Sixty-four years ago today, on August 13, 1961 (July 3, 1961 lunar calendar), East Germany began construction of the Berlin Wall. Patrols of the GDR border guards faced the wall of the West Berlin guards. Routine daily patrols made them no strangers to each other. Sixteen years after Germany's surrender, the victors of World War II still had not signed a peace treaty with Germany. This showed that the new western borders of the Soviet Union, with Poland and Czechoslovakia, had not yet been confirmed. The Federal Republic of Germany in the west became part of the Atlantic Alliance, a member of NATO. The German Democratic Republic in the east joined the socialist camp and joined the Warsaw Pact. This situation was even more unfavorable for East Germany. During the war, the areas belonging to the GDR suffered more damage than the areas belonging to the Federal Republic of Germany, and the economy of East Germany had lagged behind that of the West before 1939. Moreover, the German Democratic Republic bore a heavier burden of war reparations, so the standard of living in the GDR was much lower than in West Germany. Capitalists, landlords, and rich peasants were dissatisfied with the social changes in the GDR and emigrated to West Germany. To make matters worse, senior experts and skilled workers also left one after another. In some universities, one-third of the graduates went to the Federal Republic of Germany as soon as they graduated. West Berlin, located in East Germany, served as an outpost for the West to use, like a bone spur stuck in the throat of the Soviet Union, which was eager to remove it. On August 3, 1961, the Soviet government sent a note to the governments of the United States, Britain, and France. On August 7, Khrushchev gave a televised speech demanding that Western countries declare the number of troops entering and leaving their western borders, and call up reserves to bring the troops to full strength. On August 12, the Council of Ministers of the GDR decided to impose strict controls on the borders of the country, closing the border between the two Germanys and issuing special passes to those allowed to enter and leave the border between the two Germanys. As National Geographic's Howard Suchak recalled in 1970, "More than 100 million Berliners didn't know what was going to happen until they went to bed." But it was inevitable that this happened. The event that shocked the world happened in the early hours of Sunday, August 13, 1961. Half an hour after midnight on Aug. 12, sirens blared in the dark and deserted streets, and stout T-34 and T-54 tanks led trucks full of German troops straight to the 25-mile border between East and West Berlin. Helmeted East Berlin police officers took trucks to stand guard on the main thoroughfare. Soldiers unloaded wooden horses, barbed wire, concrete piles, stones, pickaxes and shovels from the vehicles. Four hours later, by sunrise, the foundation of a wall had been formed. Four days later, the wall was fully built, and the Germans who remained in East Berlin were imprisoned from then until 1989. At 2:30 a.m. on August 13, 1961, the GDR government closed the border between East and West Berlin and began construction of a long wall separating the city. Three days later, the wall was fully reinforced. The 165-kilometer-long wall that cut off Berlin was the product of the escalating Cold War between the East and West camps. The Berlin Wall stood for 28 years. In the early morning of August 13, 1961, at the moment when the barbed wire Berlin Wall was about to close, an East German soldier who participated in the wall operation suddenly jumped over the barbed wire and defected to the West German side. Gorbachev, the last leader of the former Soviet Union. The background is the Berlin Wall. A 19-year-old young man was shot dead on the spot by GDR soldiers when he tried to climb the Berlin Wall and flee to West Berlin. The passage between East and West Berlin was blocked overnight on August 13, 1961. The real concrete wall was built three days later. It is really sad that the big wall is separated. As the Cold War was heating up, at a checkpoint on the border between East and West Berlin, US and Soviet tanks were only 100 meters apart and "glaring", with great momentum. When US President Kennedy visited West Berlin in 1963, he stood on a high platform opposite the Brandenburg Gate and looked out at East Berlin and the newly built Berlin Wall. Guards and police guarding the border laid the barbed wire and precast concrete blocks that formed the foundation of the wall. The East Germans risked their lives and tried to go to the West. The Berlin Wall was reinforced. A 100-meter-wide no-man's land was created on both sides, setting up warning signs, which became a witness to the Cold War between East and West.