The first two versions of it was first constructed with barbed-wired fence with concrete posts, but just a few days after the first fence was made; it was later made with a permanent concrete structure and topped with barbed wire in 1965. A concrete wall, supported by steel girders, later replaced the Berlin Wall. The fourth version was that was constructed from 1975 to 1980, it was constructed of concrete slabs reaching nearly 12 feet high and 4 feet wide, plus it had a smooth pipe running across the top to hinder people from scaling the …show more content…
The wall on East German side was called “Death Strip” and had a gauntlet of soft sand (to show footprints), floodlights, vicious dogs, trip-wire machine guns and patrolling soldiers with orders to shoot escapees on sight. At least 171 people were killed trying to find away to get over, under or around the Berlin Wall. In 1961 until the wall came down in 1989, more than 5,000 East Germans (including some 600 border guards) managed to cross the border by jumping out of windows adjacent to the wall, climbing over the barbed wire, flying in hot air balloons, crawling through the sewers and driving through unfortified parts of the wall at high speeds were able to escape from East