In the early hours of August 13, 1961, Berliners awoke to find their city changing before their eyes. Soldiers from East Germany’s army and police fanned out across streets that had been open the day before. They carried coils of barbed wire, concrete posts, and shovels. In the dark and stillness of the night, they began to seal off the crossings between East and West. The world would come to know it as Barbed Wire Sunday.
