Escape from East Berlin: "Let Us Live!" 1953 USIS; 1956 US Army MF33-8718 (Patreon)

more at http://quickfound.net/

Originally a public domain film from the National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Berlin

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

East Berlin was the de facto capital city of the German Democratic Republic from 1949 to 1990. Formally, it was the Soviet sector of Berlin, established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors were known as West Berlin. From 13 August 1961 until 9 November 1989, East Berlin was separated from West Berlin by the Berlin Wall. The Western Allied powers did not recognize East Berlin as the GDR's capital, nor the GDR's authority to govern East Berlin. On 3 October 1990, the day Germany was officially reunified, East and West Berlin formally reunited as the city of Berlin...

Overview

With the London Protocol of 1944 signed on 12 September 1944, the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union decided to divide Germany into three occupation zones and to establish a special area of Berlin, which was occupied by the three Allied Forces together. In May 1945, the Soviet Union installed a city government for the whole city that was called "Magistrate of Greater Berlin", which existed until 1947. After the war, the Allied Forces initially administered the city together within the Allied Kommandatura, which served as the governing body of the city. However, in 1948 the Soviet representative left the Kommandatura and the common administration broke apart during the following months. In the Soviet sector, a separate city government was established, which continued to call itself "Magistrate of Greater Berlin".

When the German Democratic Republic was established in 1949, it immediately claimed East Berlin as its capital—a claim that was recognised by all communist countries. Nevertheless, its representatives to the People's Chamber were not directly elected and did not have full voting rights until 1981.

In June 1948, all railways and roads leading to West Berlin were blocked, and East Berliners were not allowed to emigrate. Nevertheless, more than 1,000 East Germans were escaping to West Berlin each day by 1960, caused by the strains on the East German economy from war reparations owed to the Soviet Union, massive destruction of industry, and lack of assistance from the Marshall Plan. In August 1961, the East German Government tried to stop the population exodus by enclosing West Berlin within the Berlin Wall. It was very dangerous for fleeing residents to cross because armed soldiers were trained to shoot illegal migrants.

East Germany was a socialist republic, but there was not complete economic equality. Privileges such as prestigious apartments and good schooling were given to members of the ruling party and their families. Eventually, Christian churches were allowed to operate without restraint after years of harassment by authorities. In the 1970s, wages of East Berliners rose and working hours fell.

The Soviet Union and the Communist bloc recognised East Berlin as the GDR’s capital. However, Western Allies (the US, UK, and France) never formally acknowledged the authority of the East German government to govern East Berlin. Official Allied protocol recognised only the authority of the Soviet Union in East Berlin in accordance with the occupation status of Berlin as a whole. The United States Command Berlin, for example, published detailed instructions for U.S. military and civilian personnel wishing to visit East Berlin. In fact, the three Western commandants regularly protested against the presence of the East German National People's Army (NVA) in East Berlin, particularly on the occasion of military parades. Nevertheless, the three Western Allies eventually established embassies in East Berlin in the 1970s, although they never recognised it as the capital of East Germany. Treaties instead used terms such as "seat of government."

On 3 October 1990, East and West Germany and East and West Berlin were reunited...