13 August 2011

So farewell then Berlin wall

It was 50 years ago today that construction of the Berlin Wall began. In its 28 year history at least 136 people (some estimates reckon more than 1,000) were killed trying to get over it. The fact that they were going from the East to the West gave the lie to its Soviet name - the Anti Fascist Protection Barrier.

Reuters reports the current Mayor of Berlin saying he was 'appalled that some Germans were nostalgic for the Berlin Wall and supported a newly fashionable leftist view that there were legitimate reasons for building it in 1961' - words strangely left out of the BBC report.

If anyone is in any doubt about the sinister and authoritarian nature of the of the Berlin Wall - here is JFK's speech from 1963.

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