Читать книгу Where in the World is the Berlin Wall?. 170 Sites around the World онлайн

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The border was now a real Inner-German border. A five-kilometre exclusion zone was set up on the GDR side of the border to secure the 1,378-kilometre-long border – an order from the Soviet occupiers. This area could only be entered or traversed with permission. Meetings and events were prohibited from 10:00pm.

Along the borderline, a ten-metre-wide control strip was ploughed up, and forests in this area were cleared. Behind it, the installation of ramparts, ditches and trip wires with alarms ensued. Ramparts, ditches and alarmed trip wires were installed behind the border. Crossing the ten-metre-long control strip was an arrestable offence. Border police were ordered to shoot those who did not follow their orders. A 500-metre-wide protection strip was closed around the ten-metre stripe in which approximately 110 villages lay. Inhabitants of these villages were subjected to particularly harsh regulations: being outdoors in the 500 metre area was only permitted during the hours of sunlight and all traffic was forbidden after dark and alterations to land was forbidden without permission. Numerous restaurants and hotels were forced to close down after the protection strip had been constructed. Routes along the Brocken Railway, which linked the Harz mountain range in North Germany, had to be closed as the trains were no longer allowed to travel through western territory.