Did Russia tell the East Germans the wall was to keep wGermans out?

[Lost4words]

I am suspecious of any wall/fence that is patroled by armed guards! It can work both ways.

Just thinking

8643

[Crayson]

1. They did

Yup, of course they did.
To keep them unharmed from the rampaging inhumane capitalism that fed up the rich pigs and left the masses poor, uneducated and homeless.

In fact they did.
East German propaganda was pretty much the same as West German, just with the good and the bad guys places switched.

[Old and In the Way]

2. East German security = prison

They used the justification of not wanting to ruin the great communist experiment with decadent Western influence, but the people weren't stupid. Building a wall around the US to keep immigrants out, to make us more 'secure' also makes us prisoners. You'd think the Right with their historical association of rugged individualism and personal freedom would find fence building a major infringement on their rights to self-determination, but they've seem to have become the party of paranoid cowards.

[Zywiec]

3. My wife's relatives were on both sides of the wall

They knew it wasn't there to keep the Westerners out. It was to keep the Easterners in like prisoners. Of course once you reached retirement age and would need a government pension, you were free to go if you wished.

Is the front door on your house to keep you locked in, or to keep other people out?

[DBoon]

4. Depends who has the key to the locked front door

When you have the key, you may come and go as you please. Only people without the key are kept out

When the government has the key, they can keep people out in either direction at their whim

[Yupster]

7. Every German had relatives on the other side of the wall

They were well informed of what was going on across the wall.

[JVS]

5. it wasn't a wall. It was an anti-fascist protective barrier.

[Boojatta]

6. You mean it was called that, right?

[otherlander]

9. Damn those fascists

coming to Berlin from America and walking around saying "I am a Berliner" and other such nonsense... Fascists, every one of them!

:sarcasm:

[MilesColtrane]

8. I highly recommend the 2001 film "Der Tunnel".

Exciting true story.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. They said it was to keep Western spies out, but it was built in response

to a massive outflow of East Germans to the West in what was then just a subway ride.

[Swamp Rat]

11. No, Reagan did.

Then he tore it down after he defeated communism and saved all of humanity.