Built in 1961 to halt the exodus of citizens fleeing to the West, the Berlin Wall split the city of Berlin in two, isolating West Berlin in the middle of the GDR. A powerful symbol of the partition of Germany up until 1989, and of the predicament of the German people, it was a grim reminder of the Cold War, of state repression and of the death that lay in store for any East German who tried to escape across it.