Building the Berlin Wall

[Hilander]

In the early 1960s, LIFE magazine’s photographers chronicled the construction of the Berlin Wall and, once it was built, its effect on residents living in the newly divided city. The Soviets and East Germans built the Wall, in part, to stop the flight of Eastern Bloc citizens who frequently used Berlin as the point from which they tried to escape to the West. (By the time the Wall was built, an estimated 20 percent of the East German population had fled.)

Great Divide: The Birth of the Berlin Wall

Here's several pictures by Life magazine that capture the brutal reality of the Berlin Wall on its 51st birthday, today.

I'm glad its not there anymore. Now Germany is one country and families are no longer separated by it.

Can you imagine what it would of been like living with a wall running through your country separating you from family and friends?