100,000 men. The allies decided they would rather it be 100,000 Soviets, so they didn't march on the city.
Ever heard about "Race for Berlin"?
There was no race, that's just propaganda for troops and public. Occupation territories were already agreed and set between allied powers in Yalta. And taking Berlin would not cost no where near as much for western allies as it did for soviets. At that point germans hadn't much will to fight except against soviets because they knew what was coming for them(by soviets). Americans reached Elbe weeks before battle of berlin and turned south to occupy future american zone. Crossing Elbe was prohibited by Eisenhower to avoid any problems with Soviets.
Kognak There was a race, but it was between rival leaders of the Soviet military. Each wanting the prestige of taking the city. But you're correct the allies never tried to take the city. They could have gotten their first if they chose to, but 100,000 men was to high a price to pay.
If the Western Allies were to have taken Berlin, they would have lost way less men then the Soviets due to better military strategies. The Soviets killed off so many of their generals in Stalin's purges, that they weren't able to defend against the German invasion, and as a result, they lost millions of more soldiers and civilians than they had to.
If we cared about lives we'd have never gone into the war to begin with. Another 100,000 dead was nothing that was going to dissuade us from another campaign. In hindsight we did the wrong thing. It is as simple as that. But at the time the Allies did not completely understand the Soviet threat.
I had the same misconception about east and west Berlin's location when I was young.
Love your videos :)
yea same
I had it until a few years ago when my sister's family went to Berlin. I was born in 1963 and my only excuse is that this was a really strange situation.
Soliloquy I actually knew that Berlin was far to the east, but I assumed that the borders of West and East Germany were also far east, at Berlin. Meaning that West Germany was a lot larger.
My Dad was in the British military, I visited West Berlin as a child in the 80's. I saw the wall went right around West Berlin. I saw this long open space going around the city and I thought they should turn it into a race track, like the Indy 500 with super fast cars. Just a couple of years later, the wall came down. I was so disappointed when they didn't turn it into a race track.
My mother had papers and we drove through East Germany to meet up with my father in Berlin one time. I didn't really understand but the drive was really quiet. The place was atmospheric and I felt relief when we got to West Berlin. I didn't have to understand to know everything about this felt wrong.
Quite sad that I learned more about this part of history of my country online than in all of the history classes I had. All we ever got to hear was how bad we germans are for having started the 2nd world war.
look at the world now. I would say some one was on to something.
calebsone1 What are you trying to say?
Germany did not start the Second World War. France, and England did. They both declared war on Germany. Not the other way around. What Germany was doing in Poland was none of either of their business. Technically it was the bastards that drafted the Treaty of Versailles that planted the seeds of WW2. Which is why WW2 ended much differently.
CivilAviation1 I am saying globalist ran banking was the greatest threat and the only way to build a nation is to re-build from with in.
calebsone1 Oh, yeah. He had good intentions but the wrong solution.
in germany we've always had the conflict between west (wessis) and east (ossis) germans. i was born in munich in 1999 and i have always wondered why this competition between the sides existed. i have realised that even though some people may seriously despise the other part of my country, unity is the reason for the competition.
we were a country divided by walls, borders and political ideals and we aren't deniing that. the fact that we make jokes about ossis being stale and wessis being spoiled is because we acknowledge that we were separated and culturally devided by the times. but the wind of change tore the wall down and we were united again as brothers and sisters, but not as the same people we were before. the wall will always remain in our minds as a horrible wound but acknowledging the scar it made helps. it shows that we survived after decades of tyranny and opression.
so as a citizen of munich i hereby declare: ich bin ein berliner.
We have major problems with socialist/communists in Sweden today!
@@petter5721 Extreme left is a huge problem all over Europe...
@Nick Pease labour parties are left wing sdp liberals anyone from centre right to far left are nazis.
I guess it takes one to know one ^^
unlike you I am Protestant and clearly you are confused who really made this Europe...
Did I just find the Vsauce of history?
KvatchIsInDanger Hmm..I dont think so. Vsauce is.. I dont know all of CZcams but I bei Vsauce is unique in every way (e.g. there are many gaming and commedy channels). He associates science with philosophy in his own style.
I cant explain it and because you know Vsauce you know what I am talking about. :D
Some videos step so deeply in fundamatal questions of live, thinking, etc without mentioning the issue itself (compare his latest video).
This video and the producer definitely handle things other (other(!) not bad but also not like Vsauce).
Professor Eisenoxid Yeah. Michael's not like an expert, he's just really good at creating content that involves facts which weave together nicely and amazingly.
The hyperlink style of writing is similar. The difference is this guy manages to be on topic.
KvatchIsInDanger STOP! YOU VIOLATED THE LAW!
No. Vsauce is more of a popular info not pure intellectual info. So its for everyone, like dummies to like. This is more specilized.
10 minutes of applauding is still totally normal in at least one of the partys here in Germany.
***** A mixture, I guess.
NexoFX ISKU yeah in the fucking AfD. they'll clap n clap n clap. the first one who stops looses their social security = starvs to death, cause they all have no jobs lol.
Very well done young man, My hat is off to you. As a long retired military veteran it does my heart good to see a young person take such a serious interest in history. Your information and delivery was spot on and very professional. I only wish that more of America's youth had the discipline and respect that you show for such an important subject. Keep up the good work, you have yet another subscriber and I look forward to what is to come.
MM1 Robert Davis, US Navy, Retired.
What you're not taking into account is that the majority of East Germans were quite happy to stay, especially at the beginning. Their homes, jobs, schools and families were there and there was full employment, good free medical care etc. Don't make the mistake, as most Americans do, of assuming that your system is what everyone wants.
Our system isn't perfect, but it's significantly better than the Soviet system. A country that has to build a wall to keep its own population inside doesn't seem particularly livable.
wonderful hook, the applause length...
You missed the point that the USA gave their "permission" or at least they said: Hey, you guys can do this.
From Wikipedia about J. William Fulbright:
On 30 July 1961, two weeks before the erection of the Berlin Wall, Fulbright said in a television interview, "I don't understand why the East Germans don't just close their border, because I think they have the right to close it."
Kennedy subsequently refused to distance himself from Fulbright’s observation, which suggests that he asked Fulbright to make this statement as a way of signaling to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev that the building of a wall would be viewed by the United States as an acceptable way of defusing the Berlin Crisis.
According to Dean Rusk, they were ironical about Fulbright's comments. Southerners had seen commitments to other countries as a drag
This video is straight up 10/10.
Frosmad this video is full of bs
why is that?
Because that wall wasn't erected "in secret", just for starters. Hiding a construction project of that magnitude is impossible to hide, even the host should realize that. The title of the video alone is an atrocity.
You regretted the Germans, but you forgot that the West betrayed Poland and gave the whole country to Stalin.
Frosmad - If this video is so great, then WHY does he use an image of the US M113 APC (adopted in 1960) when talking about WWII? There's sufficient BS in this video if you don't know history.
At the end of March 1945, the allies had crossed the Rhine, with Berlin 300 km away with the Elbe river in the way. The Soviets, however, were 30 km away at that point. There was no way that the allies could have been the first to reach Berlin after the failure of Operation Market Garden, whose object was to seize a bridge over the Rhine in the Netherlands via airborne landings in September of '44, remembered as "The bridge too far". Additionally, Hitler took large numbers of men and equipment off the Eastern front and threw them at the allies in the Battle of the Buldge, in a hopeless attempt to repeat the 1940 strike through the Arden that resulted in the encirclement of the British Expeditionary Force and the Cream of the French army that ended in Dunkirk and French surrender. The hope was to defeat the allies and then concentrate everything on the Soviets, but it only resulted in the Soviets capturing more of Europe. So the allies didn't "Give" the Soviets Berlin, just as much as the didn't give them Poland, whose independence was the whole reason the war started for Britain and France in the first place. Actually, it's incredible that the allies actually ended up with 3/4 of it. In the end though, what was Berlin really worth? The allies captured most of the country, and most importantly, the industrial center that is the Ruhr valley, creating the prosperity that made West Germany recover so well.
How many kilos are in a mile?
Yeah they did give the Soviets a lot of land. Consider Poland.
Poland wasn't "given". Soviets put a puppet regime in place, just like USA planned to do in France. The allies considered the option of going to war against USSR to free Poland (Operation unthinkable)
The allies left the soviet advancing because they seem not to care about casualties, there were more people killed taking Chzechoslovakia than all the casualties of the occupation since it's invasion, absurd given what was left of Germany. The allies were way more careful about the losses while Zuckov said "The russian women will make more children". It takes a monster to defeat a monster
@@kalyka98 again, that is false, it is well known that the allies tried to rush to berlin as they already distrusted Stalin
Why didn't Colombus just go around the Atlantic?
Titan Uranus He tried,but America blocked his way
Becuase it would take him 3 weeks just to go around it
Colombus didn't cross the atlantic?
Why didn't he just go around it?
Colombus was Americans first real authentic serial killer
They weren't seeking retribution.
If that were the case, Berlin would be the only city having suffered such fate, but the same thing happened in other capitals, that were overrun by the read army, regardless of their contribution to the war.
(Not to mention the encouragement of rape and looting, Stalin's personal approval (and enjoyment) of prolonged torture, assisted by medical care to nurture up the victims for another round... you are simply painting Stalin's world in an unrealistically bright light)
all sides committed atrocities. Terror bombing being the worst imo.
Imo gang raping eight year olds is way more evil than bombing.
The Ghastly Varangian nope
The Ghastly Varangian
Said eight year old has a chance to recover, dead people don't.
Also 1 eight year old matter less than hundreds of thousands or millions.
4f747265626f72
The USSR was member of the allies.
Thus their war crimes count into the allied total, beginning with mass executions of polish elite (in tens if not hundreds of thousands), then continuing with intentional starving of ukraine, and mass rape and looting in every major city the red army "freed".
But even if you don't count soviets you still have war crimes in all but name committed by the allies.
Ms bombing of civilian areas to destroy morale, is nothing more or less than genocide.
Look up firebombing raids against japan, or bombing of major german cities.
Singular raids killed more civilians than the total number killed during the London blitz.
You are either an ignorant fool, or an ideologically motivated hypocrite.
Thanks for not making stalin into a fucking hero like so many do
So many?
Nixon Dixon I guess youre from america. What you learn in school very right (i mean the political opposite of left). In germany we learn both sides of the story an that the americans also were part if the problem...
Edit: Im from what used to be west germany. So what ive learnt definetly isnt communist propaganda ;)
Give me a link to one. I have NEVER seen a positive one. I think you live on a different planet?
they made stalin into a meme, he was even worse than fucking hitler...
Stalin was one of if not the most horrible person in history. He was much worse than Hitler, for god's sake. These are just facts, doesn't matter if you're right wing or left wing, it's undeniable.
To add to such confusion, if you took the "Subway" or the "Elevated" trains(the U-Bahn and S-Bahn), they went right though the forbidden zones! Western trains went through East Berlin, and vice versa! One could see out-of-bounds places right out the window!
I read that there were two U-Bahn stations in East Berlin that closed. It was because a West Berlin train ran through them.
@@GoodVideos4 yeah many subway stations were def closed and in quite disrepair...and the subway just passed through it in slow motion....even right in the center of Berlin!
and dont forget U-Friedrichstrasse back in those days, which was a main hub for us West Berliner to get cheap smokes ( nowadays we have the Vietnamese ha ha ) and alcohol....we could walk on a certain designated path and go to the Intershop to buy all the goodies with Deutsch Mark.
@@GoodVideos4 Several stations on two lines.
Stalin was worst than Hitler but let's accept Soviet played the most important role in defeating Germany, unfortunately
Junaid Khan fick dich
It's sad this idiotic cold war myth about "Stalin killed more than Hitler" is still alive.
Maybe because its no myth. I would'nt dare to say who was worse,
but Stalin objectively was responcible for more deaths overall,
if just because the soviet union got more citizens and Stalin killed
friend or foe alike, were as Hitler and his nazi party mostly killed
the ones who they saw as unworthy or willing to act treason
against their system.
Zelen Ilum "Were as Stalin was THE one to order allmost
all of these deaths. He had noone to make decisions for him like hitler did." - that's completely false, you should really do more research on that, because right now you see Stalin as some kind of Austin Powers movie villain. Which is quite silly for real life politics.
"But thats like saying you murdered 30 people,
because you drove drunk and rammed another car, that caused a massive car accidend." - that actually does mean that you killed 30 people, both legally and logically.
Mocsk Regarding dictators who
were the most "independent", Stalin takes number one. Mostly to the fact that he switched his councilors and primes like others change their t-shirts. Putin on the other hand (not saying he is a dictator) is much more depending on his political elite.
Hitler was strongly influenced and dependend
on the economic elite and gave the persecution of many of his ideologies into his councilors hands.
Regarding my example. Please read it again.
I sayd "It is like saying you MURDERED 30 people...". That is legaly and logic wise a big difference to killing someone.
I never knew the context of JFK's quote. I actually had shivers going down my spine when I heard it.
FoxGoalie you mean that time jfk tried to speak german and accidentally called himself a jelly donut?
ChizBiz OMFG WHERE IS THAT?
+Jakob Kendall
Ich bin ein Berliner.
+MMIGhost Had he been in Frankfurt he might have said "Ich bin ein Frankfurter" Either way "ein Berliner" was common parlance, at the time, for a hot dog sausage. Oops!
Martin Heath hot dog sausage??? No!!! A Berliner is a something like donut without the hole and jam inside it
In soviet russia, hands clap YOU!
Just found this video from a link to a link. You did it so well. The finale of the applause time was such a fantastic payoff from the entire story.
You have an excellent presentation style and I hope to see all your other videos. Really well done.
Cuz they didn't have Dora the Explorer
?
E X T R A T H I C C dora the rapist
:D
if you have a fetish for latin kids its nice
As a German I already knew all this but it's always nice to refresh my knowledge on that topic. It's a really well made video! Good job!
MrsCitty did you know as a treu deutce das panzerkamphwagen s43.3kwz was made out of plastic and Kan schissen mit die popsicles. Das is how much truewarcheit dies video hast
@@eXTreemator most stupid comment.
JFK: I am a donut
The words of a true hero
You're really amazing, you're not just providing facts, you're actually telling stories. Really inspiring.
How many times? Yeah, calling BS that rape victims would so casually speak about it with each other in a food queue.
Well if rape becomes a casual thing I don't see why it's impossible for people to talk about it casually.
Soviets and Nazis, both are awful in their own ways.
Juan López is an inhuman fool. People who undergo trauma look for support where they can get it. And nobody said anything was "casual."
Wow, this video is about so much more than what the title implies! Stalin, man. I never knew the story about the applauding. That is crazy!
It is kind of opposite of clickbait:)
Mr. Beat that clapping story is about all I remember being taught about Stalin at school.
Clap or die...Wow. A different type of "Bow down and worship or else."
That's Democratic Socialism for you... mass murdering people since 1917
Katrina S The path of socialism is paved with tyranny and terror.
Listening to JFK speak and you realise how a leader in the Free World should communicate
The "free" world.
@Tubemax68 𝚈𝚘𝚞 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚊 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚖𝚞𝚗𝚒𝚜𝚝/𝚜𝚘𝚌𝚒𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝, 𝙸 𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚞𝚖𝚎?
Good video! I hope everyone in west will watch it and not because of the Wall only - everyone in the world must understand the price of freedom. Its not granted. I'm 40 years old and from Estonia, one of the Baltic states. I remember.
Its good to be on the other side of the iron wall/curtain now :)
As a German who has had that topic every half a year from fifth to thirteenth grade, this was fascinating to me. I totally see how you'd fill in the gaps and go, Berlin must be here, and the wall divides the city state, not the country, so just walk around. And seeing the views on this, it seems to be a common misconception, so thank you very much for clearing that up.
+Mokona127 thanks for watching and commenting. It seems like people are divided- many shared the misconception, and many think I'm an idiot for ever having the misconception. I'm glad I didn't fully understand because it allowed to to explore the topic more as an adult.
I just told my flatmate about the premise of the video, and he said he always thought so, too, being a native German with a decent education and all. So no worries about that. ^^ Btw, I just wrote you an email for translation stuff, in case you revisit German history or politics at any point. (I also got my linguistic youtubers NativLang and Name Explain confused, I apologize.)
+Mokona127 just responded. I really appreciate the offer to help!
I think (hope?) it's only younger generations (born after 1975) that don't know the wall circled the entire western side. My sister was born inside that wall.
This has to be one of the best video I've seen. Applaud to the host
"i am a jelly doughnut" - JFK
yep lol
Soo... I'm a complete Ossi. Both my parents were born in East Berlin and by the time the Berlin Wall fell, my dad was in the National Folksarmy, which he was basically bullied to go into. He had to serve for I believe 2 1/2 years and when the protests in East Berlin and Germany got more and more heavy around 1989, there were rumours going on that his division would be used to forcefully crush the protests. He told me that all of them sat down (of course not the higherranking ones) and decided that they would collectively disobey any such order, should it come. But he also told me that one of his school friends, who volunteered for the army, was completely hooked for the GDR and would have gladly fought against civilians for it.
I'm just glad such an order never came and the Wall fell so... well, peaceful in the end.
My Mother was born in 1942 in Berlin, her father died the same year in the winter near moscow. My grandmother that lived through the hell of the Russian occupation died this year a few months ago peacefully aged 95 among loving family here in Australia. Berlin is my favorite city, and a huge part of my family's history. I've read much about this topic, but it was nice to see a video summing up what happened to Berlin quite well. I miss my Oma.
I currently teach a small group of German Seniors every other week, and the stories they have of that time are incredible. I'm sure your Oma was a treasure chest of history.
Cheers.
-Will
Thank you Will. She was. I had grandparents on both sides of the war, almost literally fighting each other. Aussie Grandfather captured by the Germans, and German grandfather fighting the Russians. Yet against all odds, here I am. Thank you for your reply and for running an awesome channel. - Mick
+Tree my grandmother was a nurse on the American side. That's was a very dark time for everyone but it's great love stories like your parents that put a little light in the future.
Have a good one,
Will
Grandparents, I mean!
Really good video, I am from Germany my self and this video is really moving. Also you did an amazing job of presenting everything
+Trickster Key vielen dank, Trickster. That's very nice of you to say. See you for the next video!
Whoever have gone to Berlin and saw the wall could see that the actual wall is actually not a big deal. The problem was the booby traps and guardians surrounding it.
I saw the Berlin Wall in 1986. I also saw the border between West and East Germany. The wall would not have been a big deal if that's all there was to it and you had a ladder. But well-motivated soldiers with machine guns were a pretty good deterrent. I remember the lady at the border crossing who carried a machine gun and asked me if I was carrying any illegal transmitters or explosives.
By 1986 they had removed the horrifying explosives in the Eastern side of the wall: shaped charges that blasted dozens of 4mm cubes of iron at anyone who tripped the wires.
Anyone who says this was to protect East Germany from the evils of Capitalism is a liar.
10:31 "the spying eyes of the Stasi" is a helicopter from west German border patrol ;-)
10:00 some of these towers and other fortifications still stand there. If you drive to Berlin over the A2 Autobahn, it's impossible to miss them. I get shivers over my spine every time I cross the "border".
15:00 and those words always give me tears in my eyes.
ahouyearno i recently visited Berlin this summer, i arrived by train in what was once East Berlin. As I walked from that train station to visit the Brandenburg Gate I came across what I thought was a park with some kind of art fencing around it. As I continued to walk I noticed a date 1961 on the side of a building, I looked behind me and a line was drawn where this fencing was currently standing. It was then the gravity of the situation hit me, I had walked from East Berlin into West Berlin. I can not tell you just how powerful that moment was too me, as an American who had only read about the division of Germany; to be there in person and see it first hand blew me away. I agree with Kennedy when he said Ich bin ein Berliner. I hope Germany continues to be a becon of hope for all Europe, do not let fear tear your country apart.
John Temperato Indeed. Have you seen checkpoint charlie too? The actual inner city border crossing? It's surreal.
Also surreal is the fact that Germany is currently the least racist country in the world while the USA has a presidential candidate that is closest to Hitler than anyone in living memory. I personally believe that "wir schaffen das" is just as significant as "ich bin ein Berliner"
That's how I felt when I visited Berlin. It really hits you hard when you see in pictures the same place your embassy now stands, but fenced in and guarded by Soviets.
Amazing city and I can't wait to go back!
Political Junkie it's by far the most beautiful capital city of western Europe (imho). Coupled with history that's relevant to this day ...
Have you read Chrisitane F? We also walked along the Babystrich at the K'Damm and it's sad to see that nothing has changed in that regard for over 30 years :(
ahouyearno I haven't read it. What is it?
Earned yourself a sub. You're just a tad under 16k right now, I don't doubt you will be at 30, 50, 100k before we know it.
+Defective happy to have earned it. I hope to keep it. Thank you for the kind words.
-Will
So many Titch memes everywhere PogChamp
Hah, almost 3k subs in a few days! Here good sir, have another one.
29k 14 hours later...
31k mark beaten. :)
Just a small tidbit, West Berlin was technically not part of West Germany. It had the same laws, institutions, and all that, but was de jure a seperate state. Made it a popular destination for young men who didn't want to serve in the German military, as citizens of West Berlin weren't conscripted by the Bundeswehr.
A very well made doco. Having been born in '72, I grew up in a world with 2 Germanies, I always found it rather ironic, and (when I was much younger, quite confusing) the East Germany's official name was the German Democratic Republic. It was quite a surreal period in time, watching how all the Eastern Bloc countries, took back their citizenship, so to speak. To all those too young to remember or to have seen it with their own eyes, albeit on TV in my case, watching the East Germans chipping away at the Berlin Wall, back in October '89, it was a sight to behold!!! It also took a lot of getting use to, the fact that there was one Germany again. I have a circa 1987 world globe, all the old borders, country names, etc. How the world has changed in just the last 30 years.
how hard was it to cross the border between east and west Germany? (not berlin)
Because there too was a border. The whole German border was 1400km long.
Soldiers of the NVA and policemen of the StaSi were patroling them.
This and the knowlage of what happens to the people beeing caught, caused a drop in fugitives.
However there were many attempts made, many succseeded many did not.
Sry missread the question. Well it wasn't as hard as in Berlin, but it wasn'T easy either.
The border all thorughout Germany was highly guarded, because russia not only feared an exudus but also the US troops comming across.
So these borders were guarded. And another big thing was the StaSi. At that time everyone was spied on. Most people were used as IM (infromal members of the StaSi) that meant the StaSi would apporach somone, and uced pressure to make them talk about neighburs and family.
With that system the StaSi had everyone spying on everyone, making it therefore nrealy impossible to talk about fleeing, and with nobody talking about it, noone would get enough infomation(where patrols were, when to flee, who to talk to) in order to cross the border.
Most attempts were stopped long before they tried.
However there was a small group within the BND and the CIA (German and US secret agencies) who risked a lot to get across the border to smuggle high value targets out of East Germany.
Was I possible to trable by water to sweden Or denmark?
Travle*
There were actually quite a few - not really many in the grand scale of things - who went with tiny craft (rowboats or similar) or even swimming towards international waters, hoping to get picked up by some western or at worst Finnish ship (Finland was leaning heavily towards the west at that time but had to keep up appearance with their big neighbor USSR, look up "Finlandization"). A relative of mine swam until getting picked up by the Finjet.
First time watching your channel. I like it very much. Keep up the good work!
Andrew Durkiewicz me as well. Decided to sub. Think it will be worth it.
Daistar Gaming. me too
I'm a very active user here in YT and I hadn't seen a video that good for months! Keep up with the good work!
Which parts of YT do you normally spend time on?
The Heyayayayayayayayaya!!!!!!! parts.
"Ich bin ein berliner!"
"I am a jelly donut!"
Translations can be fun... :D
That's actually a myth translate to I am a Berliner
I'm surprised people are still saying this nonsense, when he says the phrase no one is laughing the applause is nothing short of thunderous... Besides they don't call them berliners in Berlin but mainly in the countryside.
@@squeaky9715
It's not a myth translation, it comes from the fact that the people from Berlin, a Berliner, is called the same as a famous jelly donut "Berliner". A lot of food here has funny names like that. There is also one famous German pastries called "American" and others.
Should he just said Ich bin Berliner? Omit the word ein.
@@gfree4173
No, the original sentence is correct. It seems like English examples are kinda hard to find.
A sentences like „I am right“
can mean „I am correct“,
or it can mean „i am directionally on your right side“.
Or „I got a band“, do you mean you have a music band or a colored hairband?
The context here is important, and the context about Kennedy’s speech was about the people of Berlin and not the Jelly donut^^
It seems like those kind of words are called homonyms, just google it yourself xD I am not good at explaining.
It's so bizarre to see your videos in my recommended list. Love your stuff, Will.
+RisenChudJr dude, crazy to see you in my comment section!
You look much better in the video then you do in this yhumb picture. This lill photo makes you look more like an old fart...i sugest a new photo...maebe a fresh change of shirt too?! =P
so beautifully told. the ending brought me to tears.
I can't believe the Cold War. All because the Americans refused to hand over Moose and Squirrel.
I don't know what that means.
Rocky and Bullwinkle.
TheY2AProblem what?
This is a great video with a phenomenal ending. It’s so great I’ve actually come back to it after watching a couple years ago. Ich bein ein Berliner!
My mother is German and she would always have tears when talking about the Berlin Wall. I knew what it was about, but I have to say that I got immersed into your video. I understood what Stalin was (I knew he was evil, but man..) and that big political mistakes have been made. The world could have had a whole new face. Thank you
Berlin city of the dead? Try stalingrand...wasnt a city after the battle ended, it was hell on earth.
"My dear brother! Sorry about the messy handwriting, my hands are frostbitten and my head’s confused. We’ll never get out of here. The breakthrough won’t happen. We’re all dead here - it’s just that we don’t decompose, because of the Russian frost." Helmut Quantz, German soldier, January 24
On a bit lighter note, i found this funny.
"November 19 1942, the Russian troops start to encircle the Germans in the city, Operation Uranus."
Well if the Germans didn't attack Stalingrad they wouldn't have gotten themselves in that position. What Russians did there was genius.
Metro Gaming I wouldn't call throwing millions of your men away genius, they sent some soldiers there without a rifle as they didn't have enough
Evil is not an excuse to do evil.
It was not because of the Russian frost, it is because of Soviet soldiers who kicked nazi asses.
I just chanced upon this video in my recommended videos, seriously amazingly done. I was fixed on my screren for the full video.
I visited East Berlin before the wall came down and it was quite interesting. You could get to West Berlin by train through East Germany but the train only stopped in a couple places and there were troops with machine guns at each stop. Same with the U-bahn (subway) that ran from West Berlin to East Berlin and back to West Berlin - they dug no new lines - but at each East Berlin stop there were a handful of troops with machine guns to prevent anyone from the East from jumping onto the subway train. You could enter East Berlin through a handful of checkpoints, the most famous being checkpoint Charlie, where you had to exchange 80 West DM for 80 East DM (black market exchange rate was 1 to 40. Nothing to buy for 80 East DM but canned fish, sports books, and beer. I ended up giving the balance to some East German girls I met there who said of my mirrored sunglasses "If we wore these we would be arrested. The authorities must be able to see your eyes." (in German).
Gee, it's almost like the good guys lost the war.
John Doe In history, the good guys are the ones who won.
History is written by the victors and while Germany did some terrible stuff during the war it was nothing compared to what the Soviets did after it. Communism is the, by far, worst ideology to have existed in modern times. Let's hope it never comes back in the western world.
H B Communism in itself isn't bad, its just that the people in power always tried to Force the System onto people wich naturaly caused them to reject it. Which caused the leadership to become more dictatorial.
Michael Salmon, are you also familiar with Genrikh Yagoda? He was a societ official who killed around 10 million people before the war even started. The Soviets loved killing their own people because it meant less mouths to feed and more terrified people were easier to control. We knew about their atrocities going into the war and yet we still supported them, prolonging the suffering of the russian people for decades.
As for the hunger plan, that was a tactic used against the enemy army during war, not against it's own citizens during peace. You may as well condemn all countries that have ever had a war for killing people, which makes no sense.
Nobody cares today about christians being persecuted. How many times have you heard about the christians in syria that fear genocide from ISIS? never, you only ever hear about religous persecution when it involves muslims, and it's almost always the muslims doing the persecution despite them being labelled victims. And since Nixon, the US hasn't had any problem with how China tortures it's citizens.
And what plans are you talking about? the germans repeatedly begged for mutual disarmament and peace treaties, even offering to dismantle their entire navy and outlaw bombs. Can you imagine a war fought today that didn't involed bombs? that's what hitler wanted.
There is no inconsistency, the germans have been slandered and lied about more than any other people in all of history, they were the good guys in WW2.
But is it even possible to have a communist country without it quickly turning authoritarian?
Fantastic video, a rare quality find on youtube. Thank you so much.
You haven't been on CZcams that long, ¿Have you?
4 minutes in the talk about Stalin.
Some people really need to google and find what Churchill really did, during and even before WW2. It literally was just one brutal guy in slightly better system, braising another brutal guy in a worse system
Wow, from 2:30 to 7:30 I completely forgot I was watching a video about the Berlin Wall. For those 5 minutes I drowned in your WW2 history and illustrations. Outstanding!!
I grew up in East Berlin and I still live in Berlin. What I hated most about the communist was the constant absurd propaganda. You were constantly told that you have to be thankful because you live in the "paradise of the working class". Communists never used the word "Mauer" (Wall) they cynically called it the peace-border, made to protect worldpeace and the people of the GDR. However, in Berlin we had at least the opportunity to secretly receive and watch West German Television and Radio programs, so we had some access to free information.
Firithfenion thank you for the fascinating insight!
Well in the stories of my parents, who lived during that time in Thüringen (Thuringia, today right in the middle of Germany) Television and Radio signals were so strong that nearly the whole GDR could receive some west German programs
Firithfenion Staatsgrenze West! Love that name. Hopefully in the US we get a Staatsgrenze Süd soon.
I always knew Berlin was in the former GDR, but I guess that's because I remembered learning about the Berlin Airlift, which was a pretty amazing feat that I think everyone should be more aware of.
Also, I'm surprised some of the atrocities carried out by Russia before, during and after the war weren't more well-known, including literally starving out entire towns and even countries. It's truly tragic.
Alany Walany so what about holodomor? ???
Because even West Berlin was still in the middle of Soviet Territory.
Boom. Just saved you a fifteen minute video that I didn't even have to watch.
Hidden from View Thank You for clearing that up for me... I almost wasted 15 minutes of my life to watch an excellent video...
It was a sarcastic comment :P
Hidden from View thx
Or, to answer the title: because the wall was a full circle.
This video is a beautiful example of someone trying to tell his story by picking out some facts that would fit to present his story, paint them in a color that suits and align them in your head so you all can happily hate together. Thank you forr this very simple minded example about inventing history ; )
This video was extremely well done.
I heard in one of your other videos that you're living in Germany. I was wondering if there are a few things you might have picked up from the way people speak English around you through a process called linguistic accommodation. (This is when you start copying the way people speak to be less conspicuous, even to an extent where a specific alteration could be considered an error.) E.g. I heard you say [,Second 'World ,War] which is the typical stress pattern for [,Zweiter 'Welt,krieg] in German. All other native English speakers I know say ['Second 'World 'War] with distinctive word stress on every word in the phrase. Have you always said it like this or is it perhaps an example of linguisitc accommodation?
+InsertTruthHere it's possible. I teacher English, so most of my contact is with non-native speakers. If that is the case, it's most certainly not intentional. Crazy that you picked up on it
Political Junkie
I noticed it too; the stress pattern is the same in Swedish [.Andra 'Världs.kriget]
Also Norwegian. [,Andre'verdens,krig]
I picked up on that too. I'm also a native English speaker and yes, learning and using German on a daily basis for over 10 years has definitely influenced the way I speak English. Pretty much everything I do which involves language (thinking, writing, speaking, etc..) is heavily influenced by both languages. For example, if I'm in a meeting and I take notes, for expedience sake I take them using English words (even though I'm hearing German), but then I write the sentences or idea fragments down using German grammar.
Germans say my german is good. Though I know few words. When speaking though I have a rare trait where I can instantly mimic tone and pace. It is still my voice yet with the accent with whomever I am speaking to. It subconscious for me. Though the times I notice I am doing it I find it odd. Does make it very easy to talk to just about anyone though, and I pick up languages easily. I can even with a high degree of accuracy say foreign names most get wrong. Though that may be due to my knowledge and interest in other cultures and languages. Only problem with being able to say what little I do know in german very well is the native german speakers will then proceed to speak to me in german even after I have notified them that I have exhausted my knowledge of what they are saying.
Great video! I'm glad you were recommended in my feed.
Berlin, biggest city in western Thuringia, lol. I grew up in divided Germany living in a so-called Sperrgebiet in what is today the Wartburg county (back then Eisenach county in the Erfurt district) - in the area where you actually placed Berlin.
Is it okay to say, that it would've been a very symbolic feature, if you would've waited another 10 days to publish this video, to get it out on the 9th november, which is the date, that the berlin wall fell in 1989? :D
I just found your Channel, and i really like what you do there! Keep it up! :)
Only if he posted footage of David Hasselhoff singing in front of it.
We're the little podiums supposed to look like they were from the galactic senate?
+DarthVeers2 yes!! 400,000 views and someone finally notices
I being a huge Star Wars fan noticed it right away, but Palpatine reminds me more of Lenin.
+THX-0381 That'd be wrong, Palpatine was cunning, Lenin was not, he made a play for armed revolution for socialism in 1905. The refusal has led him to despise social democrats, and when he took over, he led mass arrests against them.
this video is just great very well done and greetings from germany
In 1985 did a 30 day rotation in Berlin while stationed in Baumholder, Germany and I was still in Germany, another duty station, when the Berlin Wall was torn down.
Areas between the perimeter barriers of the Berlin Wall were mined, not the entire thing. Thousands of them were dug up as they deconstructed the Wall.
Portions of the concrete Wall on the inside were also topped with glass and metal shards embedded in the concrete and bridges (even though they ended at the Wall on the opposite bank) that crossed the Rivers Spree and Panke were packed with demolitions that had to be removed during the deconstruction.
There were also thousands of land mines between the perimeter barriers of the Inter-German Border. Again, not along the whole thing but in patches that were occasionally removed and moved (or were they?).
It's impossible for me to cry, but my heart was very very heavy. Thank you so much.
I really liked the part at the end where he says that they clapped for 20 minutes for Kennedy and the soviets knowing they could end up dead if they stopped clapping for Stalin, only clapped 11 minutes. Makes you think a little. Good video.
15 minutes just to give the explanation. The Berlin Wall was built around Berlin, there were multiple checkpoints that would permit people of certain nationalities or ranks.
Zioxo . hey guys. it was all around the town. and thats it for this week. see ya. ...just goole if you dont want to watch a whole video
Indeed. I was laughing at the title. You can't go around the wall just as you can go around the Korean DMZ.
You can go around the DMZ, if you have a boat and can sneak past the North Korean Navy.
you can try swimming but you'd have to probably get a mile out so the border towers couldn't see you and generally speaking, poor populations don't tend to be very good swimmers
Wow. History II in high school never actually told us that the wall completely circled West Berlin! Thanks for making this video!
so i still donn't understand, why didn't they just go around the wall?
Mavu-in Kirugoa by going around the wall they would just end up in more East Germany
Same here. Political Junkie just stepped back in time to 1945 and lost me.
Why couldn't they walk round?
Because the wall had no starting or ending point. It was a circle, at least around Berlin..
Thank you, I didn't know that. It makes a lot more sense now.
Mavu-in Kirugoa Think of a room without a roof. That's how the wall looked
Because the area controlled around berlin was all sovjet territory, done.
Amazing video. I really like that you quote books, it makes it more real. Subscribed 👍🏻.
Btw, what did JFK say? im a non english speaker and i did not get what he was saying.
Ich bin ein Berliner - roughly, 'I am a Berliner'.
Actually its accurate ^^
+Charles Hartmann It was powerful indeed. But having an accent isnt a mistake I Guss ^^
+Charles Hartmann I guess* Google should stop to convert my english into german all the time
+Charles Hartmann Yes I am. Therefore I dont judge people by their accent because my english is actually pretty good but my accent is terrible ^^ I think 3 years is not enough to learn a language I had italian at school for 3 years and for me it was very difficult to be honest
Uow! Nice video! For a non-english native, your speech is clear and with a good pause! Great content btw.