Tag: Walter Ulbricht

August 10, 2011: The Berlin Wall marks its 50th anniversary this week.

The construction workers of our capital are for the most part busy building apartment houses, and their working capacities are fully employed to that end. Nobody intends to put up a wall. – Walter Ulbricht in a press conference, 15 June 1961

Khrushchev is losing East Germany. He cannot let that happen. If East Germany goes, so will Poland and all of Eastern Europe. He will have to do something to stop the flow of refugees. Perhaps a wall. And we won’t be able to prevent it. – President John F. Kennedy to Deputy National Security Advisor Walt Rostow, August 1961

Berlin Wall Detail # 5 from The Wall, Niederkirchner Strasse, Berlin 2010

The two image details shown here are taken from my photograph entitled The Wall, Niederkirchner Strasse. The original photograph is a construction, not a stitch. It measures eight feet long and is currently on view in my exhibition CITIES OF STONE – PEOPLE OF DUST at the Red Wall Gallery in Ottawa until September 2nd.

This photograph is intended to simulate a walk along the Berlin Wall today, 50 years after it first appeared. I plan to post two different details everyday this week, leading up to Saturday when I will post the entire image at 2 a.m. to coincide with the time that the Berlin Wall was born on August 13th, 1961.

Berlin Wall Detail # 6, from The Wall, Niederkirchner Strasse, Berlin 2010

© Leslie Hossack

August 8, 2011: The Berlin Wall marks its 50th anniversary later this week.

The booming economy in West Germany, which is visible to every citizen of the GDR, is the primary reason that in the last ten years around two million people have left our republic.  – Walter Ulbricht to Premier Nikita Krushchev, 18 January 1961

West Berlin is a bone in the throat of Soviet-American relations … If Adenauer wants to fight, West Berlin would be a good place to begin the conflict.  – Premier Nikita Krushchev to U.S. Ambassador Llewellyn Thompson, 9 March 1961

Berlin Wall Detail # 1, from The Wall, Niederkirchner Strasse, Berlin 2010

The two image details shown here are taken from my photograph entitled The Wall, Niederkirchner Strasse. The original photograph is a construction, not a stitch. It measures eight feet long and is currently on view in my exhibition CITIES OF STONE – PEOPLE OF DUST at the Red Wall Gallery in Ottawa until September 2nd.

This photograph is intended to simulate a walk along the Berlin Wall today, 50 years after it first appeared. I plan to post two different details everyday this week, leading up to Saturday when I will post the entire image at 2 a.m. to coincide with the time that the Berlin Wall was born on August 13th, 1961.

Berlin Wall Detail # 2, from The Wall, Niederkirchner Strasse, Berlin 2010

© Leslie Hossack