The Wall of Desperation
How the guards at an arbitrary border could be convinced to defend it with the lives of their compatriots.
2 min read · from UNINTENDED by Mayank Mehta
On the morning of August 13, 1961, the people of Berlin woke up to find their city cut in two. Overnight, East German soldiers had strung barbed wire across streets, sealed subway stations, and begun laying the foundation for what would become one of the most infamous structures in modern history. The government called it an anti-fascist protection rampart. Everyone else called it what it was: a wall to keep people in.
The guards who patrolled it were mostly young men, barely out of school. They were given rifles, told they were protecting socialism, and ordered to shoot anyone who tried to cross. For obedience, they received bonuses, medals, and extra rations. For failure, the consequences were implied but clear.
On August 17, 1962, an eighteen-year-old bricklayer named Peter Fechter and his friend attempted to climb the Wall near Checkpoint Charlie. His friend made it. Peter did not. East German guards opened fire. A bullet struck him in the pelvis, and he fell into the death strip, the barren corridor between the two walls, bleeding in full view of Western onlookers, journalists, and television cameras.
For nearly an hour, Peter Fechter lay in the dirt, crying out for help. Soldiers on both sides watched. Neither moved. Western soldiers were under orders not to enter the strip. Eastern soldiers were under orders not to help anyone who had tried to escape. Peter Fechter bled to death in the open air, with the whole world watching and no one willing to cross the line.
After the Wall fell in 1989, some of the guards who had fired on escapees were put on trial. Many testified that they hadn't wanted to pull the trigger. But the system rewarded obedience and punished hesitation. One guard said, years later, that he had thought of his own family. If he disobeyed, it could be him lying there.
The Berlin Wall is often remembered as a political story, a tale of ideology and empire. But it's also a story about incentives and what happens to ordinary people when they are placed inside a system that rewards the worst in them. The guards weren't monsters. They were young men responding to the only set of rules available. And the rules said that loyalty to the state was worth more than the life of the person standing in front of you.
When the Wall finally came down, the same guards who had been ordered to kill for it were ordered to help dismantle it. The system had changed. The rules had changed. The men had not.