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2: A PHYSICAL METAPHOR
established in people’s minds that this did not cause as much controversy as
the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961. As this border, as well as the
fortification of other borders throughout Europe, had helped to stifle postwar
chaos and violence and subsequently developed step by step, sometimes
even with the consent of the local population, the final closing of the Inner
German Border in 1952 did not receive that much attention. The fences were
already there in peoples’ minds. In other places in Europe, borders between
the countries that aligned themselves with the western and the eastern bloc
became more and more militarised. The difference in other places, such as the
borders between former Czechoslovakia and Hungary with Austria was that
the majority of the border infrastructure was constructed well inside the
eastern side of the actual borders, often away from the gaze of the western
neighbours. The official goal here, as in East Germany, was to keep the enemy
out but the majority of the structures were focussed on the threat from
within, their own population. The main focus in these long sections of
militarised border zones was to make sure that nobody could get across these
areas and through to the West.
In contrast during the 1960s, when the Berlin Wall was constructed, the
European division became acutely obvious to the world. Here the border,
which had previously been much more open than the borders between
other East and West zones in the divided Germany went through a
homogenous society. The border left West Berlin a floating island within
what increasingly felt like ‘enemy territory’. In her article The Berlin Wall –
a Symbol of the Cold War Era historian Hope Harrison (2005) looks at how
the Berlin Wall came to be and points out that the wall is often seen as a
result of Soviet aggression. Her studies of Soviet and East German
documents show, however, that the Soviet leaders refused to sanction the
building of a militarised border through the city of Berlin as they felt there
would be too many negative consequences of such an act. Documents show
that GDR leader Walter Ulbricht had been pushing for a building of a wall
since 1953 but only in 1961 did he manage to persuade Soviet leader Nikita
Khruschev into agreeing to such a construction (Harrison 2005:19–23).
When the Berlin Wall was built in August 1961 it was the first time people
could really see the division clearly, even touch it. Before this the militarised
borders that had developed across the European continent had generally
been hidden from view through protected zones and with fencing
constructions placed several kilometres inside the different countries’
western borders. The fact that this border also came to divide a capital also
became an important factor in the attention it was given. In a war that was
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