Friday Fascinating Facts About The Berlin Wall

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Donald Trump has made no secret about wanting a wall on our southern border. Walls can be helpful as the one in Israel or bad as the one in Berlin was.

The Berlin Wall separated communist East Germany and free West Germany. Thankfully it no longer exists and all of Germany is a free state on steroids as it is being inundated with refuges from at least 40 different countries.

Here are some facts you might not have known about this infamous wall.

Fascinating Facts About The Berlin Wall

The Berlin Wall was a little shorter than the wall Trump’s proposing but it was not that short stretching some 87 miles long. (Source)
While escape was not easy about 5,000 people attempted it. Death tolls range from 136 to over 200. (Source)
If you can’t go over the wall go through it with a tank, which is exactly what a defecting East German soldier did in 1963. (Video)
Escaping over the Berlin Wall using a hot air balloon seemed like a good idea to Winfried Freudenberg. He was the last person to attempt an escape over the wall and unfortunately fell to his death. (Source)
Words have meaning. An East German official Politburo member, Guenter Schabowski, misspoke at a press conference telling the press that there would be immediate border crossing privileges for all East Germans. As a result empowered citizens confronted unknowing border guards and began tearing down the wall. (Source)
In 1987 you could hear East Germans cheering and singing on the other side of the wall along with David Bowie who performed at the wall in 1987. (Source)
Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt was given a 3-ton piece of the wall for his world record performance in the Olympics in Berlin. (Source)
Next time you visit the men’s room in the Main Street Station Casino in Las Vegas you can relieve yourself into one of the facilities built into a section of the Berlin Wall. (Source)
Not everyone wanted the Berlin Wall to come down. In 1989 English Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher feared a united Germany and tried to convince Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev to leave the wall up. The French were also opposed to the wall’s removal. (Source)

Some Final Thoughts

Walls do serve their purpose. Some keep people in; some keep people out. There’s a wall of sorts around the White House that more than one fan of the president has gone over.

If we build a wall on our Southern border let’s build it like the Great Wall of China. We can charge admission to walk it. ID’s and Green Cards required of course.

You could pay for it in a couple of years I bet.

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