How to Split a City in Half (Berlin)

this video is sponsored by curiositystream when east germany built a wall around west berlin in 1961 they also severed the u-bond or subway lines that connected the two halves of berlin prior to the wall berliners could ride freely between the two halves but now the u-bond lines had to be disentangled or disconnected it was a process today's u1 and u3 lines had to be shortened as the lines ran mostly in west berlin except for the very last stop line u2 had to be disconnected and run as two separate lines u4 u7 and u9 only ran in west berlin and u5 at the time only ran in east berlin meaning no changes to those lines u6 and u8 started and ended in west berlin but crossed into east berlin each of the lines had several stops in east berlin those stations closed to passengers they became known as go stations as west berlin passengers could see them as they passed by but couldn't stop at them until after the berlin wall fell in 1989. west berlin was only allowed to run trains through east berlin territory because they paid the east germans a tidy sum each year to do so and throughout the wall period east germany threatened to cut off the connections multiple times the yubon is just one major infrastructure network that was cut off due to the cold war berlin for its entire history before 1948 shared power water sewer gas and transportation networks this is a story of what happens when the iron curtain cuts a city of three million people in two political ideology confronts the city planning realities of keeping the lights on and the toilets flushing let's get into this fascinating story after the bike bell i wanted to mention that this video is part of a collaboration among educational youtubers we're all publishing videos on the cold war today on the exact same day i put a link to the playlist in the description so go check it out all right now back to berlin the story of berlin split in two begins in february 1945 at the yalta conference when the allies great britain the soviet union and the united states agreed to a plan to subdivide germany and berlin into four sectors the french were eventually included and would administer one of those zones those sectors took effect after the war later that year here's what they looked like in berlin you can see that the soviet union has the largest part of berlin at about 45 of the land area and home to 1.1 million residents the other three sectors had about 2 million residents in total berlin was also wholly surrounded by the soviet sector of germany this imbalance wasn't concerning at the time because the allied control of berlin and germany was meant to be just temporary and despite these separate administrations the city itself felt whole people could move freely from one sector to the next and all of the utilities crossed boundaries just fine the battle of berlin had decimated the city but much of the city's essential infrastructure its water sewer electricity gas and u-bonds survived unscathed and by the end of the year most of it was back to full strength in fact by 1946 water pumps were supplying more water to the city than before the war it was truly an amazing feat of resilience from berliners but it took until about 1947 for the electrical infrastructure to get back to full-ish strength mostly due to the time associated with repairing and building power plants and a coal shortage 1948 was the year when everything changed for berlin and where the split really happens from 1945 to 1948 relationships between the western allies and the soviet union began to sour as the boundaries of the cold war began to take shape first great britain the us and france agreed to merge their berlin sectors into a tri-zone at around the same time the western allies introduced a new currency the deutsche mark for the western sectors of germany and berlin the soviet union opposed both of these moves it even introduced a new competing currency and circulated it in berlin but the deutsche mark was immediately preferred by berliners in all four sectors in retaliation the soviet union instituted the berlin blockade and would only lift the blockade if the deutsche mark was removed from berlin the soviet military halted all surface and water traffic into western berlin and the western allies didn't have the strength at the moment to oppose it people were still allowed to move between the two parts of the city but now the western half was dangerously short of supplies west berlin had about 36 days worth of food within its borders and no way of resupplying itself by land or sea so began the berlin airlift which provided 1500 tons of food and 3 500 tons of coal each day to the 2 million people within the western zone by air during the peak of the airlift 1500 flights per day kept the city supplied during this blockade water and wastewater systems were not cut off between the two halves of the city the soviets did cut off electricity to west berlin and that's why all that coal had to be flown in west berlin didn't have enough electricity to pump their wastewater to the east and much of it ended up untreated into local waterways west berlin retaliated by cutting off gas to the east and parts of east berlin experienced gas shortages the soviets ended the blockade in may 1949 without ending the presence of the deutsche mark and the relationship and connections between east and west berlin entered a more complicated phase for example both halves of the city began cooperating again but now the same city had two different currencies it created accounting headaches for city services which needed to use the correct currency for projects on the correct side but the utility agencies from both sides separated during the blockade did work together again this was all happening as germany was being formally split into two countries the federal republic of germany in the west and the german democratic republic in the east the blockade had exposed how reliant west berlin was on east berlin utilities western allies and local leaders wanted to make west berlin more self-sufficient in case there was another blockade but this wasn't going to be easy to do in 1950 east berlin was generating twice as much power as west berlin for half as many people clearly west berlin needed more electrical generation capacity and they became fully self-sufficient by 1955. that was some good timing because that was the year east germany disconnected all of the electrical lines connecting west berlin to east germany east germany also disconnected all the telephone lines bus and tram services and water pipes west berlin had also used the post block 80 years to improve their water capacity so by the time the pipes had been severed they were generating a surplus of water wastewater was harder to separate as it's a costly utility and stopping transfers means sewage ends up in the streets the west generated more sewage and had less capacity to treat it the east had more sewage farms and used the waste to fertilize crops they wanted the sewage from the west and the two sides kept up the connection and relationship throughout the cold war it was a mutually beneficial arrangement and nobody wanted to disrupt it that said west berlin did continue to add sewage treatment capacity as a hedge and as that happened east made sure every bit of its sewage flowed into its own plants and nothing was shipped to the west to maintain their agricultural production at the same time west berlin's infrastructure is becoming more self-sufficient it also became a loophole for defectors in the east to exploit a hole in the iron curtain you could say the border between east and west germany was closed but people could still move freely between east and west berlin so if you were looking to leave the soviet block you could cross over into west berlin and catch a flight out this was a loophole that 3.5 million east germans took advantage of during this era and not all defectors got on a plane some just resettled in west berlin west berlin grew by 200 000 people during this period while east berlin's population declined by nearly that same amount worse still for east germany was that they were seeing a serious brain drain as highly skilled workers left for the west this was the impetus for the berlin wall which started as a mess of wire entanglements and fences on august 13 1961. more permanent fortifications were added as the years went on this put an end to the defector loophole and also cut off all daily trips between east and west berlin it's important to understand that the wall was very different than the blockade goods were allowed to travel to and from the city so no airlift was needed the wall tragically split families in two and separated people from their jobs west berlin and west germany's economy was stronger at the time so many people worked in west berlin for the higher wages and lived in east berlin for the lower cost of living obviously this was no longer possible with the wall now the wall went up so fast in the middle of the night that some people working the night shift in one part of the city couldn't return home to their homes in the other part of the city right away now east german authorities made some exceptions for crossing the border things like visiting cemeteries visiting an ill relative some holidays and other personal moments the berlin wall also basically extended to the transit system below ground like i mentioned in the intro two west berlin lines passed through east berlin and several stations became go stations but one station friedrich strassa remained open as a checkpoint where people could pass through the border if they had the proper permission in paperwork there was another transit network spanning the two halves of the city the s-bond a commuter rail system the s-bond station at friedrichstrasso was split in two and western passengers were allowed to use one half of the station to transfer onto the u-bond the esbond ring around berlin was cut much of the esbond was located in east berlin in contrast to the u-bond mostly located in west berlin east berliners continued to use it and expand lines during the cold war the entire s-bond system was operated by east germany even the parts of it in west berlin and many west berliners boycotted it so they wouldn't support their political opponents as for all the other utilities the wall didn't mean any big changes west berlin was largely self-sufficient by this point and other agreements like wastewater treatment remained in effect during the wall era the berlin wall encircled all of west berlin not just the part where west berlin bordered east berlin and like i said the wall was primarily for keeping defectors out of west berlin but it also reinforced west berlin's isolation east berlin had an immediate connection to the surrounding countryside to keep the city fed and help integrate it into the national economy west berlin was an island and that had a massive impact on it particularly in the late 40s and early 50s employment peaked at 31.2 percent and factories were operating at only 40 capacity it was no longer a national capital either as the west german capital moved to bonn it relied on massive amounts of aid to stimulate its economy and by the time the berlin wall was erected the city was back to full employment but then the berlin wall scared away people and businesses and west berlin's economy suffered again the west german government propped up the city's municipal finances and by the time the wall came down it was providing 50 percent of its municipal tax revenues isolation created another kind of problem power plants had to be located close to where people lived and worked as they couldn't put them beyond the boundaries of the city by the 1970s power consumption was increasing and so too was the smoke coming out of smoke stacks residents began to protest the construction of more coal power plants citing air quality concerns these protests killed several proposals and subsequent plants used the latest technologies and became the least polluting in west germany the berlin wall fell on november 9 1989 ending west berlin's relative isolation berliners from both sides of the wall celebrated as the city was finally reunited if you'd like to hear more about how berlin was stitched back together after the fall of the berlin wall i made a short bonus video about it and posted it on nebula the video discusses the reunification process and how it wasn't always easy to reconnect utilities and infrastructure that had been separate for 40 years that content actually replaces this ad because there aren't ads on nebula we're calling this bonus content nebula plus you'll see a lot of it over there and not just for me loads of other creators are doing the same thing nebula is great and it's made even better thanks to our partnership with curiosity stream curiosity stream is the source for high quality engaging documentaries they have a great one called berlin wall revisited that has some awesome never-before-seen footage of the everyday lives of berliners during the wall era it's a perfect companion to this video we have a deal where if you sign up for curiosity stream using the link below you'll get nebula for free that's not a free trial but free as long as you're a curiosity stream member and they're running a special deal where you can get the entire year for 26 off that's less than 15 a year for both curiosity stream and nebula signing up is a great way of supporting this channel as well as the dozens of other creators working to make nebula a success best of all it's just a really good deal too so go sign up using the link in the description and get 26 percent off you

Channel: City Beautiful

Views: 1,890,998

Keywords: city planning, town planning, urban planning, urban design

Id: P6qg0sKJJKM

Length: 12min 38sec (758 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 23 2021