On This Day In History: Berlin Opened For One Day – On Dec 20, 1963

AncientPages.com - On December 20, 1963, two years after the beginning of the construction of the Berlin Wall, 4,000 West Berlin citizens were allowed to visit their relatives and friends living in East Berlin for the first time.

This section of the Wall's "death strip" featured Czech hedgehogs, a guard tower and a cleared area, 1977. Image credit:  George Garrigues - CC BY-SA 3.0

Until then, West Berliners were prevented from visiting East Germany and East Berlin. In 1963, negotiations between East and West allowed visits during Christmas that year but only for a short time and a limited number of persons.

Under an agreement signed between East Germany and West Germany, more than 170,000 passes were issued throughout the subsequent years, granting West Germans access to the communist territory. These passes allowed a one-day visit and were restricted to East Berlin.

At the close of the Second World War in 1945, Soviet forces occupied eastern Germany, while the United States and other allied troops took control of the western part of the country.

This image of the Berlin Wall was taken in 1986 by Thierry Noir at Bethaniendamm in Berlin-Kreuzberg.  Image credit: Noir - CC BY-SA 3.0

The wall was built in 1961 to stop East Berliners from fleeing to the west, as approximately 20 percent of the East German population had migrated to West Germany.

It stood as a symbolic boundary representing East and West political and economic division, commonly known as the Iron Curtain.

Updated on December 19, 2022

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