Sixty years ago, on August 13, 1961, the communist government of East Germany began to erect what they called the “Antifascistischer Schutzwall,” or “antifascist bulwark,” between east and west Berlin.
Like all tyrannies, their euphemistic reasoning for the wall had nothing to do with why they were actually building it. While the public explanation was that it was being built to keep out evil “fascists” (a name communists often use to describe all non-communists), the reality was quite different. Though the official narrative claimed that the wall was erected for the safety and security of Soviet citizens, between 1949 and 1961, approximately 2.5 million people fled from East Germany. Between 1961 and 1989 (when the wall was finally torn down and Germany reunited), over one hundred thousand East Germans tried to escape over the wall to freedom, with hundreds killed for their efforts.
Stories like this make one wonder what it is about communist totalitarianism that will drive people to risk their lives to cross a concrete wall topped with barbed wire and armed guards to get away? The Germans were not alone in this phenomenon.
Since the communist takeover of Cuba in the late 1950s, hundreds of thousands of Cubans have risked their lives to float their way to America. In Romania, countless people drowned in the Danube while trying to flee the communist regime…
