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The border stripCold War Berlin · East to West

The Wall the world photographed was the last of nine barriers

From West Berlin it was one concrete wall, 3.60 m high. From the East, as the border troops drew it in 1984, it was the 9th barrier of a strip between 15 and more than 150 metres deep — and all of it stood on East German ground.

Scroll to cross it, barrier by barrier

The preserved border strip at the Berlin Wall Memorial, Bernauer Straße, seen from the memorial’s tower in March 2005: the Wall in the foreground, the sand of the strip and its lamps, the hinterland wall beyond, and East Berlin with its television tower on the skyline.AarhusJ, 2005. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

01Two sides

Built to face inward

The Wall the world photographed was only the border’s face to the West. The death strip behind it stood on the East’s own ground, built to stop its own people.

The border troops’ own drawing of the strip facing West Berlin, captioned 1984 by the Chronik der Mauer, lists 9 elements. Read from the East — the direction of an escape — the Wall is the last of them. The number and order of barriers varied from place to place and year to year.

Seen from West Berlin1 wallGrenzmauer 75, 3.60 m high, with a round pipe on top.
Seen from East Berlin9 barriersEight of them before anyone reached the Wall.
A long graffiti-covered concrete wall topped by a round pipe; behind it a wide empty strip with lamp posts, a second white wall, and the East Berlin skyline with the television tower.
Potsdamer Platz from West Berlin, 1985: the Wall in front, the wide strip behind it, the white hinterland wall beyond and East Berlin on the skyline.Dieter Schöttle, 1985. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 4.0.

02The crossing

Cross the strip as the border troops drew it, from East Berlin to the West

9barriers aheadEast Berlin
the strip to cross
A cross-section of the Berlin border strip from East Berlin on the left to West Berlin on the right. As you read, the nine barriers of the border troops' drawing are built one at a time, heights to scale where the sources give them; then the strip's depth, the line of GDR territory and the one barrier West Berlin saw.

Heights to scale where the sources give one (hinterland wall, signal fence, tower, Wall); lamps, road and ditch are symbols. Barriers are spaced evenly: the strip’s depth varied too much to draw one width.

A wide border strip in autumn: a white concrete wall at left, a raked sand strip, a concrete-lined ditch, lamp posts and a second wall at right, with German labels written on the photograph.
Between Lichtenrade and Mahlow, 1990, labelled by the photographer: the system in one view.Ulrich Waack, 1990. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0 de.

1984 · the drawing

Nine barriers, as the border troops drew them

The standard layout of the border strip facing West Berlin as the GDR border troops drew it in 1984. The number and order of barriers varied from place to place and year to year. The drawing (BA-MA GTÜ AZN 17790) labels its elements West to East; here they are read East to West, the way someone escaping would meet them.

Source: Chronik der Mauer, Das Grenzsystem

A tall concrete wall with graffiti, half hidden by a tree in low golden sunlight, standing in long dry grass.
Hinterland wall surviving on Liesenstraße, 2008.Beek100, 2008. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.

Barrier 1 of 9

Hinterland wall 2–3 m

Hinterlandmauer

Sealed the strip off from East Berlin. Its inner face was painted white, so a figure showed up against it.

Source: Chronik der Mauer, Das Grenzsystem · Chronik der Mauer, FAQ · Stiftung Berliner Mauer

A grass corridor between a wire-mesh fence on concrete posts topped with angled arms, and a concrete wall with a lamp post.
Signal fence, former dog run and hinterland wall, preserved, 2010.Jonathan Wilkins, 2010. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 2.0.

Barrier 2 of 9

Signal fence just over 2 m

Grenzsignalzaun

Touch it and an alarm went off in the tower. Where the view was blocked, dogs ran on a line beside it.

Source: Chronik der Mauer, Das Grenzsystem · Chronik der Mauer, FAQ · Wikipedia (de), Berliner Mauer

Steel anti-tank obstacles on a sandy strip in front of a concrete guard tower.
Steel obstacles in the strip, 1977.George Garrigues, 1977. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0.

Barrier 3 of 9

Area barriers

Flächensperren

Fields of metal gratings and obstacles. Most were cleared out of the strip during the 1980s.

Source: Chronik der Mauer, Das Grenzsystem · Stiftung Berliner Mauer

A square concrete watchtower with a glazed cabin and a searchlight on its roof, on bare ground in winter.
A watchtower at Zimmerstraße, December 1989.Aad van der Drift, 1989. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 2.0.

Barrier 4 of 9

Watchtowers about 9 m

Beobachtungstürme

About 250 m apart. Guards worked in pairs, armed with Kalashnikovs.

Source: Chronik der Mauer, Das Grenzsystem · Wikipedia (de), Beobachtungsturm · Stiftung Berliner Mauer · Chronik der Mauer, FAQ

Over a graffiti-covered wall, a wide strip with tall lamps and guards on patrol.
The lamp line and a patrol, seen from West Berlin, 1986.Lklundin, 1986. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.

Barrier 5 of 9

Lamp line

Lichttrasse

Lit the strip as bright as day all night.

Source: Chronik der Mauer, Das Grenzsystem · Chronik der Mauer, FAQ · Stiftung Berliner Mauer

A narrow paved path running through bare trees and dry grass between a tall concrete post and an old lamp mast.
The patrol road near Chausseestraße, today.Beek100. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0.

Barrier 6 of 9

Patrol road

Kolonnenweg

Carried the relief guards and brought up reinforcements.

Source: Chronik der Mauer, Das Grenzsystem · Wikipedia (de), Berliner Mauer

Looking through a hole in a concrete wall, past bent reinforcing bars, towards the strip and a watchtower.
The open strip, through a hole in the Wall, 1990.Zumthie, 1990. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

Barrier 7 of 9

Control strip

Kontrollstreifen

Kept freshly harrowed so that every footprint showed. Even guards were not to step on it without reason.

Source: Chronik der Mauer, Das Grenzsystem · Wikipedia (de), Berliner Mauer

A long ditch lined with concrete slabs runs beside a ploughed sand strip; lamp posts and a white wall in the distance.
The vehicle ditch at Kleinmachnow, 1990.Andreas Lippold, 1990. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.

Barrier 8 of 9

Vehicle ditch

Kfz-Sperrgraben

The last obstacle before the Wall, dug to stop vehicles ramming through.

Source: Chronik der Mauer, Das Grenzsystem · Chronik der Mauer, FAQ

A graffiti-painted concrete wall with a rounded top running through a bare winter wood.
The Wall at Steinstücken, April 1989.Aad van der Drift, 1989. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 2.0.

Barrier 9 of 9

The Wall 3.60 m

Grenzmauer 75

Precast concrete segments 1.20 m wide, with a round pipe on top that gave no grip. This was the Wall West Berlin saw.

Source: Chronik der Mauer, Das Grenzsystem · Chronik der Mauer, FAQ · Wikipedia (de), Berliner Mauer

A long graffiti-covered concrete wall topped by a round pipe; behind it a wide empty strip with lamp posts, a second white wall, and the East Berlin skyline with the television tower.
Potsdamer Platz from West Berlin, 1985: the Wall, the strip, the hinterland wall.Dieter Schöttle, 1985. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 4.0.

The depth

Between 15 m and more than 150 m deep

The whole strip, hinterland wall to Wall, ran between 15 and more than 150 metres deep, depending on the street, the river and the buildings it cut through. At its deepest it was at least ten times the shallowest.

Source: Chronik der Mauer, FAQ

A smooth concrete wall topped with a round pipe, covered with graffiti, with an unkempt strip of ground in front of it beside a street.
Bernauer Straße, about 1985: the ground in front of the Wall was GDR territory.ELAB, Archiv der Versöhnungsgemeinde, 1985. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.

The border line

All of it on East German ground

The whole strip lay on GDR territory, which ran on a few metres past the Wall. A West Berliner standing at the Wall was still a few steps short of the actual border.

Source: Wikipedia (de), Berliner Mauer

A section of grey concrete wall with a rounded top along a grassy strip, under a pale sky.
The Wall as the West saw it, Bernauer Straße, 2016.Ansgar Koreng, 2016. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 3.0 de.

From the West

West Berlin saw one barrier of 9

From the western side only the last element was visible: Grenzmauer 75, 3.60 m high — less than half the height of the watchtowers behind it. Eight barriers stood on the far side.

Source: Chronik der Mauer, Das Grenzsystem · Chronik der Mauer, FAQ · Wikipedia (de), Berliner Mauer · Wikipedia (de), Beobachtungsturm · Stiftung Berliner Mauer

A concrete watchtower with a glazed observation cabin standing over the border strip.
A watchtower of the border troops on the strip, December 1989.Aad van der Drift, 1989. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 2.0.

03The order

Every shift began with an order: arrest them, or annihilate them

The watchtowers stood about 250 m apart. Guards worked in pairs, armed with Kalashnikovs. The order read out to guards before every shift into the 1980s.

Before every shift

“Grenzverletzer sind festzunehmen oder zu vernichten”

“Border violators are to be arrested or annihilated.”

04The count

By 31 July 1989, the strip around West Berlin had 302 watchtowers

The West Berlin police kept count. Their table of 31 July 1989 lists what stood along the 155 km around the western half of the city. The border troops’ own figure for the length was 156.4 km.

302watchtowers
259dog runs — up from 200 in 1968
20bunkers

Lengths, 31 July 1989

Source: Chronik der Mauer: Die Berliner Mauer (Stand 31. Juli 1989), source Der Polizeipräsident von Berlin

05Those who crossed

Thousands still got through. At least 140 did not

at least5,075people escaped through the barriers, 1961–89
at least140people were killed at the Wall or died because of it
A row of tall rusted steel rods across a lawn, with buildings behind.
Steel rods mark the line of the Wall at the Berlin Wall Memorial, Bernauer Straße, 2014.Tony Webster, 2014. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 2.0.

Unlike the border with West Germany, the Berlin Wall had no mines.

A row of white crosses with names and dates fixed to a green fence beside a path under trees.
White crosses for people killed at the Wall, near the Reichstag, 2011.JoJan, 2011. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 3.0.
The border strip · East to West

The Wall the world photographed was only the border’s face to the West. The death strip behind it stood on the East’s own ground, built to stop its own people.

Looking down on a preserved stretch of border strip: a concrete wall in the foreground, a wide sand strip with lamp posts, a second wall beyond it, a cemetery and the East Berlin skyline with the television tower.
The preserved border strip at the Berlin Wall Memorial, Bernauer Straße, seen from the memorial’s tower in March 2005: the Wall in the foreground, the sand of the strip and its lamps, the hinterland wall beyond, and East Berlin with its television tower on the skyline. Shown whole.AarhusJ, 2005. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

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{{cite web |title=The Berlin border strip in cross-section |url=https://berlinfographics.com/berlin-wall-cross-section/ |website=Berlinfographics |publisher=Berlin Experiences |date=2026-11-05 |access-date=2026-11-05}}