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Berlin Wall facts

While investigating facts about Berlin Wall Map and Berlin Wall Fall, I found out little known, but curios details like:

After Usain Bolt broke the 100 m world record at the 2009 Berlin World Championships, the mayor of Berlin awarded him a 12 foot long, 6000 pound piece of the Berlin Wall. Bolt accepted and it is now housed at the Jamaica Military Museum.

how berlin wall fell?

In 1987 when David Bowie performed “Heroes” near the Reichstag in West Berlin, a massive crowd gathered on the eastern side to hear him perform from over the wall. The performance is considered to be a catalyst to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

What year did the berlin wall come down?

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering what was the purpose of the berlin wall. Here are 50 of the best facts about Berlin Wall Memorial and Berlin Wall History I managed to collect.

what happened at berlin wall?

  1. The Berlin Wall stood for 10,316 days, and that 2/07/18 will be 10,316 days since it has been gone

  2. Peter Fechter, an 18 year old East German who was shot by East German troops trying to cross the Berlin Wall, was caught in barbed wire, and bled to death in front of the world's media, as police tried to throw him bandages.

  3. David Bowie performed at the Berlin Wall, while East Germans gathered to listen behind. "And we would hear them cheering and singing along from the other side. God, even now I get choked up. It was breaking my heart. I'd never done anything like that in my life, and I guess I never will again."

  4. The Bethke brothers. Each escaped from Soviet East Berlin. Ingo floated on a mattress across a river. Holger used a bow to fire a cable across the gap, then zip-lined to safety. Then Ingo and Holger built an aircraft and flew back over the wall to rescue their third brother, Egbert.

  5. The dogs that were used to patrol the Berlin Wall were adopted out after it came down, and when walking where it once stood would "move as if tethered to an unseen leash, with absolute certainty, following the old border along its zigzags through the city".

  6. In 1963, an East German soldier named Wolfgang Engels stole a tank and drove it through the Berlin Wall at top speed to try and escape.

  7. There have been 60,000 attempts to get across the Berlin Wall. 5,000 people managed to escape through the Wall, with an estimated death toll of 136.

  8. David Bowie's performance of the song Heroes in West Berlin was considered a catalyst to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Upon his death in 2016, the German goverment thanked him for "helping to bring down the wall".

  9. The Berlin Wall was opened accidentally. After being told wrong info, a Soviet spokesman stated that border crossings would be allowed, “immediately”. Crossings were actually planned to be allowed in limited circumstances. Thousands of East Germans then ran to the border and forced it open.

  10. 9th November is known as the ‘day of fate’ in German history- on the same day, Robert Blum was executed in 1848, Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated in 1918, Hitler’s Munich Putsch occurred in 1923, Kristallnacht occurred in 1938, and the Berlin Wall came down in 1989.

berlin wall facts
What was the berlin wall built for?

Berlin Wall data charts

For your convenience take a look at Berlin Wall figures with stats and charts presented as graphic.

berlin wall fact data chart about How Berlin neighbourhoods have voted since the fall of the B
How Berlin neighbourhoods have voted since the fall of the Berlin Wall

Why berlin wall fell?

You can easily fact check why berlin wall was constructed by examining the linked well-known sources.

That, in 1964, a group of college students used garden spades to tunnel under the Berlin Wall into East Berlin, allowing 57 people to escape to the West. The students moved enough dirt to fill four eighteen-wheeler big rigs; one of them went on to design tunnels professionally.

In a 1988 episode of "Alvin and the Chipmunks" called "The Wall", the Chipmunks play a concert at the Berlin Wall and see it crumbling down, only to awaken from a dream and say, "It was just a dream, but it doesn't have to be." 11 months later, the Berlin Wall came down in real life. - source

East Germany created its own cola drink. Vita-Cola's sales almost disappeared after the fall of the Berlin Wall brought Coke and Pepsi into the East. It is still the most popular cola in Thuringia, making the German state one of the few places in the world where Coca-Cola is not the leader.

The original author of the Forrest Gump novel wrote a sequel to the book entitled "Gump and Co." During the book he crashes the Exxon Valdez, helps destroy the Berlin Wall, and fights in Operation Desert Storm. - source

When berlin wall fall?

In September 1989, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher pleaded with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev not to let the Berlin Wall fall and confided that she wanted the Soviet leader to do what he could to stop it.

How berlin wall came down?

The Berlin Wall was a wall that encircled ALL of West Berlin; it didn't just bisect Berlin. Also, West Berlin was surrounded by East Germany for over 100 miles in all directions

A German party created by a satire news company (with strange views such as having proposals to rebuild the Berlin wall) gained a seat in the European parliament in 2004

The great escape attempt of Juan, an Andean spectacled bear in Berlin zoo. Juan paddled across a moat using a log as a raft, scaled a wall and then finally appeared to commandeer a bicycle before being shot with a tranquiliser gun.

When berlin wall built?

One of the most accomplished American female recurve archers, Erika Eiffel, is married to the Eiffel Tower, dated her bow, and had a decades-long relationship with the Berlin Wall. She is currently dating a crane.

Two families escaped over the Berlin Wall by building a hot air balloon. A mechanic and a mason, used their mechanical know-how to build a hot air balloon engine out of old propane cylinders. Their wives pieced together a makeshift balloon from scraps of canvas and old bed sheets.

East Germans defected by various ways like digging long tunnels under the Berlin Wall, waiting for favorable winds and taking hot air balloons, sliding along aerial wires, flying ultralight aircraft and, in one case, driving a sports car at full speed through the basic, initial fortifications.

November 9 is the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, declaration of the Weimar Republic, and abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II...and also the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Beer Hall Putsch, and the execution of Robert Blum (1848 revolutionary leader)

There are more pieces of the Berlin Wall scattered across the globe than remain in the city itself.

How berlin wall was built?

West and East Berlin used two different kinds of street lights during the Cold War, producing different colours that are still visible from space, almost 30 years after the wall fell.

A man tried to escape to West Berlin with a car that could drive under the barrier. Another man crossed the Berlin Wall on a tight rope.

The 3 Bethke brothers, who escaped East Berlin one by one. The first, Ingo, used an air mattress to float to the West. The second, Holger, used a zip line to go over the Berlin Wall to freedom. Then, to rescue their third brother, Egbert, they flew ultralight planes and retrieved him.

In 1962 news channel NBC paid a West Berlin team 50,000DM ($150,000 today) to dig under the Berlin Wall, on the condition that NBC could film the escape. 29 East Germans managed to escape, and the resulting NBC film, The Tunnel, won 3 Emmies.

After Russia made it virtually impossible for people to cross the Berlin Wall on foot, one group of East Germans crashed a stolen tank into the wall to get through to the other side.

The statue of Ronald Reagan in the US Capitol building has bits of the Berlin Wall in it

In 1992, Nickelodeon made a time capsule that was buried in Universal Studios Orlando. Its contents include a piece of the Berlin Wall, among other things from the time.

The Berlin Wall is now gone for as long as it stood: 28 years

125 people where shot crossing the Berlin wall whereas an estimated 6000 people died trying to cross the Mexico-US border in the past 15 years.

The Berlin Wall began as a simple fence then included a 300-foot No-Man's-Land, an additional inner wall, soldiers patrolling w/dogs, raked ground that showed footprints, anti-vehicle trenches, electric fences, massive light systems, watchtowers, bunkers, and minefields.

David Hasselhoff's incredible popularity in Germany began with a performance of "Looking for Freedom," atop the Berlin Wall and complete with jacket fitted with flashing, battery-powered lights, a month before the wall fell. People later thanked him for the fall of the wall.

The Berlin Wall came down because a sleepy bureaucrat fumbled some words at a press conference

This is our collection of basic interesting facts about Berlin Wall. The fact lists are intended for research in school, for college students or just to feed your brain with new realities. Possible use cases are in quizzes, differences, riddles, homework facts legend, cover facts, and many more. Whatever your case, learn the truth of the matter why is Berlin Wall so important!

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