When was the Berlin Wall built?

NARRATOR: The calm before the storm - Berlin on August 12, 1961. Border checks at the Brandenburg Gate, as usual. But the border in the middle of the city is still passable. From his country seat north of Berlin, GDR head of state Walter Ulbricht relays an order for a secret mission which he entrusts to his faithful assistant, Erich Honecker. It's a mild summer evening. No one in Berlin has a clue. Just before two o'clock in the morning soldiers and police advance in the east. They block all transit points around West Berlin - a rude awakening.

WALTER GRÄZ: "I will never forget that morning. At about 7 I turn on the radio, listen to some beautiful music, and then, suddenly, West Berlin is sealed off. I think 'Well, your parents can't come any more.'"

NARRATOR: The Iron Curtain through the middle of the city separates friends, family, and day to day life.

MARIANNE VON NORICOF: "It's hard to believe that it would be possible to divide a city. And suddenly there were these huge rolls of barbed wire. And then one saw the reality. It was really true."

NARRATOR: Iron and concrete were supposed to stem the mass exodus from the GDR - 125,000 alone this year. East Berliners continue to look in desperation for ways out to freedom. Even policemen risk their lives. In his meeting with Soviet leader Khrushchev in Vienna President Kennedy had already signalled restraint.

FRITZ SCHENK: "Both sides had agreed. Each can do what he wants in his own part of the world. Neither would tell the other what to do."

NARRATOR: And so on August 13, 1961 a fault line runs through Berlin and the two German states. Soon the division would be cast in concrete. The Wall becomes a murderous monument. By the time the Wall falls in 1989, 136 people will have paid with their lives for their bid to freedom on this death strip. Like the 18-year-old journeyman bricklayer Peter Fechter in 1962.