They were building on the Berlin Wall until two weeks before they took it down

[jmowreader]

In an LBN thread posted a short while ago, Trump's Minister of State Security, John Kelly, claims he can have the Trump Wall finished in two years.

Let's compare the Trump Wall to the last wall someone put up to separate two nations, the one Ronald Reagan stood in front of in 1987 and ordered General Secretary Gorbachev to tear down.

The Berlin Wall was 110 miles long. The part of the US-Mexican border we haven't already built fences on is 1,350 miles long.

The terrain the Berlin Wall stood on was flat as a pancake. Not so with the Trump wall's path.

Because East Germany was a dictatorship and had absolute control of the land around Berlin, getting clearance to build the wall was more a matter of Erich Honecker picking up the phone to his construction troops and telling them, 'go.' America is not yet a dictatorship, and there are probably, as we speak, hundreds of law firms gearing up to fight land encroachments on both sides of the border.

But more importantly, it took a hell of a lot longer for the Germans to build a hell of a lot less wall. On August 13, 1961, the East Germans closed the roads leading into West Berlin. The DDR went through four iterations of this wall; the last one took until 1980 to build. Once it was "done," they spent the rest of the time they had it up adding to its security, moving dogs around, changing panels, doing maintenance and everything else you might need to do to keep the wall impassable. John Kelly thinks we can throw Trump's 1,350-mile wall up in two years? I think they need to give him a cup and directions to the men's room.

[GusBob]

1. Interesting information. Question:

Was the wall impregnable?

I seem to recall breeches or places where folks cold pass thru over or under in secret, or certain places where guards were corruptible

[gratuitous]

2. The Berlin Wall was not impregnable

But probably as close to impregnable as it could get. Of course, it took hundreds of armed troops standing watch 24-7 without any compunction about shooting anyone who got too close. But as you recall, there were indeed some folks who made it through. If the Soviet goal was 100% interdiction, it failed. Trump's ridiculous wall proposal will be an expensive, ineffective colossal waste of time and resources, and will get a whole bunch of people killed. Unless that's Trump's goal (and it could be, I don't know), this is doomed to fail.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. In the early months the wall was very leaky.

(Can't think what the opposite of "impregnable" is.

Several hundred people crossed in the early months. Including at least one border guard.

If you Google "People crossing the Berlin Wall" you'll get lots of links, and lots of images.

[GusBob]

4. Yes I just checked Wiki

about 5,000 people crossed in all sorts of ways. Even hot air balloons.

Interesting to note: it took almost 2 years to tear down the wall

There is no way in heck they can build a wall in 2 years

[phleshdef]

6. The opposite of impregnable is pregnanble

[jmowreader]

5. Somewhat

What they don't tell you: the most common way to leave East Germany was to ask. Not many people did it because of how you left: two Stasi agents would knock on your door at 3am, pick you (and only you - no family members allowed) up, drive you to a light rail station, and place you on a train to West Berlin. (Enough people did it that the US Army ran a refugee operations center to help get these guys situated in the West. We'd question them, then give them to the West Berlin government who'd put them in a job, get them housing and necessities like non-communist clothes, and teach them to be free. We had to teach them to shop for food.)

Still my favorite actual escape...the Soviet office at Checkpoint Charlie looked like a job site office trailer in the US. One of the DDR-mitburgers walked up to the door of it and told the first officer He saw "I have received approval to visit my dying mother in West Berlin but I left my papers at home." The officer told him to go home to get his papers. He hung out by the door until another officer came. "Sir, I have approval to visit my mother in East Berlin but I left my papers in West Berlin." The officer told him to go back to West Berlin to get his papers.