All those who heroically “beat the Wall” were creative and gutsy characters. Their souls were filled with daring cunning and ingenious creativity. They embodied the very enterprising spirit – unternehmergeist – typical of entrepreneurial market-based societies in the West.

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Without warning, in the middle of a pleasantly warm August 13 night in 1961, German Democratic Republic authorities hatched and executed their stealthy plan: 10,000 soldiers were ordered to race to secure the border between East and West Berlin by early dawn. As the sun rose, the 1.5 million or so on the east side of the city were trapped for the next 28 years.

In a few hours, thousands of tons of wood and concrete posts were erected and strung with several kilometers of barbed wire. Because of random wanderings and late night adventures, a few thousand East and West Berliners – for better or worse – suddenly found themselves on the wrong side of the fence.

Several months thereafter, the temporary barbed wire and post barrier began to be replaced by a several-meter high concrete wall, sectored with watch towers and armed guards 24/7 ready to shoot and kill any defectors to freedom.

The East Berlin Wall became the living symbol of the so-called “Iron Curtain” that mand and control economies of the Soviet Union and munist allies in the East from the free and enterprising capitalist economies of the West.

Before this artificial cultural, economic and political barrier existed between August 13, 1961 and November 9, 1989, about 1/6th of the East German population had already illegally defected. Some estimates state that around 3.5 million GDR citizens found ways to trump strict travel and emigration restrictions while fleeing to several destinations in West Germany and the rest of Europe.

The desperate initial attempts to escape, after the border was first secured, were quite rudimentary and mostly unsuccessful. Many ended up jumping out of windows of buildings erected along the wall, swimming icy canals and the Spree River, or simply cutting through or hopping over patches of barbed wire where the pre-fabricated slabs of concrete had not yet been erected.

But as the 3.6 meter (11.8 feet) Berlin Wall pleted and e virtually impenetrable, extraordinary creativity and determination was necessary to arrive on the other side.