Changes

Throughout the 1950s, the border between East and West Berlin remained fairly open. Many residents of East Berlin went back and forth to West Berlin. Othere did not come back and instead emigrated to West Germany. From 1949 to 1961, 2.6 million East Germans defected to the West via West Berlin. A large number of these emigrants were talented professionals and intellectuals, facilitating a sort of "brain drain" from the GDR. As the rate of defections rose to unbearable levels, the Communist leaders of Eastern Europe decided to put a stop to it. In early August 1961, members of the Comecon decided to seal the border between East and West Berlin. The SED leader Walter Ulbricht signed the order to seal the border on August 12, 1961. On the night of August 13, East German troops sealed the border, and construction began on a massive barrier that became known as the Berlin Wall (''Berliner Mauer'').  

Throughout the 1950s, the border between East and West Berlin remained fairly open. Many residents of East Berlin went back and forth to West Berlin. Othere did not come back and instead emigrated to West Germany. From 1949 to 1961, 2.6 million East Germans defected to the West via West Berlin. A large number of these emigrants were talented professionals and intellectuals, facilitating a sort of "brain drain" from the GDR. As the rate of defections rose to unbearable levels, the Communist leaders of Eastern Europe decided to put a stop to it. In early August 1961, members of the Comecon decided to seal the border between East and West Berlin. The SED leader Walter Ulbricht signed the order to seal the border on August 12, 1961. On the night of August 13, East German troops sealed the border, and construction began on a massive barrier that became known as the Berlin Wall (''Berliner Mauer'').  

After the Berlin Wall cut off escape routes, popular grievances changed from fundamental resistance to opposition aimed mainly at reforms. The apparatus of repression also changed: open terror by the Stasi and the courts was replaced by extensive surveillance and undermining by the secret police. In 1968 the Stasi suppressed support for the "[[Prague Spring]]. The covert repression dictated by the Party became one of the major characteristics of the last twenty years of its rule.  

After the Berlin Wall cut off escape routes, popular grievances changed from fundamental resistance to opposition aimed mainly at reforms. The apparatus of repression also changed: open terror by the Stasi and the courts was replaced by extensive surveillance and undermining by the secret police. In 1968 the Stasi suppressed support for the "[[Prague Spring]]. The covert repression dictated by the Party became one of the major characteristics of the last twenty years of its rule.  

Database: Historical Abstracts

 

The Wall generated international outrage and became one of the most poignant symbols of the Iron Curtain and the Cold War division of Europe and Germany. The Wall actually existed in three different incarnations, each intended to make breaches of the border more difficult. Nonetheless, escapes through, around, over and under the Berlin Wall occurred throughout its existence. Some ingenious methods were devised for circumventing it, many of which are on display at the Checkpoint Charlie Museum in Berlin. From the sealing of the border on August 13, 1961, to the fall of the Wall on November 9, 1989, 192 people were killed in escape attempts, and at least that many were wounded.<ref>http://www.dailysoft.com/berlinwall/history/index.htm</ref>

===Religion===

===Religion===