Past divisions brought people together April 24 in Wilson Library. Famed German historian David Clay Large presented his talk, “The Ugliest Border: Berlin and its Wall During the Cold War and Beyond,” to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The talk was presented in conjunction with the photo exhibit “Icons of a Border Installation: Photographic Search for Traces in Today’s Berlin.” The exhibit is the work of 36 German college students who went around Berlin in 2006 photographing the remnants of the wall and the cultural differences it created in modern Berlin. “Icons” premiered April 21 on campus and will be displayed on the 3rd and 4th floors of Wilson Library until June 2.  

The Goethe-Institut sponsored the exhibit of 15 photo panels with German captions translated into English. Western is the exhibit’s only stop in Washington. It was at Portland State University before coming here and will go to Denver Public Library next.   The exhibit cost the university almost nothing, as the Goethe-Institut paid for the travel expenses, Osen said.  

Cornelius Partsch, an associate professor of German in Western’s modern and classical languages department, said the Goethe-Institut is a cultural arm of the German government dedicated to sharing German culture around the world. Partsch said he is part of a trainer network connected to the institute. He said when they approached him about hosting the photo exhibit at Western he jumped at the chance.

In his presentation, Large, a history professor at Montana State University, traced the history of the wall from its construction on Aug. 13, 1961, to its fall on Nov. 9, 1989. He said a common misconception is the wall was built to keep people out of East Berlin.

“The Berlin Wall was closer in nature to a prison wall,” he said, designed to keep the citizens of Soviet-controlled East Germany from escaping to West Berlin. During the 1950s, East Berlin was losing 10,000 to 20,000 citizens, including skilled workers, a year to West Berlin.

“They had to do it they felt, or else they would lose all their best citizens,” Large said.

When Large first visited the wall in 1963, he said a sign on the East German side had a warning to any East German citizen approaching the wall: “Will shoot immediately without warning.”

He said the first version of the wall was coils of wire and a few watchtowers running down the center of Berlin, but eventually evolved into a cinderblock and brick fortification with even more watchtowers. Large said the final version of the wall was completed around 1975 at an imposing 12 feet.

This version had a complex “death strip” on the eastern side to keep East Berlin citizens from crossing over. Large said the death strip included dog runs housing German Shepherds bred to attack, trip wire traps that set spotlights on anyone trying to cross and foot and vehicle patrols with orders to shoot to kill.  

“It’s easier to build a wall then to solve problems,” Partsch said.    

Large said despite these dangerous measures, approximately 5,000 East German citizens managed to escape over, or under, the wall. In his presentation, he listed such creative means as pole-vaulting over the wall, hiding in secret car compartments and tunneling under the foundation.    

Partsch said the information the East German government sent to its citizens about the wall was propaganda. He said the wall was referred to by East German authorities as an “anti-fascist protection barrier,” with the United States, Britain and other West German allies being the fascists in the scenario.  

After the wall came down in 1989 due to internal fragmentation of the government and protests on the part of the people, citizens started to sell pieces of it. Partsch said the East German government took up selling large chunks of its former barrier to try and turn a profit. He said it was ironic that the wall was built to protect East Germany from capitalism, but at its end its remains were sold.  

Large said the day the wall came down was one of intense excitement and jubilation around the world.

“People never thought it would happen in their own lifetimes,” he said.  

Large said he visited the wall in October 1989, shortly before it was torn down. He told a story about how he was put in lockup by an East German guard while passing through to the eastern side for insulting “the majesty of the state.”  

“I told the guard when I went in that it seemed that I was the only one stupid enough to be going in that direction,” he said with a  laugh.

For that comment, he got to spend a couple hours locked up.

Osen said the end of the Berlin Wall’s existence was symbolic of the real ending of the Cold War.

“It was a symbol of a situation in which the citizenry allowed its own government to build a cage for an entire population,” Large said.

“Don’t take evidences of oppression and tyranny for granted so that they’ll be there forever and they can’t be changed. I think that happened with the wall,” he said.      

Western senior Jessie Queen, a German major who viewed the exhibit and attended the presentation, said the lessons of the wall are still important today.

“It’s important to look at what happened in the past and learn from it, otherwise you just keep making the same mistakes,” Queen said.

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